Interior Health is reminding Kamloopsians that the COVID-19 vaccine clinic at McArthur Island is closed because the facility is being used as reception centre for wildfire evacuees.

It comes as people have still been showing up at McArthur Island for their COVID-19 vaccine appointment this week even though appointments have been moved to the Tournament Capital Centre.

There have been several calls to the NL Newsroom about this yesterday and today both from people who were supposed to get their vaccine appointment and from people running the reception centre.

In an email to NL News yesterday, IH said some people did not receive an updated location notification, and were told to come to MacArthur despite the change in location.

“This was an internal issue and has now been fixed,” the statement said, though given the calls today, that appears to have not been the case for everybody.

“We seem to still be having issues with people unaware that the MacArthur Island clinic is closed and all appointments are at the Tournament Capital Centre,” Interior Health said, in a statement today.

“Anyone with an appointment at Mac Island has had their appointment automatically moved to the Tournament Capital Centre for a new appointment at the same time they had originally booked, meaning it’s just the location that’s changed.”

Vaccine appointments at McArthur Island were moved to the TCC starting on June 27 due to the extreme heat in the Kamloops area. At that time, Interior Health said the TCC would be able to accommodate the additional appointments.