Hamilton schools with the highest and lowest COVID-19 vaccination rates
Published November 15, 2021 at 4:09 pm
The City of Hamilton website is now publishing school COVID-19 vaccination rates.
Public health says the decision is part of a “commitment to transparency and sharing relevant and timely data with the community.”
The school COVID-19 vaccination rates appear to correlate with community socioeconomic status. For example, of the five schools with the highest rate of fully vaccinated students (85-89 per cent), two are located in Ancaster, two are in Dundas, and the other is Hillfield Strathallan College, which is a private institution. Schools with the lowest rates of vaccinated students (18-31 per cent) were private religious institutions of the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic faith.
“Having access to school vaccination rates means we as a community are using every tool in our toolbox to keep kids in class and provides Hamilton’s COVID-19 vaccine program with important information for its Last Mile Strategy,” said Dr. Elizabeth Richardson, Medical Officer of Health in a media release.
“This strategy is focused on making sure neighbourhoods with lower coverage rates have access to information tailored to their needs and COVID-19 vaccines accessible at convenient locations and times.”
Only students who are eligible (born in 2009 or earlier) were counted in the database. Numbers are current as of Oct. 25, 2021, and will be updated near the end of November.
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The City’s public health department says the vaccination rates were confirmed by linking COVID-19 vaccine records from the Province’s COVAX database and local school boards’ enrolment lists through the Panorama database. In total, the analysis included 37,971 COVID-19 vaccine-eligible students at 169 local schools. It does not differentiate between those eligible students enrolled in in-person learning or those learning remotely.
To date, 82.4 per cent of the eligible Hamilton population has received both vaccine doses.
You can view the data on the City’s COVID-19 Vaccination Distribution dashboard here: hamilton.ca/coronavirus/covid-19-vaccine-distribution.
