Plans in place for mass COVID immunizations in Saskatchewan

The COVID-19 doses aren’t there yet, but the Saskatchewan government is showing off that it’s ready to put them in people’s arms when they arrive.

The Premier and Health Minister took a tour of the new mass vaccination clinic set up at the International Trade Centre at Evraz Place in Regina, the new drive-thru vaccination site on campus, as well as taking a look at one of the new mobile vaccination clinics.

Premier Scott Moe said sites like these show the government is ready.

“Mass immunization sites, like this one, will be our main venue for vaccine delivery in our major populated areas,” said Moe.

When they’re able, an appointment will be made online or by phone, the patient will show up five minutes before the appointment to register, then they’ll get their shot and wait for 15-20 minutes to make sure there are no adverse effects. Appointments at the mass clinics are expected to take around 30 minutes.

Between 180 and 210 people will be able to vaccinated at the Regina site in an hour when all 30 vaccination stations are open.

“It will be completely scalable, so that we will be able to open up to whatever number of stations that we need to administer the amount of vaccinations that we have on hand at any particular time,” explained Moe.

The Sask. Health Authority held a flu clinic in Regina in a similar fashion in the fall, so it was able to test the procedures ahead of the COVID clinics.

Things will be a bit different at drive-thru clinics because they won’t require an appointment. Moe said the don’t know how long the waits could be. When the drive-thru COVID testing clinic opened in Regina the waits stretched for hours.

The province also has mobile vaccination clinics that have already been deployed for those who can’t travel to get a shot.

“If you can’t come to a vaccination clinic, the vaccination clinic is ready to come to you,” said Moe.

The health authority is getting ready for all the sites like these to be ready for March 15, with many already offering vaccines.

The Regina mass vaccination clinic will start being used March 1 to immunize the priority populations in Phase 1.

However, how busy the sites will be depends entirely on the vaccine supplies shipped to the province.

Moe said they’re going to need about 300,000 vaccines to get through the first phase, but with numbers announced by the federal government he’s expecting shipments to start getting much bigger in the next few weeks. In the summer, at some point, Moe said the province could start getting up to 8,000 doses a day.
When asked why, if the vaccine shipments are lower right now and the higher numbers aren’t guaranteed, that the government has these mass clinics up already – Moe said the whole point is to show that Saskatchewan is ready.

When more vaccine doses start coming in and the clinics open people in the priority phases will be contacted by the Saskatchewan Health Authority either directly or by mail to book an appointment.

Out-of-province travel

With the new COVID-19 variants getting more and more common in other parts of Canada, the government of Saskatchewan is updating its guidelines on inter-provincial travel.

The government still highly recommends not travelling between provinces but if people do, they’re being advised to get tested when they come back and then tested again seven days later.

“We know no one wants to bring a different variant back to Saskatchewan and introduce it to their friends and their community,” said Moe.