Province rolling out school COVID-19 vaccination program in June

Saskatchewan’s COVID19 vaccination strategy will look different in June with the province shifting resources in order to launch a vaccine delivery program into Saskatchewan schools.

With the Pfizer vaccine approved for children aged 12 and over, the Saskatchewan Health Authority will be adjusting their vaccination campaign to conduct a three week blitz of schools.

“As we pick up the school program in the first part of June, with a target to get all school age children vaccinated by the end of June before summer holidays start, the SHA is pivoting our resources to focus on schools,” explained Saskatchewan Health Authority CEO Scott Livingstone.

And while the SHA will continue operating drivethru’s and walk-in clinics on the weekends, the booked appointments will be transferred to a network of over 350 pharmacies across the province while the SHA focusses on the school clinics.

“They’ve already starting picking that up now. And with the vaccine distribution increasing, it actually ends up being more booked appointments than we were offering previously. Simply, the pharmacies are providing that service right now, working into June, as opposed to the SHA.”

The province expand their age-based priority vaccine system to include children aged 12 and up last Thursday, meaning all Saskatchewan residents can now receive a first dose. Simultaneously, the booking system is arranging second dose vaccinations for individuals 80 and over, with that age eligibility dropping on a weekly basis.

Livingstone highlighted the importance of parents and guardians in explaining to their children about the importance of receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.

“We encourage you to talk with your children to address any questions or fears they may have in advance of their immunizations. Celebrate with your kids when they say yes to COVID immunization and chose to protect themselves, their family, and our province in joining the hundreds of thousands of other Saskatchewan residents who have already rolled up their sleeves.”

Scott Miller, the SHA’S Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) Lead, explained that they are working with representatives from schools and school divisions in order to arrange the logistics of the clinics in order to align them as much as possible with school schedules and activities.

“We will be communicating information about the school delivery campaign through the school communication channels,” he noted of the school vaccination campaign which will begin in June, with Monday to Friday vaccine delivery.

“We will be shifting the SHA part of the campaign to focus more on operating our other services, like drive-thru’s and walk-in’s to Friday’s through Sunday’s, so really focussing on the weekends for those other delivery methods. We won’t be providing booked appointments during this time. However, booked appointments will continue to be available through all of the various participating pharmacies that are located across the province.”

The school clinics will be targeting students 12 to 17 years of age, and written consent is required to receive a vaccine. Information packages will be delivered through the schools.

Parents do not need to wait for the school clinics, as they can book their children for vaccination at any of the pharmacies delivering the Pfizer vaccine.

Students will then be eligible to receive their second dose this summer after having to wait a minimum of 21 days between Pfizer doses. If there is not sufficient second doses provided to children during July and August, the SHA would take additional steps in the fall to fully vaccine students.

“We are going to be monitoring the overall uptake of second doses through the course of the summer to determine whether any school-based immunization program might be required in the fall to achieve that higher level of uptake of second doses,” Miller said.

The impact of quick vaccine uptake could have an impact on summer activities for children according to Saskatchewan’s Chief Medical Health Officer, Dr. Saqib Shahab.

“The effectiveness of the COVID vaccines is exceeding expectations, and the uptake by Saskatchewan residents is exceeding expectations. And based on that I think we really want to allow more more and activities as part of Step Three. So we are actively looking at the feasibility of allowing daytime or overnight summer camps.”

He added that these re-openings can occur more confidently based on the higher number of vaccines in arms over the coming weeks.

“We have seen through our breakthrough case numbers that once you get vaccinated your risk of getting COVID illness is extremely low. So what that means is we can look forward to hardly no cases or outbreaks in schools, hardly no cases or outbreaks in daycares, hardly no cases or outbreaks in summer camps if the go ahead including with overnight stays.”