TORONTO -- Mayor John Tory says the city will be opening up 19,000 new COVID-19 vaccine appointments over the long weekend at six of the nine city-run mass immunization centres.
Tory said nearly 5,000 new appointments will be made available on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.
The new appointments will be offered at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, the Toronto Congress Centre, Scarborough Town Centre, Mitchell Field Arena, The Hangar, and Cloverdale Mall.
The 19,000 appointments will be added to the provincial booking system at 4 p.m. today.
Another 10,000 appointments will also be added at city-run clinics next week, Tory said.
On Tuesday, the province announced that everyone in Ontario who is over the age of 18 is now eligible to book their first dose and the city said on the first day of the expanded eligibility, more than 20,000 people booked appointments at Toronto’s mass vaccination sites.
“Given the increased number of people who are eligible, which we support, we are working to get everyone vaccinated within that expanded group. As you know, with the assistance of the province, we were able to open 120,000 new appointment yesterday in the coming days and weeks,” Tory said at a news conference at city hall on Wednesday.
“Thanks to additional vaccine supply, we will be ramping up our capacity at city-run clinics for a long weekend dose drive. This Victoria Day weekend, you can help make sure this is the last long weekend in lockdown by getting vaccinated if you haven’t already.”
More than 1.79 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine have now been administered in Toronto.
