N.B. opens COVID-19 vaccine appointments for young children
CBC
New Brunswick parents can now book an appointment for their children between the ages of six months and five years to receive their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Vaccination clinics will begin next week, the province announced Tuesday.
Health Canada authorized Moderna's Spikevax vaccine for children in this age group on July 14.
Some provinces started offering shots last week.
Appointments for children aged two or older may be scheduled through a participating pharmacy or through a regional health authority's online booking system, according to the Department of Health.
Appointments for children under two must be scheduled through a regional health authority's online booking system, it said.
The government's COVID-19 vaccines website has been updated but still contains incorrect information.
On Monday, CBC News reported the website stated: "Currently, the vaccines approved in Canada are not approved for those under the age of 5," even though Spikevax had been authorized 11 days earlier.
As of Tuesday evening, the site now suggests only infants are eligible to be vaccinated.
"Currently, the vaccines approved in Canada are not approved for those aged 6 months and over," it states.
Sackville mother Rachelle Pascoe-Deslaurier has described having outdated, inaccurate information on the government's website as unacceptable, noting the site is "supposed to be their number one point of contact for people."
The province is anticipating an uptake of about 30 per cent throughout the summer, Dr. Yves Léger, the acting chief medical officer of health this week, told CBC News.
"We're hopefully going to be able to get more than that as well. But that's sort of our rolling number for now," for planning purposes, he said.
"Certainly, we always want to encourage every New Brunswicker that's eligible for their vaccine to get it. And certainly we feel that it is important for people who want to, you know, protect themselves from COVID and especially from some of the more severe outcomes related to the infection."
