‘Building the plane as we fly it’: Patience urged as Interior vaccination appointments, clinics ramp up

KAMLOOPS — The first day of phone lines opening up for COVID-19 vaccination appointments saw 2,456 bookings secured in the Interior Monday (Mar. 8).

While many residents were able to get their appointments set up, others were left frustrated as calls dropped off and technical glitches delayed the process. Health officials says they are aware it wasn’t smooth sailing, but they will ultimately make sure people have access to the COVID-19 vaccine.

Interior Health Medical Health Officer Dr. Carol Fenton says getting a vaccination booking system up and running for an entire province is a large undertaking, so it was bound to have some glitches. She notes her own grandmother still hasn’t been able to get booked.

“It’s a tremendous amount of work,” she says. “My motto lately has been, ‘We are building the plane as we fly it.’”

There was some frustration around B.C Monday as phone lines were flooded with immunization requests, but next week thousands of Interior residents will get their first doses of COVID-19 vaccine.

“We did book over 2,400 appointments yesterday, so it is working,” says Dr. Fenton, “We just need to be patient and persistent and wait for our turn.”

Only the Fraser Health Authority has an online booking system to complement the phone-in service. Eventually that option will be offered for the rest of B.C, but for now appointments will be made over the phone.

“We wanted to use the tools that we already had,” says Dr. Fenton, “This is an existing IH booking line that we had for lab appointments, so that we could make the vaccine accessible to these age groups before the provincial booking tool is available — which is anticipated later this month.”

There won’t be curling at McArthur Island, but the City of Kamloops is hurrying hard to get set up in time to host mass vaccination clinics at the sports centre starting March 15. Along with the re-purposed curling rink, the fieldhouse at the Tournament Capital Centre will be used to administer vaccines en masse starting March 22.

“Our numbers across the Interior and Kamloops specifically do appear to be levelling off,” notes Dr. Fenton, “So we’re still getting a steady rate of cases – we still have COVID activity, but it’s not increasing which is good news.”

Leading up to spring break, Dr. Fenton urges residents to take advantage of warmer weather, and avoid activities that stray outside current guidelines.

“Looking at our neighbours in the lower mainland, their numbers are starting to creep up and they’re having more variant cases and we need to be really careful to make sure that doesn’t happen here.”