May 10, 2021

High-risk health care workers eligible to receive a second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at a shortened interval

The Ontario government is adding high-risk health care workers to the list of those eligible to receive their second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine earlier than the extended four-month interval.

Eligibility for booking will begin by the end of the week of May 10, 2021 and booking details will be provided in the coming days.

High-risk health care workers who will be eligible for the shortened second-dose interval are:

• 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 health care 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 health care 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 health care workers serving specialized populations including:
  - Needle exchange/syringe programs and supervised consumption and treatment services Indigenous health care 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 health care 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 health care workers in remote and hard to access communities, e.g., sole practitioner
• Home and community care health care 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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