Toronto to host mass vaccination clinic for school-aged children at Scotiabank Arena

TORONTO -

Toronto will host a mass vaccination clinic for school-aged children at Scotiabank Arena next month as it seeks to use the home of the Maple Leafs for a different type of shot than the ones that usually come off the stick of Auston Matthews.

The city has announced that it will make 2,000 appointments available for children aged five to 11 during a one-day clinic at the downtown arena scheduled for Dec. 12.

The clinic will run from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and will also include giveaways and music and entertainment throughout the day.

The announcement of the large-scale clinic comes on the heels of the vaccination of the younger age cohort getting underway last week.

Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kieran Moore says that more than 68,000 children aged five to 11 have already received their first dose, accounting for about 6.4 per cent of those who are newly eligible to get vaccinated.

“It is a brilliant initiation for this strategy and I hope that volume of individuals continues so they (school-aged children) are best protected going into the holidays when we can anticipate seeing more cases,” he said during a briefing on Monday.

The Scotiabank Arena clinic is just part of a wider plan to get younger children vaccinated in Toronto. Toronto Public Health also has plans to host nearly 400 school-based clinics in the coming weeks and tens of thousands of appointments have been booked for the city’s five existing mass vaccination clinics.