Health Unit to target 25-40 year old for vaccination

Jeff Green | Jun 30, 2021

Among the good news about vaccination rates in Kingston Frontenac Lennox and Addington (KFL&A), Public Health has identified a gap. As of Friday (June 24) the first dose vaccination rate of 25-40 year-old KFL&A residents is not only lower than older groups, it is lower than younger groups as well. About 56% of 25-25 year olds, and 64% of 35-40 year olds have had one dose.

(The vaccination dashboard on the KFLAPH website has not been updated since Friday, due to a cyber-attack and its aftermath)

Jenn Fagan of the KFLAPH communications department, said the agency attributes much of the gap to the way the vaccine campaign was rolled out by the Province of Ontario/

“We were addressing age groups in descending order until the 40+ population. Afterwards we jumped right down to 17,” she said. “They never got a real focus.

Soon after, booking opened up for most age groups for second doses.

“The demand form opening up has outpaced supply,” said Fagan, “we do have a planned strategy in place as our supply will increase significantly, including multiple pop-up clinics. We are still doing very well compared to other health regions among all age groups, and have to thank the community for the response.”

The situation in KFL&A is not substantially different than elsewhere in the province. The City of Toronto, which has bee prioritised for vaccine because of its high COVID rate, has also identified the 25-40 year-old cohort as a target group for first doses, now that the second dose rate for the older, at risk population, is much higher.

In KFL&A, 60% of 60-64 year olds, 40% od 70-74 year olds, 52% of 70-74 year olds, 57% of 75-79 year olds, and 61% of the over 80 population, had received a second dose as of late last week.

KFLAPH has also reported, via Twitter, that there were no new COVID cases between June 25 and 27, and one new case on June 28.