Anyone born in 1963 should be receiving invitations to book their COVID-19 vaccines, and calls for subsequent ages will be coming fast and furious, B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix said as the province announced 841 new cases of the virus.
“The appointments are going to come in May and June quickly,” Dix said during a media availability, urging everyone to get registered.
This week, the province received 138,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech, but next week, it’s set to get twice as much — 276,000 doses. With a similar number of doses of Pfizer on the way each week thereafter, the province is set to have 1.1 million doses of Pfizer alone to administer in May. “So once we get to Monday of next week, we are going to be inviting people to book rapidly — age by age by age by age through the week,” said Dix.
Once their age is called, everyone who is registered will receive an invitation to book using the contact information provided. Anyone 18 and older can register. A new age cohort could be called every day next week, Dix said.
Registering on the government’s Get Vaccinated website is required for everyone, including those who have had first shots through pharmacies or other parallel programs. Registration allows the province to track vaccinations and ensure everyone gets a second-dose notice.
About 1.9 million people across the province have registered for vaccines in the age-based program, and 750,000 have already booked.
Anyone who is eligible for booking but hasn’t registered can do so immediately.
Just over 40,000 immunizations were administered in the province on Tuesday, both in health authority programs and in pharmacy clinics.
The province is targeting people age 30 and older in 16 hotspots outside Island Health for vaccines, and opened pop-up clinics in areas of high transmission in Fraser Health on Tuesday, causing long lineups and some neighbourhood-hopping. Just over 4,000 people were vaccinated that way.
Dix acknowledged communication and wait problems with the pop-ups, but encouraged health authorities to try different ways to get people vaccinated in hotspots. “We are going to continue to target these communities and that’s one way to do it.”
The province doesn’t have a lot of the AstraZeneca vaccine and hasn’t been informed of more coming, Dix said, so AstraZeneca clinics are unlikely after this week until more of the vaccine arrives.
The health minister pointed to Canada’s lack of domestic production of vaccines. “I think Canadians should understand that as we move through this pandemic that it should be no longer acceptable in future not to have the domestic capacity to produce vaccines.”
Another 35 cases were reported in Island Health on Wednesday, for a total of 315 active cases, according to the B.C. Centre for Disease Control. Of the total active cases, 28 are in hospital, including six in intensive care.
While COVID test positivity had risen to 10.7 per cent in B.C. by April 11, it’s now under nine per cent, showing restrictions on indoor dining and fitness activities across the province are having some effect, said Dix. “We’ve still got a long way to go — we’re still seeing the pressure on hospitalizations from case counts two weeks ago — but we are making some progress as well.”
The epicentre for new cases continues to be Fraser Health, with 541 new cases on Wednesday. The fewest new cases were in Northern Health with 20.
On Wednesday, there were 8,009 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, 515 were in hospital, including 171 in intensive care. There were five new COVID-19 related deaths, for a total of 1,576 in B.C.
A total of 1.7 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca have been administered in B.C., 89,725 of which are second doses. About 4.3 million people in B.C. are eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.
> Online: gov.bc.ca/getvaccinated; phone: 1-833-838-2323, 7 a.m.-7 p.m.
