The Chief Medical Officer of Health is defending the province’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
Dr. Robert Strang says he doesn’t accept criticisms vaccine isn’t going out as quickly as it’s being received.
Dr. Strang says pointing to the number of doses and saying there’s a deficit isn’t seeing the big picture.
“People are forgetting that we are actively immunizing people every day, so we have to have a bunch of vaccine at the start of the week that we roll out and deliver to clinics across the province,” he says. “If people are looking at how much vaccine in the province today, what they’re missing is that a portion of that is the vaccine that’s going into arms today, tomorrow, Thursday, Friday.”
Dr. Strang says they aren’t stockpiling it.
He says they had been withholding second doses, but recently extended second dose windows have allowed doses to go into arms as they receive them.
Dr. Strang says they will continue administering withheld doses to those who registered for them.
He says apparent delays aren’t really delays, just a function of receiving the doses in a weekly shipment.
“The vaccine we get in one week has to come in centrally, and then gets distributed to vaccine clinics and is used throughout that week and into next week.”
With two new Central Zone cases there are 17 active infections provincewide.
