Banff, one of Alberta’s COVID-19 hotspots, to receive targeted shots

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Banff and Fort McMurray, two hotspots in Alberta’s swelling third wave of COVID-19, will receive priority for immunizations against the virus, Premier Jason Kenney announced Wednesday.

Kenney said the municipalities would receive all doses of the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine that arrive in Alberta over the next two weeks, with residents as young as 30 eligible to get the jab.

It’s the first time the province has adjusted its immunization plans to redirect supply to regions with greater need for vaccines.

“These areas are being hardest hit by the third wave, yet seeing lower than average vaccine coverage,” said Health Minister Tyler Shandro, giving details of the revised vaccine strategy on Twitter.

“All other areas remain the same.”

Banff and the Regional Municipality Of Wood Buffalo, where Fort McMurray is located, lead the province in active COVID-19 case rates, significantly outpacing the rest of the province.

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Wood Buffalo has 1499.8 cases per 100,000 residents, and Banff has 1159.7 cases per 100,000. In contrast, Alberta’s case rate per 100,000 is 473. In Wood Buffalo, officials introduced a local state of emergency over the weekend in response to the high case rates.

Officials in both regions had called on the province to prioritize immunizations for the hard-hit communities in the past week.

Banff Mayor Karen Sorensen said she was “very pleased” with the announcement, which she said would also apply to regional around Banff, including Lake Louise. There are over 10,000 residents in the area.

“We serve four million visitors every year, so we do have unique circumstances here. Almost everyone who works in Banff is a frontline worker,” Sorensen said.

“From my perspective, vaccinations are how we are going to stop this crisis and I’m just delighted that we’re going to see additional vaccinations sooner than later.”

Shandro said current immunization rates in the areas lag behind the rest of the province. Across Alberta, 26.8 per cent of people have had at least one shot of vaccine; as of Wednesday, only 15 per cent of Fort McMurray residents and 13 per cent of Banff residents had got a shot.

Alberta’s first shipment of Johnson & Johnson vaccine has yet to arrive. According to the Canadian Press, about 300,000 doses of the vaccine arrive in Canada Wednesday.

Though the federal government has yet to confirm details, Shandro said Alberta was expecting about 30,000 Johnson & Johnson doses soon; Kenney said those doses could arrive Monday.

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Eligibility for both Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca shots will also be expanded to everyone born in 1991 or earlier in the communities. Those born in 1991 or earlier in adjacent Indigenous communities will also be able to access the Moderna vaccine.

The province will also set up immunization clinics using the Johnson & Johnson vaccine at work camps in the Wood Buffalo region, according to Shandro.

The lowered age limit means many more people in Banff can be immunized, Sorensen said. The city’s largest age cohort is 20-29 year-olds, and 30-34 year-olds make up the next biggest group.

“We do have a very young population, and this decision to allow us to vaccinate people in the 30-plus range is going to go a long way in immunizing the frontline workers,” she said.

Speaking to the Fort McMurray Today following the announcement, Wood Buffalo Mayor Don Scott said the move was a “step in the right direction,” after councillors and First Nations chiefs called on the province to lower age restrictions for the virus.

“Our region was being treated like every other region, even though our region is not being treated by the virus like every other region,” Scott said.

On Tuesday, Alberta chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw said high rates of COVID-19 spread persist throughout the province and giving vaccines to hotspots will mean other regions won’t receive supply.

“It’s important to remember we have a limited supply, so everything that’s allocated there, which is on the table for discussion, would be taking it away from somewhere else, and those are the very difficult decisions we need to make about what would have the greatest impact,” Hinshaw said.

Additional targeted public-health measures could also be introduced to the hardest-hit areas of Alberta, Kenney said.

—With files from Vincent McDermott

jherring@postmedia.com

Twitter: @jasonfherring