Nineteen more pharmacies to distribute vaccine this week
The province has added 19 Niagara pharmacies to the 22 currently distributing COVID-19 vaccine.
Starting this week, pharmacies in St. Catharines, Niagara Falls, Pelham, Grimsby, Niagara-on-the-lake and Beamsville will begin distributing Astrazeneca vaccine, in addition to previously announced pharmacies that have collectively administered 5,651 doses of vaccine in the past seven days.
While adding pharmacies in Pelham to the list, the province also added seven more locations in Niagara Falls and five in St. Catharines.
After the province ramped up distribution last week, the 22 Niagara pharmacies that first received the vaccine administered 1,027 doses last Wednesday followed by 1,029 a day later. But the distribution of the vaccine dropped from there, down to 460 doses issued Sunday.
“We all got the 200 doses up front and then we were only able to get an additional 100 doses,” Niagara-on-the-lake pharmacist Sean Simpson said, adding the second shipment of doses arrived Friday.
Rather than race to schedule weekend appointments to administer the 100 doses, he said his pharmacy in Virgil chose to schedule appointments for Monday while vaccine distribution continued at his Old Town location. “I guess if we had more doses available prior to Friday, we would have considered vaccinating through the weekend,” said Simpson, a member of Niagara’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution task force.
Simpson said pharmacies were told they can order up to 300 more doses this week, as the 19 additional pharmacies begin receiving vaccine, too.
The local pharmacies are among more than 700 new locations added to the list of drugstores that will be administering vaccine to people aged 55 and older. More than 1,400 pharmacies across Ontario are distributing vaccine.
A provincial website is being updated to include the new participating pharmacies.