The RBC Convention Centre super site opened this morning. Thousands of appointments have been booked for Jan. 4 to 10 with second-dose appointments occurring Jan. 25 to 31. To date, about 4,500 first-dose appointments have been made and approximately 1,600 remain available. The phone line is open to eligible health-care workers from 6am to 8pm daily until all spaces are filled. Individuals should not call to make an appointment unless they meet the eligibility criteria.

No changes to the eligibility criteria for immunization have been made today. To be immunized, individuals must be a health-care worker whose work involves direct contact with patients and who meet at least one of the following criteria:

  • work in critical care units;
  • work in long-term care facilities, born on or before Dec. 31, 1975 (changed from 1974);
  • work in acute care facilities, born on or before Dec. 31, 1975 (changed from 1974); or
  • assigned to a COVID-19 immunization clinic or testing site.

People with appointments are reminded to enter through the main doors on York Avenue at the RBC Convention Centre. Indoor parking will be free for clients who present their parking ticket for validation when they check in for their appointment. To limit crowding and keep an even flow of immunizations, people are asked not to show up any more than 15 minutes before their appointment time.

The super site currently has 11,700 doses of the Pfizer vaccine. Manitoba has also received its first shipment of the Moderna vaccine and will allocate 5,300 of its 7,300 doses to address immediate First Nation priorities, based on recommendations from experts in First Nations health and leaders from the Manitoba First Nations Pandemic Response Co-ordination Team and the Keewatinohk Inniniw Minoayawin Inc. The remaining 2,000 Moderna doses will be used to begin immunizing residents of personal care homes located across the province, beginning next week.

Manitoba will soon launch an online dashboard to provide statistics about the immunization program. More information about the vaccine campaign in Manitoba is available at manitoba.ca.