Manitoba will beginning vaccinating frontline critical health care workers as early as next week when it receives 1,950 doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine approved for use in Canada Dec. 9.
The initial allocation to Manitoba will be enough for about 900 people, as the vaccination requires two doses three weeks apart.
More vaccine, including both the Pfizer version and the Moderna vaccine, will become available in the first three months of 2021, with about 228,000 doses – enough to vaccinate about seven per cent of Manitoba’s population – provided to the province by March 31. Demand for the vaccine is likely to outstrip supply for the next several months, said chief provincial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin
Priority groups to receive the vaccine will include health care workers most directly involved in dealing with COVID-19, seniors in long-term care and assisted living facilities as well as retirement homes and chronic care hospitals, as well as adults aged 80 or older and adults at risk in remote or isolated Indigenous communities.
“We’re procuring all the supplies needed to get needles into arms,” said Roussin at a Dec. 9 press conference with Premier Brian Pallister, warning that the rollout of the vaccine will not mean an end to public health restrictions or the need to take precautions until well into next year. “It’s not going to have an immediate effect on our public health situation in Manitoba.”
In order to achieve herd immunity, Roussin said, more than 60 per cent of Manitobans would need to be vaccinated. The government has plans to encourage as many people as possible to get vaccinated once there is enough vaccine to do so but no plans to make it mandatory.
“It’s the best way to bring this pandemic to manageable levels," said Roussin, adding that the vaccines are safe and 95 per cent effective, according to clinical trials.
“You cannot get COVID from these vaccines,” he said, as they use an inactive form of the virus. “There’s zero risk for that.”
Pallister said that once Manitoba has a supply of the Moderna vaccine, which does not require specialized storage conditions, it can be brought up into the province’s north.
“There’s a possibility to get mote of that vaccine up to the north,” said the premier.
The first temporary immunization clinic has been set up in Winnipeg and there are plans to eventually open more in Thompson, The Pas, Brandon, Steinbach, Gimli and Portage la Prairie.
The approval of the vaccine and plans to begin administering it come as public health restrictions in place since November are beginning to show some effect. Manitoba announced 280 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, down significantly from the 400-plus level it was at a few weeks ago. Hospitalizations and intensive care unit numbers are also trending down, with 300 people hospitalized due to COVID and 38 in intensive care as of Wednesday. Eighteen northerners were in hospital due to the virus as of Dec. 9, with three of them in intensive care. Thos numbers are still to high to sustain long-term, said Roussin.
The provincial test positivity rate remains high, however, at 13.5 per cent, and double digit daily deaths have ben the norm in December, with 18 more deaths announced Wednesday, bringing the total so far since the pandemic began to 438.
There were nineteen new cases of COVID-19 reported in the north on Wednesday, including seven in the Bunibonibee/Oxford House/Manto Sipi/God’s River/God’s Lake health district, three in the Shamattawa/York Factory/Tataskweyak/Split Lake district, where there are reportedly more than 250 cases, though not all have been confirmed by laboratory testing yet, and two in the Thompson/Mystery Lake health district. The number of active cases in the Northern Regional Health Authority has remained stable in the mid-400s for the past few weeks.
