By the end of this week, any person in B.C. who is 18 or older will be able to book a COVID-19 vaccine appointment.

Health Minister Adrian Dix says anyone born in 1991 or earlier can now book a vaccine. Tomorrow, bookings will open for anyone born in 1996 or earlier, and will open Saturday for anyone born in 2001 or earlier, and Sunday for anyone born in 2003 or earlier.

Vaccine supply has ramped up this month in B.C. and all other provinces, mostly because of an increase in doses from Pfizer. In the past two weeks, B.C. has administered 586,000 vaccine doses, including 58,195 today, and the eligibility to book vaccines has dropped from age 57 to 30 as of today.

As for people aged 12 to 17 getting vaccinated, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says those details will be coming next week.

“And I know how important this is particularly to that group of teenagers in their 16, 17, 18 who are finishing high school this year. We look forward to this being another thing that will be important to ensure we can have some safe celebrations of graduation coming up in June,” Henry says.

Meanwhile, the province reports 587 new cases of COVID-19 today and five deaths from the virus.

There were 60 new cases in Interior Health, as well as 365 cases in Fraser Health, 126 in Vancouver Coastal Health, 21 in Island Health and 15 in Northern Health.

B.C. is also reporting its second case of blood clot linked to the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.

Dr. Henry says the patient is a man in his 40s in the Fraser Health region, who she says is in stable condition.

“As we know, this is a rare but very serious condition and we are following it carefully, recognizing the symptoms and getting treatment early is important. This is a condition that we are learning more and more about since the safety signal was first detected.”

Henry says if you’re someone who got the AstraZeneca vaccine “you made the right choice.” As for second doses, Henry says B.C. is waiting for the research to come back from the U.K. which would say whether that’s doable.

– with files from Victor Kaisar