Thread by @Too_Much_Hoops

I don't get why people in Ontario aged 18-49 find it confusing to book their vaccine appt. Just go to covid19.ontariohealth.ca. Then, you may think clicking "age criteria for your Public Health Unit" would show you age criteria for your Public Health Unit, but you'd be wrong. 1/21

Instead, it brings up some sort of an FAQ with a URL that includes the phrase "vaccine-70-older" - ignore that, it's not relevant.

The first question on the page, "Who can schedule a vaccine appointment," contains two different links in it...2/21

One link is info about who should NOT get the vaccine, and one is a link to Ontario's 3-phase vaccination plan. If you follow the latter, it brings you to a page that gives a vague outline of Ontario's vaccine plan. It says Phase 2, which we're in now, is for ppl aged 60-79. 3/21

Now, you know that can't be right b/c people in their 50s are getting vaccines and Ford just said everyone 18+ can get it in hotspots. This page must be out of date. So, you back out of this page to the fake "age criteria" page that is actually an FAQ. 4/21

The 2nd section on this page is "How to book your vaccine." Perfect!

However, The first 2 links in this section take you back to the purple page we just left that told us vaccinations were only for ppl aged 60-79. Weird. Ok let's try the ontario.ca/bookvaccine link instead 5/21

First step is to put in my postal code, then I get a dropdown menu of who can book a test. Hmm, nothing for people in hotspots under the age of 50. It seems like maybe I'm not eligible for the vaccine after all? Let's back out of this page to the fake age criteria/FAQ again. 6/21

Now we scroll to the next section in the FAQ, and lo and behold a big blue button that says "Book vaccination online." Hallelujah.

We click it and...wait a second...it brings us right to the booking portal we just left that told us we were ineligible. Hmm, time to regroup. 7/21

Okay, we scroll through the rest of this FAQ and don't see anything to indicate where we can book a vaccine. We either give up or if we're lucky, think, "Since this FAQ was trying to funnel us to that purple page a bunch, let's go there and see if we missed something." 8/21

This time we scroll past the part that tells us vaccines are only for people aged 60-79, and we see a button to check with our local public health unit, or options to look at details of the government's list of who's eligible in Phase 2. Let's click the '+' and expand that. 9/21

Here, finally a mention of ppl aged 18-49 in hotspots. But apparently vaccines aren't available for everyone aged 18-49 in hotspots, instead they're only for "targeted high-risk settings"?? Sounds way more restricted than Ford promised, but let's check with our PHU anyway 10/21

So we follow the "find your public health unit" link (like the 10th link we've clicked by now), input our postal code, which apparently needs to be separated with 3 digits of the code in each box, which I have never seen on any other form, but a minor quibble. 11/21

This gives us a link to the Toronto Public Health homepage, where we have to click another link at the top to get to their COVID-19 info. 12/21

This brings us to the Toronto PHU main COVID page, where we instantly see what we're looking for. A link to Book a Vaccine. Imagine that. Right there, no scrolling. The provincial site could never. 13/21

So, we simply click that link and...hang on, this isn't the PHU booking platform, this is the provincial one. The one we were already linked to twice that told us we're not eligible. 14/21

So, we go back and scroll down a tiny bit, where we see it says the same thing as the provincial website - Only those aged 50+ are eligible to book appointments in hotspots. 15/21

Clicking the "City Immunization Clinics" link only confirms that we are not able to book a vaccination if we're under the age of 50. 16/21

Frustrated, we click the "currently eligible" link to see if we can get any information. Ford has been telling me all god damn week I can get a vaccination because I live in a hotspot. 17/21

Finally, some real information. Where can you access your vaccine?
"Ontario Health Teams and hospital mobile clinics and pop-ups to be communicated directly to the community."
That's it. That's literally all the info. 18/21

Want to see when a mobile clinic or pop-up is coming to your neighbourhood? Good luck. No idea how to do that. Want to book an appointment? Literally not possible. You might as well wait on the corner like you're waiting for the fucking ice cream truck to drive by. 18/21

I get that there are all kinds of logistical bumps in a vaccine rollout. Especially when the provincial government has terrible communication and is constantly flying by the seat of its pants. 19/21

That's why this debacle happened - Ford decided (without communicating w/ PHUs) to unexpectedly announce ppl 18+ in hotspots could get vaccinated "soon" because he needed some good news to cover the fact that 25,000+ Ontarians are getting sick every week and 120+ are dying. 20/20

So maybe if @fordnation wants people 18-49 to stop complaining that booking a vaccine is confusing, he could stop lying about the availability of appointments and make booking one:
A) possible; and
B) less confusing.

#COVID19Ontario #onpoli #COVID19on #FordfailedOntario
21/21