Amazon, Maple Leaf Foods, Maple Lodge Farms to hold vaccine clinics in Ontario's Peel Region

Ontario's Peel Region says Amazon, Maple Leaf Foods, Maple Lodge Farms will hold on-site vaccine clinics for workers in the coming weeks.

The region said the three clinics for workers and the hot-spot communities they are located in would be part of a first-of-its-kind public-private partnership.

It said the lessons learned from the pilot would be shared with other regions across the province.

Peel said specific details on how to access the clinics would be shared once "operational details" are finalized, but workers will be contacted directly by their employers.

The region said workplace exposures continued to be a major contributor to community transmission.

Ontario announced recently that it would partner with large employers to offer on-site vaccine clinics for workers and the surrounding community.

The province said at the time it would ask employers hosting the clinics to pay to run them.

Peel's top doctor said the partnership would allow the region to ramp up vaccination efforts in hot-spot communities.

"These hot-spot workplace and community pop-up clinics are a welcome addition to the variety of ways that we are delivering vaccines in arms," Dr. Lawrence Loh said.

Maple Leaf Foods said it would begin vaccinating workers at its four plants in Peel starting next week.

"We know that many of our employees reside in 'hot spots' in the community, and so this collaborative effort will meaningfully advance our shared objectives of safe communities and safe workplaces," the company said in a statement.