When Ontario rolls out its fall vaccination campaign at pharmacies, doctor’s offices and clinics across the province in the coming weeks, it will be bucking a trend.

At a time when both Alberta and Quebec have stopped funding COVID vaccines for the general public, limiting them to higher risk populations, and access to COVID vaccines is becoming limited in the United States, Ontario is moving in another direction.

The fall vaccination campaign, beginning in October, includes free access to an updated COVID-19 vaccine for the general public as well as expanded access to a vaccine to prevent RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) for older adults, and the flu vaccine.

In addition, Ontario has recently added a new preventive antibody RSV vaccine for infants soon after birth or before the RSV season. In the program’s first year, more than 70 per cent of eligible infants received the treatment and there are early signs that it has reduced severe outcomes and hospitalizations.