Walk-in appointments are now available for people aged 18-years and older on Vancouver Island who want their first-dose.
In a statement released Friday morning, Island Health said that a limited number of walk-in appointments will be available at mass immunization clinics each day only available to people who want their first dose.
Island Health said that even with vaccine supply increasing, the availability of walk-in appointments will depend on the daily vaccine supply available at each clinic.
People in need of a second dose must book an appointment through the provincial Get Vaccinated booking system.
Youth aged between 12 and 17 can book an appointment for first dose immunization or accompany a sibling or adult to their scheduled appointment.
On Thursday, June 17th, BC health officials announced that they would be seeing reduced Pfizer doses in July due to the demand of Pfizer’s global vaccine supply.
But the delayed Moderna doses from earlier this month will come next week, according to health officials.
Though studies haven’t confirmed whether mixing and matching vaccine doses is more or less effective, BC health officials reaffirmed NACI’s recommendations on Thursday that if you have received an AstraZeneca first-dose, it is safe to mix with an mRNA and even encouraged.
NACI Update on mixing vaccines:
Study from Germany said immune system response w/ mRna and AstraZeneca is good and safe, but it's still unclear on the effectiveness of mixing/matching. #yyj #victoriabuzzes@victoriabuzzes
— Ryan Hook (@ryanhookwrites) June 17, 2021
As of Thursday, June 17th, 76.5% of all adults 18+ and 74.8% of those 12 and older have received their first dose.
To date, 4,231,871 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in BC; 768,008 of which are second doses.
With an estimated population of close to 900,000 thousand people, the Island Health region has vaccinated 697,892 people with at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
