Children who are part of the Hospital for Sick Children family between the ages of 5 and 11 years of age are some of the first to get vaccinated for COVID-19 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, in Toronto on Nov. 23.Steve Russell/The Canadian Press
Ontario says 93,000 COVID-19 vaccine appointments were booked for kids between the ages of five and 11 as of Wednesday morning.
The figure covers the provincial booking system and doesn’t include other bookings made through local public health units, pharmacies and primary care offices offering the shots.
The province opened bookings for kids in that age group on Tuesday morning.
Ten children who are patients with SickKids hospital in Toronto became the first in the province to receive the pediatric Pfizer-BioNTech doses on Tuesday afternoon.
Kid-friendly clinics are scheduled to start in earnest on Thursday, though a few began Wednesday.
Southwestern Public Health advertised a “limited batch” of shots being offered at a Tillonsburg, Ont., clinic and a handful of clinics in Toronto were also administering the vaccines to young kids.
Ontario COVID-19 numbers
Ontario is reporting 591 new COVID-19 cases and seven more deaths from the virus on Wednesday.
Health Minister Christine Elliott says 307 of the new cases are in people who are not fully vaccinated and 47 people have unknown vaccination status.
There were 137 people in intensive care with COVID-related critical illness, including 84 patients on ventilators.
As of Tuesday, there were seven patients from Saskatchewan in Ontario intensive care units.
The province says 86 per cent of residents aged 12 and older have received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine and 89 per cent have at least one dose.
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