By Laura Keil

Residents age 18+ in Valemount, McBride and area can call for their vaccine appointments starting today, April 2nd, after Northern Health pushed up the date for calling in.

Residents should call 1-866-481-2175 to book their appointment. Hours: 7 am to 7 pm PST, daily.

McBride appointments will be April 13 – 16, and April 27 – 29, 2021 at the Robson Valley Community Centre.

Valemount clinics are running April 20 – 23, 2021 (DATES UPDATED) and the location is the Valemount Community Hall.

Northern Health says appointments will take about 10 minutes, and you must wait for another 15 minutes before leaving the clinic.

Northern Health said the whole-community approach to vaccinating residents all at once is due to population size, remoteness, logistics, and/or accessibility, and this approach can be expanded to address outbreaks, clusters or high population incidence rates.

In B.C. the AstraZeneca COVISHIELD vaccine has been suspended for people under the age of 55. Northern Health has said it will be using Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for its age-based vaccine roll-out.