Moe hints at Phase 2 vaccinations even though some appointments may be moved

Premier Scott Moe believes the province’s vaccination schedule is still on track despite a rise in variant cases, particularly in Regina.

Speaking with Gormley on Wednesday, Moe maintained his target of 150,000 vaccinations by the end of March will be reached and surpassed.

“What we’re looking for now is 256,000 by the end of March if all the delivery schedules that we have in front of us hold true,” Moe said. “They’re moving around a little bit. We’re going to receive a fairly significant amount of those in just the last couple days of March. We’re going to get those out for April 5.

“Here’s a number everyone should be aware of now, because things are going to happen fairly quickly now. Up until the end of Monday, we had 108,000 doses out to people. From now until the end of March, we are going to receive another 146,000 vaccines. We are going to receive more in the next two, 2 1/2 weeks and get those out to people than we have since the beginning.”

Currently there are 100 vaccine clinics operating across Saskatchewan, but Moe expects that to jump to 230 clinics in the days ahead with 8,000 doses a day being given.

There has been some question over the number of doses coming to Canada from Moderna in the coming weeks.

Moe maintains he received an email that the shipment expected next Monday would be about 30 per cent of the 846,000 planned, with the rest arriving by the end of March.

Anita Anand — the federal minister of public services and procurement — said in a tweet that Canada is receiving all 846,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine next week as scheduled, but emails between the province and the vaccine rollout team show the shipment is split in two.

If there is a delay, it would involve about 23,000 doses in Saskatchewan. That in turn would impact some of the vaccination appointments that already have been made through the province’s booking system.

“We have over 50,000 appointments now booked and they’re booked based on the timeframes of when our delivery schedules are put together,” Moe said.

“There are some folks in the province who are going to receive a phone call from the Saskatchewan Health Authority saying, ‘We need to move your appointment because our Moderna vaccine has been delayed about seven days here.’

“We just want them to know that when they do get that phone call, this is the reason for it.”

During a media conference Tuesday, Moe said the province’s vaccine delivery team was working on the logistics caused by the delay and was trying to make sure the number of changes to existing appointments was kept “to a very minimum.”

As of Wednesday, Saskatchewan had administered more than 112,000 shots.

Moe insists there are still available appointments for those who are eligible in Phase 1. More than 50 per cent of those aged 80 and older have had their first shots, along with a good number of those over 75.

“We’re not going to leave those appointments available for very long,” Moe said. “If they are still available later today or tomorrow, we are going to start opening up and lowering the age range.

“We want the appointments full and we will fill them because we have the vaccinators and the vaccines ready to go. We are going to fill those appointments. If we can’t fill them with people in Phase 1, we will start opening up portions of Phase 2 and start moving along.”

Dr. Saqib Shahab, the province’s chief medical health officer, said during Tuesday’s call it will take four to six weeks to have the bulk of people 50 and over in Saskatchewan vaccinated. His hope is that everyone 18 and over will have received a first dose by the end of May or early June.

Down at the drive-through

The SHA has been operating a drive-through AstraZeneca vaccination clinic at Evraz Place in Regina since Monday.

After starting with 64-year-olds Monday morning, the clinic started moving down in age groups. As of Wednesday morning, it was accepting anyone between the ages of 60 and 64.

On Tuesday, the National Advisory Committee on Immunization reversed its earlier recommendation that the AstraZeneca vaccine shouldn’t be given to those 65 and over. But SHA CEO Scott Livingstone said Tuesday the authority is going to continue doling out that vaccine to the 60-to-64 group.

“We did get an uptick and got busier (Tuesday) when we did expand that age group, so we’re going to focus on that age group over the next couple of days to see where the vaccine levels go with respect to the drive-through because they are seeing lots of patients,” Livingstone said.

“A decision would be made to open it up to a broader age group later in the week if in fact we’re not seeing the type of uptake we want to at the drive-through.”