Moe offers vaccination target for relaxing COVID measures

Premier Scott Moe is offering a hint when public health measures could be relaxed in Saskatchewan.

As of Tuesday, more than 408,000 residents have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. That represents nearly 40 per cent of eligible adults over the age of 18 and around 58 per cent of those 40 and over.

Moe is pleased with those numbers, but he told Gormley on Wednesday the province still has a ways to go before considering removing restrictions.

“I would start looking at those numbers to get in around the 70 percentile,” he said, referring to the vaccination threshold he’s targeting for all adults in Saskatchewan.

“Then we are going to have a very different conversation around what can we do in this province (and) when can we do it. But we aren’t able to have that conversation until we hit those numbers.”

The vaccination uptake is the No. 1 metric Moe is watching, but he said case rates and hospital admissions will also determine how quickly the public health measures change.

“To all those who are thinking they might wait or are little hesitant on getting a vaccine, I would ask you to reconsider,” Moe said. “It is going to determine how quickly we’re able to get back to normal in this province.”

Vaccine supplies remain the key to how many needles go into arms every day. The rollout has been slowed of late because of a delay in deliveries, which Moe hopes will soon be behind us.

“It isn’t as strong as we’d like to see it,” he said. “Starting in the first week of May, our Pfizer deliveries are going to double. We’re waiting with bated breath on the other three vaccines as to what the delivery schedule is actually going to look at and to confirm that delivery schedule.”

Even with the inconsistent supply of vaccines, Moe remains confident the province can still meet its target of offering every adult in the province a vaccine by May 17.

“We’ll be very close to that,” he said. “Our goal is to get down to that 18+ age group so that everybody is prioritized and really open those three streams of delivery that we have operating and get every vaccine that we receive out to people as quickly as possible.”

The vaccine age eligibility dropped to 42 and over on Wednesday. It’s set to drop to 40 and over on Friday.