Saskatchewan draws up schedule for COVID vaccination eligibility

Saskatchewan has set target dates for various age groups to become eligible to get their first doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.

If all goes according to plan, everyone in the province aged 12 and up will be eligible by May 20.

In a media release Friday, the provincial government said those 32 and over will become eligible Saturday. That would be a drop of three years from the current age limit.

From there, the eligibility would drop to:

• 29 and over on Monday;
• 26 and over on Wednesday;
• 23 and over on May 14;
• 20 and over on May 16;
• 16 and over on May 18; and,
• 12 and over on May 20.

People 18 and over in the Northern Saskatchewan Administration District currently can book appointments. The province will be announcing at a later date when those 12 and over in that region will be eligible.

The schedule applies to booked appointments, drive-through and walk-in clinics, pharmacies and mobile clinics.

Health Minister Paul Merriman is bullish on there being enough vaccine doses to keep up. On Friday, the province said a Moderna shipment had arrived early and it’s expecting more vaccines to arrive on Tuesday.

Merriman also said he’s hoping the Johnson & Johnson vaccines will come through next week.

The eligibility schedule was based on shipment projections, but the province stressed if vaccine deliveries from the federal government are delayed, the schedule may change.

Merriman admitted they’re being aggressive with the schedule.

“We want to make sure that we keep the momentum going of the excitement about vaccines. We want to get that into people’s arms and we don’t want to miss a beat on that,” said Merriman.

Even though the ages are planned to go down quickly, Merriman was confident people won’t be waiting too long for shots, pointing to the speed of vaccinations compared to the rest of the country.

As of Friday morning, there were only 23 drive-through or walk-in clinics listed on the government website. Four of them were open on Friday and only six had any mention of being open after that.

Merriman said there are options for getting a vaccine even if the walk-ins and drive-throughs aren’t open.

“We’ve projected that our appointment base and the pharmacies can handle that kind of volume. We’re increasing the pharmacy allotment every week to get them up to speed,” said Merriman, praising pharmacies for getting through large quantites of vaccine.

Merriman repeated that people may have to look outside their immediate community to find an appointment.

As of Friday, 491,440 vaccinations had been done in Saskatchewan. To date, 45,655 people have received both doses and are fully immunized.

“We continue to set aggressive targets to immunize our remaining, eligible population of nearly 270,000 Saskatchewan people,” Merriman said in the release.

“Our ability to reach our targets is limited only by the amount of vaccine we receive but remember that once you are eligible to receive a vaccine, you are always eligible. You will have clinic options available and should continue to take the first vaccine that is available to you.”

Information on pharmacies that are participating in a pilot vaccination project can be found here. Details about drive-through and walk-in clinics can be found here.

On Thursday, the provincial government announced its plans for the administration of second doses, with bookings to open May 17 for residents 85 years and older or people who received their first dose by Feb. 15.