City of Ottawa requesting Vanier pharmacies be added to Ontario COVID-19 vaccine list

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson is looking to address a gap in the city's COVID-19 vaccination coverage by getting AstraZeneca shots into additional pharmacies, including ones in Vanier.

Late last week, the Government of Ontario released a list of hundreds of pharmacies which would be allowed to administer AstraZeneca vaccines — more than 30 of which were named in Ottawa — but the mayor says, due to Ottawa's size, there are still gaps.

He's written to Ontario's COVID-19 vaccine task force lead, Dr. Homer Tien, asking for more local pharmacies to be included in the province's vaccine distribution plan.

MPP for Ottawa-Vanier Lucille Collard also wrote a letter to Ontario's Minister of Health Christine Elliott, requesting that the community of Vanier/Overbrook be added to the province's list of hot spot communities, specifically adding postal codes K1K and K1L to the Appendix: Hot Spot Communities Postal Codes.

“Over the last five months, The Vanier/Overbrook community has seen one of the highest totals of individuals with COVID-19 in Ottawa,” writes the MPP, Friday, April 9. “A lack of priority vaccine accessibility means that this already vulnerable community will continue to see a rapid increase in cases. Located just outside Ottawa’s downtown core, Vanier and Overbrook has already been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Vanier is a high-density area with an elevated rate of low-income households, this is the community with the highest food bank usage in Canada.”

Ottawa Public Health has identified Vanier North and Vanier South in its list of the 21 highest-priority neighbourhoods for COVID-19 vaccines.