NDP Health Critic asks government to provide Alberta vaccination plan

EDMONTON (660 NEWS) – Alberta’s NDP Critic for Health wants to see a clearer plan from the province around COVID-19 vaccines.

The opposition party wants to know who’s next in line for the shots. Right now, the province is on Phase 1-A of their rollout and, due to the Pfizer shortage, only long-term care residents are getting shots.

David Shepherd explains, back in early December, Premier Jason Kenney and Minister of Health Tyler Shandro assured Albertans they were as ready as ready could be.

However, Shepherd says Alberta is set to enter Phase two in April — yet there is no plan as to who will be vaccinated.

He adds every province is facing the same challenges right now in terms of procurement and supply.

“That does not preclude — as Ontario and B.C. have demonstrated — providing a far more detailed list of the order in which people will be vaccinated (and) when vaccine arrives. Everybody recognizes, I think, that that schedule is going to be somewhat fluid based on supply.”

Shepherd explains without a successful vaccine program there can be no reduction in the stress on hospitals and schools, no relaxation of physical distancing rules and no economic recovery.

What he says Albertans need now is somebody who is able to answer detailed questions.

“The Premier has demonstrated time and again that he can’t even give a straight answer on when public vaccinations are going to be available in the province of Alberta. He’s given us three different dates so far, so let us hear from the folks who have the actual information who are going to be able to deliver it to Albertans without political spin.”

Along with the Premier, Shepherd is calling on Paul Wynnyk, chair of the province’s Covid-19 vaccine task force to re-appear.

“With daily technical briefings, and a plan that meets the standard that has already been set by Canada’s other large provinces.”

Health Minister Tyler Shandro says we have the ability to vaccinate many more Albertans and to expand the groups who are eligible, but before we do, we need the doses in our province.

“We depend on the Government of Canada for vaccine supply and Canada is being hit harder than others with reduced vaccine shipments. We’re receiving zero shipments of Pzifer vaccine this week and we’re expecting shipments next week to be cut by 78 per cent,” he explained.

“We have now administered 99,453 doses of the vaccine in our province, and this includes almost 10,000 people who are fully immunized with two doses.”

He says the province is ready to administer any vaccines available.

“Alberta has the capacity to deliver about 50 thousand doses per week with the current approach, targeted to the specific groups in the first phases of our plan. We can scale it much higher when we have the certainty of supply for larger populations,” Shandro added.

“Just over two per cent of Canadians have now been vaccinated, meanwhile the U.S. has given a shot to more than six per cent of their population, if we compare ourselves to the United Kingdom, more than 10 per cent and Israel more than 40 per cent of their population has been vaccinated.”