B.C. health officials say people between the age of 75 and 79 will be able to book their COVID-19 vaccine appointments ahead of schedule.

Dr. Penny Ballem, the executive lead of the B.C. immunization rollout team, says those appointments can be made starting this Saturday, beginning with people who are 79 years old, as well as Indigenous people 55 and older.

“We’ve already undertaken to expand the clinics that were set up for the over 80s and we will welcoming and going out to the public to tell people that we will be, in a segmented way, asking them to call in and make their appointments in the coming days,” she said.

Currently, every senior over the age of 80 (born in 1941 or before) and Indigenous people 65 and older (born in 1956 or before) will be able to book a vaccine appointment by tomorrow, before the criteria is expanded.

People who are 78, can begin making their appointments at noon on Monday, March 22. Those who are 77 can do so on March 23, those who are 76 can make appointments on March 25, and those who are 75 can do the same on March 27.

“We were going to start on those individuals in April. We’re now able to move some of them up into March in our clinics. Just looking at the math its about close to 350,000 that we expect will be coming in to get vaccinated in their 70s,” Ballem added.

The call-in schedule for people between the age of 70 and 74 will be announced in the coming days.

Ballem says health officials are able to move up the timeline because of an additional supply of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines over the next five weeks.

“So looking at the available supply of vaccine and taking away the plan that we already had underway, we have about just over a half million doses of Pfizer and Moderna that we now had to decide how are we going to use these?” she said.

“It allows us to move up those age cohorts. We’re just expediting the protection of our public.”

Health officials also expect to have an online booking system in place by April 6 for people between the age of 65 and 69. Until then, you can only call to make an appointment, but Dr. Ballem says the wait times have nearly disappeared.

As well, teachers, firefighters, and police officers are among many groups of people who will be able to get a COVID-19 vaccine earlier than first expected. Its because the province will use 340,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the next two months to vaccinate these frontline workers.

Health officials say everyone who is eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine will be able to get a first dose before July 1.

Projected COVID-19 vaccine timelines for B.C. residents.

Phase 3

People aged 79 to 60, in five-year increments:

• 79 to 75 (dose 1 (D1) April)
• 74 to 70 (D1 April)
• 69 to 65 (D1 April)
• 64 to 60 (D1 April/May)
• People aged 69 to 16 who are clinically extremely vulnerable (D1 March/April)
  For a list of who is considered extremely vulnerable: go here

Phase 4

People aged 59 to 18, in five-year increments:

• 59 to 55 (D1 May)
• 54 to 50 (D1 May)
• 49 to 45 (D1 May)
• 44 to 40 (D1 May/June)
• 39 to 35 (D1 May/June)
• 34 to 30 (D1 June)
• 29 to 25 (D1 June)
• 24 to 18 (D1 June)