COVID-19 vaccines dominated the conversation as Lambton's medical officer of health took to the airwaves on CHOK (103.9 FM, 1070 AM) Tuesday morning.
Dr. Sudit Ranade took pandemic-related calls from listeners for 90 minutes.
Many callers asked the doctor when they can register to get their shots.
Dr. Ranade said they're still in phase one of their roll-out. Those diagnosed with high-risk conditions will be included in phase two.
"The provincial system is not really set up for eligibility for anything other than age," said Dr. Ranade. "My hope is that we can work with primary care providers and other providers to understand who has what conditions and then bring them into a process where either we're immunizing or maybe even your pharmacy or primary care provider is immunizing. So over time, as we get more vaccines and there's more places you can go for them, there will be more ways to include those people."
In response to some criticism, Dr. Ranade said vaccines in Lambton were available a little later than in other regions, causing a delayed start.
"We have vaccines right now that we're rolling out and at this moment we've done about 11,000 first doses," he said. "Which actually, when you think about the eligible population of Lambton County is probably around 100,000, and so that's 10 per cent of them. I think that that's pretty good for being so early in the game here and we're ramping up to be able to do more and more."
Dr. Ranade said 2,800 local residents aged 80-and-up registered through the provincial portal after it launched Monday morning.
Eligible residents can book online at www.ontario.ca/bookvaccine. Lambton Public Health is helping with the booking process through its local call centre or online at www.getthevaccine.ca.
Residents will be sent to one of three fixed clinics in Point Edward, Wyoming or Forest.
Today was the second time Dr. Ranade has taken questions live on CHOK. The entire program is available here.
-With files from Sue Storr
