Province continues vaccine push: Shandro

Health Minister Tyler Shandro is confident in Alberta's COVID -19 vaccination rate as first and second doses continue to decline.

Speaking at an unrelated news conference Wednesday, Shandro said the province will never see a 100 per cent vaccination rate, but the uptake for COVID-19 vaccinations is better than that for the seasonal flu.

As of end-of-day Tuesday, 5,100,111 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in Alberta, an increase of more than 21,000.

Of Albertans aged 12 and older who are eligible for the vaccine, 74.9 per cent have received at least one dose, an increase of 0.1 per cent from the previous day. Currently of eligible Albertans, 60.7 per cent are fully vaccinated with two doses.

Shandro noted the province will be announcing more initiatives in the coming days to increase first and second doses, focusing on the safety and efficacy of vaccines.

“We're also going to find innovative ways so that access is not an issue in particular for areas of the province that are low uptake,” Shandro said.

“We've also been working with physicians and created a billing code for areas of the province that have low uptake for physicians to go through their roster and reach out to those patients and talk to them about the safety and efficacy and so we'll continue to see the effectiveness of those innovative strategies in the days ahead.”

According to Alberta Health spokesman Tom Mcmillan, more than 280,000 vaccine appointments have been booked for the next two weeks.

“We are using temporary clinics, mobile clinics, drive-thru clinics, advertising campaigns and much more. There are more than 1,400 pharmacies offering the vaccine, along with hundreds of AHS clinics and physicians' offices,” Mcmillan said in a statement.

“We've also been collaborating with various partner organizations to ensure the vaccine is easily accessible to those in Indigenous populations, Hutterite colonies as well as employees and staff working in warehouse settings, meat plants, agriculture, and the oilsands, among others.”

Alberta reported 81 new cases of COVID -19 on Wednesday as hospitalizations continue to decline. Over the last 24 hours, 6,479 tests for the virus were completed, for a positivity rate of 1.2 per cent. There are currently 649 active cases of COVID -19 in the province.