Rod Duncan did some digging over the weekend on the B.C. COVID-19 online dashboard and he didn’t like what he uncovered.
It showed the Northern Health Authority is lagging behind the other provincial health authorities in its vaccine rollout.
As of Saturday, Northern Health had administered 9,789 doses of vaccine to a population of about 288,000, which works out to a rate of about 34 per 1,000 people or 3.4 per cent of the total population. Every other health region in the province has vaccinated five per cent or more of its population.
“I’m just totally disappointed, somebody’s dropping the ball,” said the 72-year-old Duncan. “Not even 10,000 people in northern B.C. have received their first shot, and if you’re in Vancouver Island 47,000 people have had their first shots. I know there is a population difference but…”
The province had received 261,912 first doses by Saturday, which works out to 5.3 per cent of the entire population, based on Duncan’s population estimate of 4.93 million, which is lower than the Statistics Canada estimate of 5.148 million in 2020.
Northern Health spokesperson Eryn Collins said the lower rate of vaccinations in the north reflects age demographics and that skews the totals, resulting in a lower rate for the northern half of the province during the initial public vaccine rollout.
"We have fewer people in those eligible demographics, so we have fewer numbers of individuals who are eligible in those Phase 1 and 2 populations than the rest of the province, so our volumes aren't the same as other areas," said Collins.
Also not included in the provincial heath COVID-19 dashboard are the number of vaccines issued by the First Nations Health Authority, which is funded federally. Collins said more than 37,000 doses have been given out in the province by the FNA and many of those are to northern BC residents.
Monday was the first day of public vaccinations in B.C. But in Prince George it won't be until Tuesday that the first people in the 80-and-older age category or indigenous people 65-and-older who booked appointments over the phone last week will start showing up for their inoculations at the Prince George Conference and Civic Centre. The clinic is operating today at the Civic Centre for health care workers who haven't received their first doses.
The province announced March 5 that its Phase 3 age-based population vaccine rollout for people 75-and-older born in 1946 or earlier and indigenous people 60-and-older born in 1961 or earlier will begin in mid-April. But that date could be pushed up earlier in some communities.
In northern B.C., the dates when each age group becomes eligible for vaccinations varies according to each region and people are being asked to check the COVID-19 plan on the website, northernhealth.ca.
For Phase 2 age-eligible people the number to book those appointments is 1-844-255-7555.
People who are not yet age-eligible in the initial public rollout are being asked not to call to keep the phone lines free.
Duncan has been a snowbird since he retired from his job and he annually migrates to California with his wife, but with the U.S.-Canada border closed because of the pandemic that trip was scuttled. He has friends from Calgary in his age group who did go there for the winter and they have already had their shots.
Duncan received an email Sunday from his cousins in Alberta who are in his age group asking if he’d been vaccinated yet. Seven of them were already vaccinated or will receive their first doses by March 23. He said his 49-year-old son-in-law in Hong Kong got his shot on Sunday.
“You would think by now, we know we’re getting vaccines, that we’d have pharmacies where you could go, so we could go to London Drugs, where I get my flu shot," said Duncan. "But the only place we know is the Civic Centre.
"We’ve all agreed that if we could get our first shots we could get rid of the hospitalizations and the deaths.(Mayor) Lynn Hall was interviewed on the opening of the immunization clinic at the Civic Centre and he said the centre will be able to administer 200 shots per day. I’m thinking, there’s 80,000 people in Prince George and if we want to get 60,000 people vaccinated we’re looking at 300 days and that’s not acceptable to me."
But Collins said the 200-per-day rate is only for the people age-eligible in Phase 2 and the rate will grow exponentially once Phase 3 begins in April and mass-vaccination clinics have been set up.
Northern Health has not identified where those mass vaccinations sites are going to be or what the daily capacity will be, but Collins said the daily doses will ramp up significantly once that program is up and running.
In Prince Rupert/Port Edward, the first mass vaccination site in the province began inoculating people on Monday to combat a cluster of COVID-19 cases. Over the next 2 1/2 weeks, Northern Health aims to vaccinate all 12,000 adults in the area.
"They have a clinic at their local civic centre and they are literally doing 1,300-plus appointments every day this week," said Collins. "They are the only ones doing the mass general public clinics already because of the whole community approach that's been taken there, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's a similar capacity per day (in Prince George)."
More than 2,900 Prince George residents have received the vaccine. Collins said she would know more about the city's mass-clinic capacity by the end of this week.
People will be able to book appointments online for the large-scale clinics starting in mid-April. Details of those mass clinics and how the system can be accessed are to be revealed by the province in the coming weeks.
