1 in 5 COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in Toronto has gone to people who don't live in the city

Toronto has administered tens of thousands of its scarce COVID-19 vaccines to people who live outside the city, a practice believed to be further delaying its relatively slow immunization campaign.

According to statistics from Toronto Public Health, the city has administered about 21per cent of its COVID-19 vaccines 66,134 out of 322,466 total doses to people who are not Toronto residents.

Conversely, only 18,052 Toronto residents have been vaccinated in other regions.

"Many health-care workers, emergency service workers, who live [elsewhere] in the GTA but work here are being vaccinated here," said Joe Cressy, chair of Toronto's Board of Health.

While Toronto's medical officer of health Dr. Eileen de Villa said high priority health-care workers who live outside Toronto are "rightfully" eligible to be vaccinated by the city, there are concerns about the city's additional burden compared to neighbouring regions.

Cressy argues that the provincial government, which determines how many doses go to each public health unit, never properly accounted for Toronto's need to vaccinate large numbers of non-residents.

The city has also noted that it has a higher proportion of people in high priority groups than other areas of the province, which has also complicated the launch of Toronto's mass immunization campaign.

The phenomenon is also playing out at Toronto pharmacies, some of which are offering the AstraZeneca vaccine to people aged 60 to 64, since recipients do not have to be residents of the city to make appointments.

Toronto falling behind neighbouring regions

The pace of vaccine rollouts varies widely in Ontario since each region is responsible for determining how and when to administer the doses it receives from the province.

In the Greater Toronto Area, for example, York Region started vaccinating people 80 and older more than two weeks before Toronto, which started that process on Wednesday.

Both York and Halton regions have now opened appointments to people 75 and older, in addition to some lower-risk workers such as nutritionists and naturopaths.

None of those populations are eligible yet in Toronto or Peel Region.

"Let me be very clear. If we had more supply, the amount of vaccines we can do in Peel Region would be tremendously more," Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown said this week.

Premier says some regions 'more efficient than others'

But during a news conference on Tuesday, Premier Doug Ford put the onus on regional health units for the varying rollout speeds.

"We have 34 public health units all kind of going at a different pace," Ford said. "Some are more efficient than others."

A spokesperson for Ontario's Ministry of Health later acknowledged that vaccine supply rates have played a role in the differing speed of immunization plans.

"The province aims to achieve a balanced and equitable distribution of vaccines to health units, but recognize that these rates may vary over time," the ministry said in a statement to CBCNews.

Ontario has not said exactly how many doses have gone to each region.

"As vaccine delivery and availability stabilizes, future allocations will be more in line with the population of each health unit, while taking into consideration additional priority populations," the statement continued.

Cressy said sending more vaccines to Toronto and other regions hardest-hit by the pandemic will be a necessary step as more supply becomes available.

"If the objective here is to both save lives and beat this pandemic, you need to distribute vaccine supply to those areas at highest risk and with highest transmission," he said.