Flu shot demand is surging and supply is dwindling
Pharmacies say they’ve been overwhelmed with requests as local and provincial health officials stress vaccinations are key to maintaining hospital capacity rates
The demand for a flu vaccine in Hamilton has never been higher — or come earlier.
Several pharmacies in the city say they have been overwhelmed with flu shot requests as local and provincial health officials stress vaccinations are a key to maintaining hospital capacity a mi d a second COVID-19 wave.
“Most years we have to convince people to get a flu shot, and this year we definitely haven’t had to do that,” said Priya Sidhu, manager of Pharmasave Hamilton Medical Arts.
The private pharmacy at 179 James St. S. has already administered about 100 flu shots this year — a number typically not reached until mid-November, Sidhu said. Between 50 to 70 patients are on the pharmacy’s wait list for a shot.
“The demand has been massive and our stock has been depleted,” Sidhu said. “It’s a lot more demand than we expected.”
The same is true for corporate pharmacies.
The Spectator spoke to 21 Shoppers Drug Mart locations in Hamilton early Thursday afternoon. Twenty said they were completely out of stock of regular-dose flu vaccines, with new shipments coming early to late next week. One said it has “less than 10” doses available.
Only one of 15 Rexalls in the city said they have stock of both regular and high-dose vaccines. Nine said they have regular vaccines, but not high-dose. Five said they don’t have either.
Meanwhile, primary-care physicians have also seen a “higher than usual” patient demand for flu shots, said Dr. Cathy Risdon, vice-chair of family medicine at McMaster University.
At a bi-monthly town hall Wednesday with about 140 family doctors, more than 70 said they were already out of vaccines, Risdon said.
“We go through this a bit every year, trying to juggle demand against supply chains … But I’d say that’s a bit earlier than usual to be out of vaccine,” she said.
Just before Thanksgiving weekend, Risdon said her practice of 20,000 patients received 1,270 regular and 120 high-dose vaccines. About 100 vaccines are now available.
“We will then have to pause our planned (flu shot) clinics until (we get) more vaccines,” Risdon said.
“We were not able to order as much as we could deliver for the next round.”
Premier Doug Ford appeared to downplay concerns over a run on flu shot supplies during a news conference Thursday. He said the province has ordered 5.1 million doses of the vaccination — about 700,000 more than 2019 — and is now “on to pharmaceutical companies.”
Dr. Ninh Tran, Hamilton’s associate medical officer of health, said public health allocates vaccines to primary-care physicians and hospitals based on historical levels of demand.
He said pharmacies have a dif
ferent acquisition process and deal directly with the province.
Public health distributed 67,000 vaccines to local physicians and hospitals last year.
Ideally, shipments are made to clinics every one to two weeks, “but we wait on the province to supply them first,” Tran said. “We get them out as fast we can.”
Tran said the surge in vaccine requests is an encouraging sign
that people are heeding to public health messaging.
“We want people to get vaccinated early this year — not because it will protect them from COVID, but because we don’t want to strain hospitals with influenza patients as they deal with COVID patients,” he said.