Approximately 133,000 appointments will be up for grabs for Toronto residents born in 1941 or earlier on the city’s website.
Appointments begin on Mar. 17 through to Apr. 11 at three mass immunization clinics across the city: The Metro Toronto Convention Center, Scarborough Town Centre and the Toronto Congress Centre.
Mayor John Tory spoke with CP24 and didn’t provide a specific time when the booking site will go live but said it will be “later this morning.”
“It’s going to happen this morning. There will be a notification put out by social media and in order to avoid an undue loading happening at one particular moment we’re not announcing a couple hours ahead exactly what time it’s going to happen,” he said.
Tory said the city will announce when the booking portal is live on all of its social media accounts.
Once residents complete their booking online, users will get a confirmation number and a QR code for their appointments.
Tory said the city’s booking portal has been tested to run efficiently but bumps along the road could still occur.
“For example, in the early going when you open something like this which will happen later this morning there’s a big rush to go on there and you have to make sure that that kind of loading doesn’t cause undue problems,” he said.
“But look, I have to be an optimist about this. I think the thing has been tested, it’s been well put together and hopefully it will work well for people, that’s the idea.”
Toronto’s booking platform kicks off three days ahead of Monday’s launch date for a provincewide portal to book vaccination appointments.
When the provincewide booking site goes live, people will be able to book appointments by phone and a call centre will also open up for extra support.
Toronto plans to eventually run six more mass immunization sites across the city as vaccine supply increases, along with hundreds of smaller vaccination clinics.
Meanwhile, approximately 25 smaller vaccination clinics will continue to operate today at a number of hospitals and community health-care centres in Toronto for priority groups identified by the province’s COVID-19 vaccination framework. Eligible people include seniors living in congregate settings, health-care workers, Indigenous adults and residents aged 80 and older.