ManitobaAs the winter flu season approaches, the Winnipeg School Division says it will run a series of COVID-19 and influenza vaccination clinics for staff members, starting on Monday.‘The best way to get people vaccinated is to make it convenient for them’: Dr. Joss ReimerLauren Scott · CBC News · Posted: Oct 03, 2025 7:32 PM EDT | Last Updated: October 3The Winnipeg School Division will offer drop-in vaccination clinics for staff from Oct. 6 to Nov. 5 at five of its schools and facilities. (Emily Fitzpatrick/CBC)As the winter flu season approaches, the Winnipeg School Division says it will run a series of COVID-19 and influenza vaccination clinics for staff members, starting on Monday. The drop-in clinics will take place from Oct. 6 to Nov. 5, over hours-long stretches between 11:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. at five of the division’s schools and facilities, according to a letter sent to staff earlier this week.Both teachers and students spent long stretches of time out sick last year, interrupting the learning process, the letter said. The division said it spent more than $8 million on substitute teachers last year.”We’re taking measures to make sure that our staff are healthy, that they’re safe and that their families are not getting sick as well,” superintendent Matt Henderson said in a Friday interview with Up to Speed guest host Chloe Friesen.The clinics will make getting vaccinated easier for teachers and non-instructional staff who choose to do so, he said.”We just wanted to make it readily available.”Winnipeg School Division Superintendent Matt Henderson says the vaccine clinics are intended to help protect both staff and students by preventing the spread of COVID-19 and the flu. (Warren Kay/CBC)Dr. Joss Reimer, the chief medical officer with the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority and the former medical lead for Manitoba’s COVID-19 vaccination task force, said she’s happy to see COVID-19 and flu vaccines being made so accessible.”The best way to get people vaccinated is to make it convenient for them,” said Reimer.”If you bring vaccines to their workplace — so they don’t have to take sick time or find vacation time or evenings or weekends, and instead are just able to conveniently get a vaccine when they’re going about their regular day — they’re much more likely to get that vaccine.”Many people who feel comfortable with getting vaccines don’t get their annual flu and COVID-19 shots because they’re too busy, she said.”Any approach that makes it more convenient for people to get vaccines will increase uptake,” Reimer said, adding that higher vaccination rates can help decrease the overall risk to Manitobans of contracting COVID-19 or the flu.Winnipeg Regional Health Authority chief medical officer Dr. Joss Reimer, seen in a March 2020 file photo, says the best way to increase vaccine update is to make immunization convenient for people. (John Woods/The Canadian Press)Henderson said the Winnipeg School Division clinics are only for staff members, and there are no plans to run a similar clinic for students. That’s a decision best left up to parents and families, he said.However, he encouraged families to discuss immunization with their doctors and consider getting their kids vaccinated.”The more of us that are vaccinated the better,” Henderson said.The Louis Riel, Seven Oaks and Pembina Trails school divisions each told CBC News on Friday that they do not have plans for division-wide staff vaccination clinics. Pembina Trails said that while it does not co-ordinate staff vaccinations, each school can partner with a local pharmacy to arrange its own clinic. CBC News also reached out to the River East Transcona and St. James-Assiniboia school divisions but had not received a response by Friday afternoon.ABOUT THE AUTHORLauren Scott is a Winnipeg-based reporter with CBC Manitoba. They hold a master’s degree in computational and data journalism, and have previously worked for the Hamilton Spectator and The Canadian Press.With files from Chloe Friesen
Winnipeg School Division offering COVID-19, flu vaccination clinics for staff
