The province’s AstraZeneca primary care pilot is underway in Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph (WDG).

WDG has been chosen to participate in the pilot and it's being delivered as a partnership between WDG Public Health and participating local family health teams.

Danny Williamson, communication specialist for WDG Public Health, said the pilot will see local physicians vaccinate healthy individuals who are 60-64 years old.

“So, really, it’s [people] without significant underlying medical conditions and part of the reason that it’s great that the pilot is with people’s primary care physician, is your doctor and you are in a great position to make sure it’s right for you,” Williamson said.

Williamson stressed that people should not call their doctor, if they are eligible and their doctor is participating in the pilot, then they will get contacted to book a vaccine.

He said six family health teams throughout the region are participating in the pilot.

“We’ve said all along that one of the great successes of the region has been this sort of all hands-on deck approach, you know, we’ve heard [that] associations, individual physicians, the family health teams, everybody’s been ready to kind of play their part, so, it’s exciting now to have this venue for doctors to be vaccinating folks,” Williamson said.

Williamson said the goal is if the pilot is successful to be able to expand it to other doctors throughout the region.

He added that the first shipment of the AstraZeneca vaccine the region received was a bit more than 3,000 doses.

Participating family health teams include:

-Upper Grand Family Health Team

-Mount Forest Family Health Team

-Minto Mapleton Family Health Team

-Dufferin Area Family Health Team

-East Wellington Family Health Team

-Guelph Family Health Team

Danny Williamson, communication specialist for WDG Public Health: