Dear Colleagues,

As you know, we have entered a new and precarious phase of the pandemic. With COVID-19 cases due to the Omicron variant surging, Dr. Kieran Moore, Chief Medical Officer of Health (CMOH), is calling on those of us working in primary care to support an urgent effort to vaccinate three million Ontarians aged 50 and older with their third doses over the next 14 days. To be eligible, they must have received their second dose six months ago (168 days) or earlier. Practically, this will require administration of more than 200,000 vaccines each day across all venues combined – mass vaccination and pop-up clinics, pharmacies, and in our practices. 

With current projections, enough cases will result in severe illness to potentially overwhelm our hospitals. The priority is third-dose vaccination of eligible 50+ Ontarians, based on emerging evidence of the effectiveness of third-dose mRNA boosters against Omicron and to reduce the risk of severe illness and death. Vaccination of the unvaccinated and under-vaccinated – including children aged five to 11 – continues to be a priority, and booster eligibility will widen on January 4 to include Ontarians aged 18+. 

Family doctors are being asked to be a part of a concerted health system effort. Similar requests have been made by the CMOH to public health units, pharmacy, and hospitals, and all are looking at ways to help support and ramp up vaccination efforts. 

I know this request brings added strain to our profession at a time when we are already collectively exhausted and managing multiple crucial demands, including many that have arisen as part of the pandemic response. I also know, and am reinforcing to government, that family doctors have stepped up in vaccination efforts throughout the pandemic – including in educating our patients and vaccinating in office and at regional mass clinics

What you can do now

• Maintain essential care, including for acute, emergent, and new conditions. In these challenging times, you and your patient are in the best position to decide what is essential.
• Where possible, defer non-urgent clinical services for the next two weeks to enable you to participate in, and/or deploy staff to support vaccination efforts.
• Depending on your local needs and PHU work, support new or additional contributions to mass vaccination clinics or mobile vaccination pop-ups through your PHU/OHT/hospital. Please connect with your PHU for more information.
• Reach out to your booster-eligible patients by email or by phone, or add messaging to your website, to provide information about where/when they can get or book their vaccine, and to answer questions about eligibility or the vaccine itself. Thanks to Dr. Tara Kiran and Dr. Noah Ivers who recently shared a letter you can adapt and use for your practice.
• Take opportunities to vaccinate patients in your office when possible. Use your judgment when considering how to maximize opportunities for vaccination while managing vaccine wastage. If you are not already offering vaccination in office and want to start, reach out to your public health unit. You can access tools and resources to support vaccinating on the OCFP website.

We know you will have questions about this extraordinary initiative underway in these extraordinary times. The OCFP is working to ensure you have the information you need and that our shared efforts to vaccinate and protect more Ontarians are recognized consistently across the sector.

We are also highlighting to government the need to communicate to patients this priority change, so they too understand potential changes in routine care in the short term.

We also invite you to attend our COVID-19 Community of Practice with UofT DFCM, this Friday, Dec. 17 at 8 a.m., for answers to some of your questions about the current situation, including Omicron, government priorities and testing.

Thank you for all your efforts – I realize what this ask involves and how much you are already doing. Please feel free to reach out to me with your feedback.

Liz