TORONTO — York Region Public Health will transform the parking lot of Canada’s Wonderland into a mass immunization drive-thru clinic on March 29.
The drive-thru vaccination clinic will be by appointment only and for residents in the region who are 70 years old and over and are currently eligible under the province’s priority framework.
“The real advantage is that there are many homebound individuals and people who feel more comfortable in their vehicles and they are able to access vaccination much more easily,” Dr. Karim Kurji, York Region’s medical officer of health, said.
The plan will use the closed amusement parks existing entry wickets with eight lanes of traffic directing people to vaccination stations. After being immunized, residents will be required to drive to a designated area where they will wait for 15 minutes.
“We will be able to see somewhere around 1,600 people per day,” said Kurji. “Ideally we would like to see four people in a vehicle so we can maximize efficiency.”
Health officials did a test drive last Thursday at the site with approximately 460 people.
“The biggest positive was there was many individuals, who otherwise not have access to mass immunization clinic, who felt very comfortable being in their own vehicles and being brought forward.”
Dr. Kurji also said discussions are ongoing with MacKenzie Health, which operates two hospitals in the region, about working together to transform the site into a “super clinic.”
York Region is also working on plans to operate two other drive-thru mass vaccination clinics at sports facilities in Whitchurch-Stoufville and King City.
Health officials will announce later in the week when eligible residents can start booking appointments for the drive-thru vaccination clinics.
York University develops simulation tool to help plan drive-thru clinics
As campaigns ramp up to vaccinate the general population, York University has developed a simulation tool to help public health agencies across Canada and the U.S. better plan mass immunization clinics.
The drive-thru simulation was developed by the Ali Asgary, faculty of liberal arts and professional studies associate professor, in collaboration with the Laboratory for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.
“These simulations are helping to develop these operations in a way that they are efficient in terms of number of staff … how many people can be vaccinated and the average time that people spend through the clinics,” Asgary told CTV News Toronto.
The simulation can be customized for a specific site.
“Vaccination is one of the biggest public health challenges of this decade,” Asgary said.
“The advantages of a drive-thru clinic are many, including a low risk for disease transmission for staff and public, a large number of people can be vaccinated, and it is useful for geographically scattered population.”
Asgary worked with officials in Renfrew County to plan three drive-thru clinics for front-line health-care workers this month.
The simulation allowed officials to predict how many people they could vaccinate in an hour.
“We started with 50 vehicles per hour at the first clinic and are now up to 84 an hour,” said Jeff Dodge, of the County of Renfrew Paramedic Service.
During the clinic, it took staff 45 seconds to register each vehicle, plus a minute to vaccinate, which was then followed by a 15-minute observation period. Officials say they vaccinate 265 people in a two-hour period.
“The data shows quiet conclusively you can get more people through a drive-thru clinic than you can in a walk-in and that becomes important as the numbers come up,” Dodge said.
