High-Risk Health Care Workers Eligible to Receive a Second Dose of the COVID-19 Vaccine at a Shortened Interval

May 10, 2021

Health

TORONTO — The Ontario government is adding high-risk health care workers to the list of those eligible to receive their second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine earlier than the extended four-month interval.

Eligibility for booking will begin by the end of the week of May 10, 2021 and booking details will be provided in the coming days.

High-risk health care workers who will be eligible for the shortened second-dose interval are:

  • All hospital and acute care staff in frontline roles with COVID-19 patients and/or with a high-risk of exposure to COVID-19, including nurses and personal support workers and those performing aerosol-generating procedures:
    • Critical Care Units
    • Emergency Departments and Urgent Care Departments
    • COVID-19 Medical Units
    • Code Blue Teams, rapid response teams
    • General internal medicine and other specialists involved in the direct care of COVID-19 positive patients
  • All patient-facing health care workers involved in the COVID-19 response:
    • COVID-19 Specimen Collection Centers (e.g., Assessment centers, community COVID-19 testing locations)
    • Teams supporting outbreak response (e.g., IPAC teams supporting outbreak management, inspectors in the patient environment, redeployed health care workers supporting outbreaks or staffing crisis in congregate living settings)
    • COVID-19 vaccine clinics and mobile immunization teams
    • Mobile Testing Teams
    • COVID-19 Isolation Centers
    • COVID-19 Laboratory Services
    • Current members of Ontario’s Emergency Medical Assistance Team (EMAT) who may be deployed at any time to support an emergency response
  • Medical First Responders
    • ORNGE
    • Paramedics
    • Firefighters providing medical first response as part of their regular duties
    • Police and special constables providing medical first response as part of their regular duties
  • Community health care workers serving specialized populations including:
    • Needle exchange/syringe programs and supervised consumption and treatment services
    • Indigenous health care service providers including but not limited to:
      • Aboriginal Health Access Centers, Indigenous Community Health Centers,
      • Indigenous Interprofessional Primary Care Teams, and Indigenous Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinics
  • Long-term care home and retirement-home health care workers, including nurses and personal support workers and Essential Caregivers
  • Individuals working in Community Health Centers serving disproportionally affected communities and/or communities experiencing highest burden of health, social and economic impacts from COVID-19
  • Critical health care workers in remote and hard to access communities, e.g., sole practitioner
  • Home and community care health care workers, including nurses and personal support workers caring for recipients of chronic homecare and seniors in congregate living facilities or providing hands-on care to COVID-19 patients in the community

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