Premier John Horgan, Health Minister Adrian Dix and health officials are set to reveal the details of B.C.’s COVID-19 mass immunization plan.
A live press conference has been scheduled for Monday, March 1, at 10:30 a.m. Live streams will be available on both the CHEK Facebook page and YouTube channel.
Vaccinations have been underway for residents and staff of long-term care and assisted living facilities since late December but with that work mostly concluded, the province is ready to offer immunizations more broadly.
Horgan is expected to lay out who will receive the first shots, when they will get them and which B.C. residents will be next in line.
The details of the mass vaccination plan come following Health Canada’s approval of a third vaccine, AstraZeneca.
Altogether, Canada is set to get around 24 million doses of AstraZeneca between April and September.
The vaccine, like Pfizer and Moderna, is administered in two doses, anywhere from four and 12 weeks apart, though some data suggests waiting longer between shots is preferable.
B.C. presented its four-phase vaccination strategy more than a month ago and expected to launch Phase 1 by the end of February, covering seniors over 80 living at home and Indigenous seniors over 65.
Problems with vaccine delivery have delayed the program.
In all, the mass vaccination strategy expects to immunize more than four million B.C. residents over the age of 18 by late September.
Graham Cox
