The Middlesex-London Health Unit will make 6,900 new vaccination appointments available when the telephone and online booking systems open at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. The new appointments will be available to adults who are 80 years of age and older, Indigenous adults 55 years of age and older, and very high priority healthcare workers. Demand for the appointments has been high since the Health Unit announced it would begin vaccinating these groups starting this Saturday. Today’s announcement moves up the timeline when members of these groups can get the COVID-19 vaccine by two days, making appointments available as early as tomorrow and significantly increasing the number of opportunities they will have to do so. A number of these additional vaccine appointment times will be available exclusively to those booking by telephone.
Over the last two days, more than 5,300 appointments to receive the COVID-19 vaccine have been booked for adults 80 years of age and older. Most of these appointments were booked online; far fewer people have been able to book appointments over the telephone.
The booking window for vaccination appointments between Thursday, March 4th and Thursday March 18th will open tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m. While appointments will still be available to book online, the booking website will close once the web-based allocation has been filled. Telephone bookings will continue until all of the allotted appointments have been scheduled.
It is expected demand for vaccination appointments will be remain high tomorrow, and that it will likely be challenging to get through to book an appointment by phone. However, callers are encouraged to continue trying to get connected, even if they can’t get through right away.
“More than 5,300 appointments were booked in less than 26 hours, many people have been disappointed because they haven’t been able to get through on the phone,” says Dr. Chris Mackie, Medical Officer of Health with the Middlesex-London Health Unit. “We have reserved a number of appointments for telephone bookings tomorrow and I want to encourage people to keep trying to get through over the course of the day if you aren’t able to connect with one of our telephone agents right away.”
To book an appointment visit www.covidvaccinelm.ca or call 226-289-3560. Visit www.healthunit.com/covid-19-vaccine for the latest COVID-19 vaccine information.
Media Contacts:
Dan Flaherty, Communications Manager, Middlesex-London Health Unit, 519-617-0570 or
519-663-5317, extension 2469
Spokespeople:
Dr. Chris Mackie, Medical Officer of Health, Middlesex-London Health Unit