Supply shortage forces some clinics to close,

Toronto has ‘never been anywhere close to full capacity,’ councillor says

A vaccine shortage is to blame for the fact that local clinics in some COVID-19 hot spots in the city have had to close, Toronto city officials said Wednesday.

In fact, twice as many Toronto residents could be vaccinated at the city’s nine mass vaccination clinics if there were more supply from the province, Chief Matthew Pegg said at Wednesday’s COVID-19 update from city hall.

Currently, the city is administering 56,322 doses of vaccine each week across the network of nine city-operated mass vaccination clinics.

Pegg said that if vaccine availability increases in the future, as the province has said it will, the city could vaccinate as many as 122,000 people a week.

Responding to accusations that Toronto Public Health is stockpiling vaccines, Pegg said that in fact, any unallocated doses of the Pfizer vaccine that are not used in city-operated clinics as a result of missed or cancelled appointments are provided directly to Toronto hospital and health-care partners running clinics.

“In summary, we do not stockpile vaccine,” said Pegg, who is head of the city’s emergency operations and the city’s vaccination task force.

The city said Wednesday that vaccines allocated to hospital partners are shipped directly to hospitals by the province, and that any changes or delays to the shipments are the result of issues in the Moderna supply chain. No shipment was received this week, for example.

A shipment of Moderna vaccine, originally scheduled to arrive on Monday, is now expected to arrive on April 29, according to the city.

“We’ve never been anywhere close to full capacity,” said Coun. Joe Cressy (Ward 10 Spadina—Fort York), who chairs the city’s Board of Health.

“Since Day One, across the entire city, we’ve never had enough supply.”

Mayor John Tory said he and other mayors and chairs of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area have appealed to the province to send more supply to the region, which is a hot spot for COVID-19, driven by the more contagious B.1.1.7 variant, which first emerged in the U.K.

“They are definitely listening and understand that we need more vaccine supply,” Tory told the Star.

“I have had good, constructive discussions with Premier (Doug) Ford about this and I’m confident that when there is additional supply available, he will work with us to make sure more doses are allocated so that we can get more people vaccinated in Toronto hot spots.”

It’s a move Cressy supports.Another 1,332 cases were reported in Toronto on Wednesday, and that figure could rise to 2,500 a day if current trends continue, Dr. Eileen de Villa, the city’s medical officer of health, warned Monday.

Meanwhile, an emergency room physician at Scarborough Health Network says supplying vaccine to the city’s nine mass immunization clinics has forced the closure of two local clinics, which had been operating longer, and smoothly.

The last of the city’s nine mass vaccination clinics opened Monday. On Wednesday, the Scarborough network announced it was closing its Centennial College and Centenary hospital clinics.

Scarborough emergency room physician Dr. Lisa Salamon said at least 10,000 appointments will have to be cancelled between Wednesday and Sunday as a result.

Ontario keeps some doses in storage — about 1.2 million as of Wednesday morning — or about 27 per cent of what it has received thus far.

The stored doses are meant to provide a buffer in case of supply issues.