B.C. lagging behind in vaccines administered compared to overall supply

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B.C. is lagging behind in administering all the COVID-19 vaccines in its supply, with only 73 per cent of doses sent by the federal government actually making it into people’s arms, data on Wednesday showed. This is down from earlier highs in the mid-80th percentile in the preceding weeks, including 87 per cent on April 4.

Provincial health officials have consistently said the pandemic is now a race between vaccine delivery and rapidly rising variants of concern, a race the variants seem to be winning.

As of Wednesday, B.C. administered 946,096 doses out of its total 1,289,060-dose supply, putting it ahead of most provinces and territories in Canada. According to data compiled through the COVID-19 vaccination tracker using official government sources, B.C. is only behind Saskatchewan, which has administered 82.2 per cent of its doses, and Northwest Territories, which is sitting at 74.8 per cent. The largest gap between vaccines administered and vaccines received is in Manitoba at 54.6 per cent.

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The province recorded another 997 new cases on Wednesday and two more deaths. There are 330 people in hospital and the number in intensive care has grown to 105.

Canada has delivered 10,105,105 doses of the vaccine to the provinces and territories, 7,059,963 of which has been administered — 70 per cent.

In an interview with Postmedia on Wednesday, Health Minister Adrian Dix insisted B.C. is not lagging behind in its vaccine delivery. He said the figures are impacted by a large shipment of vaccine that arrived in the province over the long weekend which is being administered as quickly as possible.

Dix said 72,000 doses of Moderna, originally expected in March, arrived on Saturday, and 87,750 doses of Pfizer arrived Monday. Another 188,500 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine arrived at the end of last week, Dix said, which is being delivered to local pharmacies on Thursday and Friday to inoculate people between the ages of 55 and 65. Dix said with an unpredictable delivery schedule, vaccines “come in and suddenly your amount of vaccine increases, and then you have to go deliver it, and that’s what we do.”

Richard Audas, a professor of health statistics and economics at Memorial University in Newfoundland, said Canada is well behind other countries in terms of its vaccination rollout.

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Canada ranks 39th in the world in terms of vaccine delivery, according to the New York Times vaccine tracker.

“It really is a race between the variants and the vaccines right now, and unfortunately it looks like the variants are winning,” said Audas, who designed the Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s COVID Misery Index, which measures Canada against other Western countries in terms of misery caused by the pandemic, including the death rate, state of the health-care system, and economic factors. He acknowledged that each province has its own system for administering vaccines, but he would like to see an increased urgency in getting people vaccinated as quickly as possible.

“Every moment a vaccine sits on the shelf, that’s one more person who is not protected and one more spreader of the variant,” Audas said. “If there’s vaccines sitting on the shelf over the weekend, people will die from that, and unnecessarily.”

Caroline Colijn, a Canada 150 Research Chair in mathematics for evolution, infection and public health with Simon Fraser University, said that with variants of concern doubling every eight days, her modelling projections show if the status quo continues with no additional restrictions introduced, B.C. could be seeing more than 3,000 daily cases by the end of April.

“We haven’t vaccinated enough people in the general population to be making a huge impact on transmission,” Colijn said. “Unless we start doing that and can roll it out extremely quickly, in the next few weeks we’re likely to see increased pressure on the hospitals and ICUs.”

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Colijn said now that seniors in long-term care and most of B.C.’s elderly population are vaccinated, the province should consider targeting vaccines to stop transmission in high-risk workplaces.

Dix said almost 20 per cent of B.C.’s eligible population has received their first dose of the vaccine. By comparison, the United States has vaccinated 32.6 per cent of its population with a first dose.

Dix said vaccinations are still not close to reaching community immunity, which is why the virus and highly contagious variants continue to spread. “It’s not what we need yet, (but) we’re making progress.”

B.C.’s highest number of vaccinations administered in one day was 41,000, Dix said, a record he is confident the province will break as vaccine supply increases. “You can’t (book) more appointments than you have supply of vaccines,” he said.

Liberal health critic Renee Merrifield said there should be more vaccination clinics across the province with longer hours to allow more people to get their jabs. On Wednesday, Merrifield heard from a constituent who is immuno-compromised and was shocked to find hundreds of people inside a Kelowna vaccination clinic waiting for their appointment, which did not allow for adequate social distancing. Expanding the number of clinics would prevent such a situation from happening, Merrifield said.

“We need to be doing this far more expeditiously than we’re doing now,” Merrifield said. “We should have a system in place that allows us at any time of any day to administer the vaccines we have.”

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with files from Derrick Penner

kderosa@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/katiederosayyj

Who is now eligible to book a vaccination?

As of Wednesday, April 7:

• Age 70 and up (at vaccination clinics)

• Age 55 to 65 (at local participating pharmacies)

• Indigenous individuals age 18 and up

• People over 19 with existing medical conditions such as cancer, transplant recipients, severe respiratory conditions

How do I book an appointment when my age group is eligible?

For those age 70 and up and Indigenous individuals age 18 and up, you can register to book your appointment online at getvaccinated.gov.bc.ca using your Personal Health Number (on the back of your drivers licence), or by phone at 1-833-838-2323.

For those age 55 to 65, you can contact your local participating pharmacy to make an appointment for the AstraZeneca vaccine, subject to availability. A list of these pharmacies is available online at bcpharmacy.ca/resource-centre/covid-19/vaccination-locations.

For those with an existing medical condition, you will receive an invitation letter in the mail by April 15 with information on how to book. You must bring your patient invitation letter with you to your appointment.

What if I don’t have a Personal Health Number?

Call the province’s booking line at 1-833-838-2323 to register when you are eligible, or visit a Service B.C. officer to register in person.

Why am I being asked to register and book? What’s the difference?

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Registration collects your age, your Personal Health Number, and your city, and helps officials know how much vaccine is needed in each community. Registration also puts your name on a notification list which ensures you will get a direct email or text when it is your turn to book a vaccination appointment.

Once you are notified, you will be able to book the exact location and date of your vaccination appointment, either online or by phone. You will not be notified until vaccination is open to your age group.

For those who are of an eligible age, you might register and be notified within the same day. If your age group is not yet eligible, you might register, but you won’t be notified until your age group is eligible.