Waterloo Region student immunizations set to return but suspensions a ways off: Aoki

COVID-19.While many resources were thrown at fighting the virus, other items such as school vaccinations were left in the wings.

WRDSB to hold meeting Friday night to discuss provincial COVID-19 changes for schools David Aoki, Waterloo Public Health’s director of infectious diseases, who is currently leading the region’s COVID vaccination effort, says that thousands of kids need to get their other childhood vaccinations up-to-date.“We’re still doing that digging into how many shots were missed,” he told reporters on Friday, although he was able to provide an estimate for the Grade 7 shots he referred to as school program.“Because of the two years of school that we haven’t offered in-school vaccines, we’ve probably missed about 15,000 to 20,000 students that haven’t had their Grade 7 shot.”Normally, Waterloo Public Health would be providing clinics to get that age group their hepatitis B, meningitis and human papillomavirus vaccines.“We obviously haven’t been able to run those clinics since March of 2020, and actually even a little bit before if you remember some of the rotating teacher strikes.

We had our clinics canceled going back to December of 2019.”In addition, Aoki says that they have not been conducting their normal reviews which would let parents or guardians know what, if any, shots their children were missing.After the parents were alerted to the missing shots, they would eventually be warned of potential suspensions if their kid’s shots were not up to date.“In March, every year we provide enforcement which can include suspension,” he said. “We have curtailed those services since 2019 and 2020.