January 6, 2021
Dear Patients of Spectrum,
We have been receiving many questions regarding the COVID-19 vaccine, eligibility and availability. As of today, however, the general public does not have access to the vaccine. Currently only long term care residents and employees along with health care providers working in COVID wards in the hospital are being offered the vaccine due to limited supply.
While we have no concrete timeline yet, is possible that high risk individuals in the community (age >90 then age >80 etc.) will start being offered the vaccine in February or March, although we have no direction yet as to how this roll out will occur. We are awaiting Public Health’s direction on this. We are not even certain if the vaccination will be distributed through Family Practice offices like the flu vaccine or if it will be more centralized, thus Spectrum Health is not keeping a waitlist for the vaccine. Once we have additional information on what the distribution plan is we will send out another email.
Please refer to these websites for the most updated information about the vaccine including Government of BC’s immunization strategy for further information:
Please see attached the statement put out by the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS regarding COVID vaccinations for individuals with HIV:
“In the meantime, we kindly ask that you refrain from calling the clinic with questions about the vaccine as we have no further information to provide. Our clinic phone lines continue to be very busy as well as in-clinic and telemedicine appointments and are working hard to ensure those needing to see nurses and/or their physicians can get through.”
Thank you for your ongoing patience and support in this difficult time.
– Spectrum Team |
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