Media Release
Hamilton’s COVID-19 vaccination program update on second dose intervals for “high-risk” healthcare workers
HAMILTON, ON – The Hamilton healthcare partners continue to make progress in vaccinating members of the community who fall into Phases 1 & 2 of the Province’s COVID-19 Vaccination Framework. We are pleased to announce that to date, we have administered approximately 252,370 doses of COVD-19 vaccine – with over 49.2% of Hamiltonians over the age of 18 receiving a vaccine to date.
In accordance with Provincial direction, healthcare workers who have been identified in the "high-risk" category qualify to have their second doses moved to earlier than 16 weeks.
Those individuals who qualify for a shortened second dose will receive a notification via text message and/or email with a new appointment date by the end of day Thursday, May 20, 2021. Those individuals who do not receive a notification by end of day on Thursday, May 20, 2021 can call the Hamilton Public Health Services COVID-19 Hotline at 905-974-9848, option 7, then option 1 starting Friday, May 21st beginning at 8am to schedule an appointment for a shortened second dose.
We highly encourage that appointments are attended on the dates/times provided. Any individuals who wish to adjust the new appointment date/time provided to a later date can do so by calling the COVID-19 Hotline at 905-974-9848, option 7, then option 1.
High-risk healthcare workers eligible for shortened second-dose intervals
- All hospital and acute care staff in frontline roles with COVID-19 patients and/or with a high-risk of exposure to COVID-19, including nurses and personal support workers and those performing aerosol-generating procedures:
- Critical Care Units
- Emergency Departments and Urgent Care Departments
- COVID-19 Medical Units
- Code Blue Teams, rapid response teams
- General internal medicine and other specialists involved in the direct care of COVID-19 positive patients
- All patient-facing healthcare workers involved in the COVID-19 response:
- COVID-19 Specimen Collection Centres (e.g., Assessment centres, community COVID-19 testing locations)
- Teams supporting outbreak response (e.g., IPAC teams supporting outbreak management, inspectors in the patient environment, redeployed healthcare workers supporting outbreaks or staffing crisis in congregate living settings)
- COVID-19 vaccine clinics and mobile immunization teams
- Mobile Testing Teams
- COVID-19 Isolation Centres
- COVID-19 Laboratory Services
- Current members of Ontario’s Emergency Medical Assistance Team (EMAT) who may be deployed at any time to support an emergency response
- Medical First Responders
- ORNGE
- Paramedics
- Firefighters providing medical first response as part of their regular duties
- Police and special constables providing medical first response as part of their regular duties
- Community healthcare workers serving specialized populations including:
- Needle exchange/syringe programs and supervised consumption and treatment services
- Indigenous healthcare service providers including but not limited to:
- Aboriginal Health Access Centres, Indigenous Community Health Centres,
- Indigenous Interprofessional Primary Care Teams, and Indigenous Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinics
- Long-term care home and retirement-home healthcare workers, including nurses and personal support workers and Essential Caregivers
- Individuals working in Community Health Centres serving disproportionally affected communities and/or communities experiencing highest burden of health, social and economic impacts from COVID-19
- Critical healthcare workers in remote and hard to access communities, e.g., sole practitioner
- Home and community care healthcare workers, including nurses and personal support workers caring for recipients of chronic homecare and seniors in congregate living facilities or providing hands-on care to COVID-19 patients in the community
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