VANCOUVER — With Canada approving a third COVID-19 vaccine, B.C.’s health officials say those doses will likely go to essential workers first.
Canada approved the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine on Friday, and since there is less data on its efficacy for those over the age of 65, B.C.’s top doctor said Monday another group will be prioritized.
“Once we know how much we’ll be receiving here and when, we will be able to further expand who is receiving vaccine,” Henry said.
“We do believe that we will start to target essential workers, particularly our first responders and our key essential workers who are not able to work from home.”
Henry said officials hope to reduce workplace spread.
“We’ve had a number of places in communities around the province where we’ve had outbreaks, if we think about things like poultry workers working, people who work in some of our mail distribution centres,” she said.
“So our B.C. immunization committee will be looking at how do we best use the doses that we have coming in.”
Unlike the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, the AstraZeneca vaccine doesn’t require below-freezing storage and instead is stable at fridge temperatures.
Henry says that will allow health authorities “to be more agile,” and use current the vaccine distribution infrastructure that’s already in place in the community.
The top doctor said officials don’t expect shipments to be quite as large as the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, however.
The first shipment of the AstraZeneca vaccine is expected to arrive in B.C. next week and have about 60,000 doses.
“This is exciting news,” Henry said. “This means we’ll be able to move everybody up in the queue.”
