The City of Toronto continues to work with Team Toronto to support convenient ways for all residents to receive essential protection against COVID-19 through vaccination. As part of this effort and to leverage vaccination opportunities, Toronto Public Health (TPH) is opening clinic operations at Woodbine Mall at 500 Rexdale Blvd. in Etobicoke, and will also relaunch student immunizations at this clinic location. The Woodbine Mall clinic will replace operations at The Hangar at 75 Carl Hall Rd., as TPH’s lease comes to an end. This transition will become effective on Tuesday, September 21.
COVID-19 vaccine clinic operations at The Hangar will conclude at the end of the business day on Saturday, September 18. Starting Tuesday, September 21, the City-operated clinic at Woodbine Mall will be open from Tuesday to Saturday, 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. for walk-in appointments for a first or second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
The transition is part of the Team Toronto Mobile Strategy’s data-driven approach to bring vaccines to residents in areas and settings that have low vaccination coverage, or who are at high risk of contracting COVID-19, or both. This location is strategically positioned providing access to COVID-19 and school immunization vaccination programs in North Etobicoke. This location is also close to several neighbourhoods whose COVID-19 vaccination rates are below the City-wide average including Kingsway Village-The Westway, Elms-Old Rexdale and Mount Olive-Silverstone-Jamestown.
The new Woodbine Mall clinic location joins the existing City-operated COVID-19 vaccine clinics at Cloverdale Mall, Metro Toronto Convention Centre and Scarborough Town Centre, which remain open and continue to offer COVID-19 vaccines.
In addition to the City-operated clinics, TPH and our Team Toronto healthcare partners have the capacity to host up to 200 mobile clinics each week. The mobile clinics focus on workplaces, faith groups, organizations and communities that experience barriers to vaccination and low vaccine uptake.
These efforts are being planned in consultation with our vaccination partners and are being guided by our vaccine coverage data, alongside input from provincial and local community partners about where there is greatest need to boost vaccine coverage.
Vaccination is a key public health measure to reduce community spread of COVID-19. As COVID-19 continues to circulate in Toronto, receiving two doses of the vaccine provides residents with optimal protection against the Delta variant. Getting vaccinated will help protect residents from severe illness and outcomes, and protect our young children, friends, families and other loved ones.
Vaccines continue to be one of the most important ways to improve health worldwide and prevent the spread of infectious diseases, and protect against some cancers. In Ontario, children require vaccines according to the province’s immunization schedule, starting at two months of age through the Immunization of School Pupil Act (ISPA). Under ISPA, elementary and secondary school students are required to be immunized against Human Papillomavirus (HPV), Meningitis and Hepatitis B, unless they have a valid medical, religious or philosophical exemption.
High immunization rates are important not only among students, but for everyone else in the community, including infants who are too young to receive the vaccine, pregnant women, and to protect people with weak immune systems including elderly and immunocompromised residents. When most people in a school setting are vaccinated, contagious diseases cannot spread as easily. This is known as herd immunity, a level of protection in a community that prevents diseases such as measles and mumps from circulating in Toronto. Schools with low immunization rates or clusters of unvaccinated students are more vulnerable to outbreaks of vaccine preventable diseases.
Students in high school who did not receive their vaccines in grades 7 or 8 can now also receive these routine vaccines. TPH will provide these vaccinations to eligible students this fall. Parents and students can now book an appointment to get their vaccines at City-run immunization sites here
Vaccines are also available from primary care providers. Parents are required to update their child’s immunization record or provide a valid exemption form to TPH.
More information on the City’s COVID-19 clinics can be seen here
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Media contact: Toronto Public Health Media Relations, tphmedia@toronto.ca