21,000+ COVID vaccination appointments cancelled due to ‘erratic’ Moderna shipments

The Saskatchewan Health Authority says more than 21,000 COVID-19 vaccine appointments — mainly in rural Saskatchewan — have been cancelled over the past couple of months, primarily because of delays of Moderna vaccine shipments to Canada.

Delays of that particular vaccine have been chronic since late March, when the province announced that 21,300 vaccine doses scheduled to arrive in the province would be delayed nearly a week.

Then in early April, another Moderna vaccine delay was announced, this time for 19,300 doses. The company says it has experienced a slow ramp-up in production capacity.

During a provincewide news conference Tuesday afternoon, SHA CEO Scott Livingstone said it has been a challenge, but not a fault of the booking system or the way telephone lines are set up.

“We’re not just cancelling single appointments (or) in some cases two appointments because of the delay with short notice from Moderna,” he said.

The SHA is trying to reschedule those cancelled appointments and to better streamline the booking process, which means going forward not booking appointments so far into the future so they can be more reactive to available supply.

“Certainly we don’t want to cancel appointments but … the erratic nature of the supply — particularly around Moderna — has been the single biggest factor,” Livingstone added.

Livingstone said the SHA still doesn’t know what the Moderna supply is going to look like for the month of May, although it’s hopeful missed shipments will make their way to Saskatchewan.

“We’re hoping that not only are we going to see some big numbers of Moderna, but it’ll actually arrive when they tell us it’s going to arrive,” he said.