I just felt kind of cheated’: Ontarian’s COVID vaccine experience raises questions about rollout – Cambridge Today

The man said he assumed he was getting the new COVID vaccine, but received an older variation instead

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared on The Trillium, a new Village Media website devoted exclusively to covering provincial politics at Queen’s Park.

When Brad MacLeod visited a pharmacy in Ancaster last week to get a COVID-19 vaccination, he was quite pleased.

It was his sixth shot.

“I went in and I was all happy and it was so quick and easy,” said MacLeod, who lives nearby in Caledonia, Ont.

But that happiness turned to alarm the next morning when MacLeod checked his vaccine certificate and realized he had received the same bivalent COVID-19 shot he received last November instead of the one he wanted — the new monovalent vaccine targeting the XBB.1.5 subvariant.

MacLeod’s story, which others have echoed on social media, has raised questions about what one epidemiologist says has been a “lack of communication” on the vaccine rollout in Ontario this fall.