Halton Region announced today that it will open booking for COVID-19 vaccination appointments to everyone in the region age 16 and older, including Oakville, by Wednesday, May 19, 2021.
The announcement today reflects when all residents, qualified only by age, will be able to schedule their booking appointment and is not reflective of the date they could actually receive their first dose of vaccine.
"Halton Region has updated its COVID-19 vaccination schedule for the month of May, including new anticipated eligibility dates for all age-based groups," they said today. "The updated schedule includes new anticipated eligibility dates for residents 50+, 40+, 30+ and 16+. The plan will continue to rollout in priority sequence based on age and risk in the Halton community."
A new schedule was updated today by the Region detailing when each new group could book their first dose appointment (an appointment for your second dose is given automatically when you book your first):
With groups of eligible people who can be vaccinated getting larger, current average wait times between booking the appointment and the actual vaccination date varies from 2-3 weeks. (As of this story publishing, the soonest available appointment anywhere in Halton was 13 days beyond the date of booking; most were 15-20 days.)
But this is still terrific news for hundreds of thousands of soon-to-be eligible people across all of Halton municipalities. Every person who is vaccinated brings us one step closer to the end of the pandemic.
Ontario's provincial government set a deadline last Thursday that they hoped all adults, without any other qualifying criteria, would be eligible to book an appointment for their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine before the end of May 2021. Because Halton has its own booking and management system, they have moved up that appointment availability to less than two weeks from today.
"Halton Region is pleased to offer appointments to more residents, based on expected supply," said Halton Regional Chair Gary Carr. Cautiously, he also said that "our ability to expand to more eligible groups remains dependent on ongoing and predictable supplies from both the Provincial and Federal governments."
"Opening appointments for more residents will reduce transmission, severe illness and death and get us closer to achieving community protection," said Dr. Hamidah Meghani, Halton Region Medical Officer of Health.
"I encourage everyone to get vaccinated when it’s their turn. The best vaccine for you is the first one you are offered and the more people we are able to vaccinate each and every day, the closer we can get to returning to normal."
Read the full announcement from Halton Region and learn more about this new schedule online here.
Halton Region Public Health is reminding all residents to continue to adhere to public health measures, regardless of vaccination status. This includes staying home as much possible, only going out for essential reasons and only gathering indoors or outdoors with their households.
