Saskatchewan sees slight uptick in immunizations for COVID-19 over weekend
Mickey Djuric | CBC News | Posted: February 15, 2021 5:30 PM | Last Updated: February 15, 2021
Province's goal is to immunize 7,000 people a day by mid-April
Over the weekend, Saskatchewan saw a rise in immunizations for COVID-19, averaging about 1,000 shots administered a day.
The province's vaccination plan is starting to pick up again after it saw a drop in immunizations throughout the end of January and early February.
Like other provinces, Saskatchewan's immunization campaign was disrupted by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna's delivery schedule.
On Feb. 11, during a provincial update on COVID-19, Premier Scott Moe said Saskatchewan's "vaccination program is headed in the correct direction" but it's still slower than expected.
"If we had more vaccines available from the federal government, we would be able to look at getting everyone vaccinating a lot more quickly than we are," Moe said.
"But the reality is we're dealing with a very scarce supply of vaccines in Saskatchewan and across Canada."
Vaccine plan to get a boost in coming months
Saskatchewan — along with the rest of Canada — has been dealing with a supply shortage for several weeks, but Pfizer and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau say millions of more shots are expected in the second quarter than previously scheduled.
Pfizer is now set to deliver 2.8 million more shots than originally planned between April and June. Deliveries previously earmarked for later in the year have also been moved up, meaning Canada will receive 6.2 million more doses than expected between July and August. Four million extra doses of the Moderna vaccine are also expected to arrive this summer.
"Pfizer is extremely committed to meeting its contractual obligations, and we have every intention of meeting the four million commitment by the end of March that the prime minister has been talking about," Pfizer president Cole Pinnow said Sunday on Rosemary Barton Live.
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Moe says he is hopeful
By the first week of April, Saskatchewan is scheduled to receive 95,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine, according to Health Canada's vaccine schedule.
However, with more shots set to arrive than planned, Moe says the province is expecting 180,000 doses to arrive by the end of March, and another 600,000 doses projected to arrive by the end of June.
"This means that by the middle of March we're anticipating to be up to close to 4,000 vaccinations per day, and by the middle of April, we will hopefully be up to 7,000 vaccinations a day," Moe said.
"I am very hopeful that the federal government is correct, and that our vaccine supply will increase in the weeks ahead, and when that happens our health system in Saskatchewan will be ready to supply those vaccines and provide them to people as quickly as possible."
General population to be vaccinated by summer
Canada is projected to receive 40 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine by September, which is the federal target month to vaccinate the entire population.
Saskatchewan has the same goal in mind.
"We're similar to other provinces, we're all in this together," Dr. Saqib Shahab, Saskatchewan's chief medical health officer, said during a Feb. 11 press conference.
"We all want to reduce the most severe outcomes of COVID initially," Shahab said, referring to the province's plan to vaccinate Saskatchewan's most vulnerable populations first.
"Over the summer, all of us will get vaccinated, so we can end this pandemic."
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