Starting this fall, COVID-19 vaccines will be made available at schools across the province.

Dr. Joss Reimer is head of Manitoba's Vaccine Implementation Task Force. She says focused immunization teams will attend schools, providing first and second doses, beginning in areas with lower immunization rates.

"Really, the uptake in youth parallels the uptake overall," explains Dr. Reimer. "So the parts of the province where we're seeing lower uptake either because people have concerns or questions about the vaccine or because they face a lot of barriers to health care, are the same ones that we've seen throughout this campaign."

She stresses this is not a requirement, as they have no intention of forcing youth to be immunized. Dr. Reimer says the program will be run in a similar way to the usual school-based immunization program. Consent forms will be sent to parents to review and sign ahead of time.

"We're really trying to facilitate convenient access to ensure that we can get as high uptake as possible and that we can remove as many barriers as possible," she says.

Dr. Reimer says her team welcomes any questions or concerns from parents who may be considering this for their child.

Meanwhile, the Manitoba government has introduced a new app that will allow people to request and access their Manitoba immunization card. The Manitoba Immunization Card app will allow people to access their digital card when not connected to Wi-Fi or cellular data services. As with the physical card, the app will only show the person's first and last names and a QR code. When scanned by the Manitoba Immunization Verifier app, the QR code will confirm that the person is fully vaccinated.

"Once you've had those two doses it's important I think to be able to prove that vaccination," says Dr. Jazz Atwal, Deputy Chief Provincial Public Health Officer for Manitoba.

Dr. Atwal says there are some venues in Manitoba that may only be entered by fully vaccinated individuals, such as concert halls, horse and auto racing, casinos and bingo halls, professional sports and outdoor performing arts events.

"The vaccine passport has allowed certain things to occur," says Dr. Atwal. "Other jurisdictions are doing similar things and even to a greater extent as well, based on risk in their province as well. So it's one of those tools that we have to help mitigate risk and how we utilize that tool will be based on risk as well."

As of Monday, 80.5 per cent of Manitobans have received one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, while 72.9 per cent have received two doses of the vaccine.