Want to know your local high school's vaccination rate? There's a map for that in Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph
Sharing information part of goal to provide 'as much data as transparently as possible'
People who want to know the vaccination rate of students at a local high school can find that out through Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health.
The health unit has been posting first and second dose rates since July 22.
"Sharing local high school vaccination rates is consistent with [Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph] Public Health's goal of providing as much data as transparently as possible to residents of the region, as well as highlighting the excellent progress made by our entire region to protect students returning to school this fall," said a statement from Danny Williamson, a spokesperson for public health.
He added the health unit offering up that information should not reflect on other health units that are not offering it.
"What happens in our health region really shouldn't reflect positively or negatively on what's going on in other parts of the province because individual health units are making decisions reflective of their own data availability, capacity and the local COVID situation," he said.
Currently the list is only for high schools. The top school for vaccinations in the health unit is Centennial Collegiate Vocational Institute in Guelph where 71.6 per cent of students have both doses.
The lowest is Norwell District Secondary School in Palmerston where 42.9 per cent of students have both doses.
Public health says it used two systems to compile the data, the provincial system called COVax and the system the health unit uses to track other vaccinations called Panorama.
Rita Isley is the director of community health and chief nursing officer Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health. She says the younger age group is one they're focused on reaching right now. It was part of the reason the health unit held a pop-up vaccination clinic in Guelph's downtown dining district last weekend.
"We still have a large portion of our population who are eligible for the vaccine who haven't yet been vaccinated," Isley said before the clinic. "One of the populations that we're concerned about is our under 30 population."
In Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph, 82 per cent of people aged 12 and older have one dose of the vaccine and 72.9 per cent have both doses.
Guelph Mayor Cam Guthrie has tweeted he'd like to see the city become the most vaccinated in North America.
Officials with Region of Waterloo Public Health did not respond Thursday to an email asking whether a similar data set is expected to be shared through the local dashboard.
In Waterloo region 83.38 per cent of people aged 12 and older have one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine while 72.09 per cent have both doses.
