Alder Community Centre slowly adds more vaccination clinics

April 8, 2021 · 0 Comments

Written By Sam Odrowski

Vaccines are slowly making their way to Dufferin County residents.

The vaccine hub at Alder Community Centre (275 Alder St.) in Orangeville, is gradually ramping up inoculations, after running just one clinic per week for the majority of March.

For next week, Wellington–Dufferin–Guelph Public Health (WDGPH) has three clinics planned, and a minimum of two per week are scheduled for the remainder of April, averaging 500 people each.

“The other piece is that we are looking at mobile clinics in communities like Shelburne, so that we don’t have to have them drive down to the Alder clinic, if they have mobility issues or transportation issues,” said Rita Isley, director of community health.

A handful of residents have contacted the Citizen to complain about the available locations for their vaccine appointments under WDGPH. When booking the appointment, they would see the option to be vaccinated in Fergus or Guelph in the month of April but would have to wait until June for an appointment at Alder.

Isley told the Citizen this is an error with the website, as WDGPH only has appointments open to the public until the first week of May, as they don’t have information regarding how much vaccine they will have on hand that far in advance.

“We are trying our best to not have to cancel clinics, so we’re putting clinics up as we get confirmation of vaccine availability,” she explained.

In terms of the impact vaccines are having locally, Isley noted that the initial rollout for retirement and long-term care home residents as well as staff in February is providing protection.

“We had their second doses completed by the week of February 24, I believe, and what we are seeing now is that we have a few facilities that are in outbreak, but those outbreaks are occurring in the staff who either haven’t gotten vaccinated or what have you,” said Isley.

“We’re not seeing the residents being impacted by the virus as much as we would anticipate, especially with the variants in the community and its highly communicable nature.”

Going forward, Isley said Public Health anticipates that before the end of June, all of the region’s residents who want a vaccine will have their first dose by that time.

“I think it’s really important that if you’re eligible to receive the vaccine, to please pre-register, so that we get you into a clinic as soon as possible, and to also understand that the vaccine that you receive is irrelevant which type it is, unless you have an allergy associated with it,” she noted.

“Every vaccine will provide the level of protection that you need to stay out of the hospital, stay out of ICU, and hopefully to prevent the disease in its entirety.”