The swine flu vaccination campaign is stepping into high gear.
In Montreal, 10 new centres started vaccinating their first priority groups Thursday morning, while two centres are open in Laval.
Children under the age of five and people with chronic health conditions can now get vaccinated in Montreal.
That is a change from the original schedule, when children under five and their parents were eligible for vaccines on Monday..
Thursday morning hundreds of people lined up for hours to get their tickets telling them what time to return and get their vaccine.
The 'coupons' were supposed to be distributed as of 6 a.m., at Cavendish Mall, but early birds showed up at 5 a.m., as did the Executive Director for the vaccination clinic.
Lines snaked through the mall to get the appointment slips, but once needles started getting injected at 8 o'clock, up to 200 people an hour were jabbed in the arm.
Police were on hand for crowd control, but their presence was not needed.
The lineup at Cavendish Mall is expected to ebb and flow throughout the day, but at lunchtime, plenty of appointments were still available.
Meanwhile there's more criticism about the slow rollout of the vaccine by Canada's provincial health authorities.
The Globe and Mail is reporting more than half the vaccine doses available are sitting in storage because the provinces were caught off guard by the federal government's quick approval of the vaccine.
Up to 3 million doses are now being stored, as the provinces scramble to ramp up their vaccination campaigns.
