MEDICINE HAT, AB – Health Minister Tyler Shandro and officials took part in a telephone town hall Tuesday night with media across the province.
It was a question and answer period focused on the vaccine roll-out for rural Alberta.
Chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw and Paul Wynnyk, chair of the COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force were also on the line with the health minister.
In the update, it was addressed that over 12,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in the province’s South Zone.
Elsewhere, the Central Zone has just over 14,000, North Zone almost 12,000, Calgary Zone just over 41,000, and Edmonton Zone just over 43,000 doses administered.
“We see in some areas that they have a little more than their population share, so it’s (vaccine) equitably distributed across the province,” Dr. Hinshaw said.
According to the provincial update and release from the province, as of Feb. 8, 124,325 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in Alberta. This is 2,811.6 doses per 100,000 population. There are now 32,690 Albertans fully immunized with two doses.
As for regional vaccine distribution and timelines for rural areas including southeastern Alberta, Shandro says they still don’t have a lot of good sense from the federal government on how many vaccines Alberta will be getting.
Shandro added that the number of vaccines Alberta is planning on receiving from the federal government’s allotment is a lot lower than what was originally said Alberta would have by the end of the first quarter.
Dr. Hinshaw also described what a larger-scale vaccine roll-out would look like when that supply comes.
She says the goal when we have sufficient vaccine in hand is to make it accessible to Albertans across the province.
“Our annual influenza campaign we do that, where we make sure people have access and locations that are easy to get to.”
She went on to say that the influenza vaccine is easier to transport because it only requires storage at refrigeration temperatures, whereas the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are quite challenging because of the ultra-cold storage needed.
“Some of those logistical issues are ones that do require in this early roll-out, more centralized offering of the vaccine. But we’re working to try and overcome some of those challenges. And hope in the medium to long term we will have some options available to all Albertans relatively close to where they live as soon as their turn in the sequence comes,” Hinshaw added.
