At a briefing on Wednesday, Chief Medical Officer Jennifer Russell and Premier Blaine Higgs shared the latest vaccination stats for the province. Just shy of 13% of people 12 and over have now had two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.
- At least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine
- 522,838 people
- 66.85% of the population
- 75.45% of the population 12 and over
- Two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine:
- 89,188 people
- 11.41% of the population
- 12.87% of the population 12 and over
“It is indeed exciting to see how many New Brunswickers are signing up for the second vaccine across all age groups,” said Higgs Wednesday. “This continued activity could allow us to reach the green stage earlier than expected.”
In its ‘path to green’ reopening plan, the province set a goal that would mean an end to all public health restrictions: 75% of all eligible New Brunswickers vaccinated with two doses. The plan predicts this could happen by August 2, though so far the timeline predictions in the plan have been either early or late.
In order to reach the next 75% threshold, 430,000 second doses still need to be administered.
In Sackville, the pharmacies continue to administer doses. The Corner Drug Store will receive another 840 shots of Pfizer and Moderna next week. However the Vitalité Health Network is taking a break in offering clinics at the Tantramar Civic Centre. The next clinic on offer is about a month away, on July 14.
Premier Higgs said Wednesday he wasn’t aware that Vitalité Health Clinic has decided to cut back on vaccination clinics in Sackville, but that he would look into it.
“The fact that the clinics are not available in Sackville until mid-July would be news,” said Higgs in response to a question from CHMA. “I’m sure it’ll be something that we’ll discuss later in the evening, about where our clinics are.”
“We’re ramping up and that means all over the province,” said Higgs. “So that’s news to me about Sackville, and certainly I’ll be looking into that.”
Higgs mentioned the rollout at pharmacies, and wondered whether Sackville’s pharmacies would be taking up the slack from Vitalité clinics. “I would anticipate that the pharmacies are able to maintain and keep up to any sort of requirement,” said Higgs. “Maybe they’re thinking that demand, they can manage it through the pharmacies.”
Pharmacies in Sackville have indeed administered a large share of the vaccine doses in the region. The Corner Drug Store, which hired extra staff to administer vaccines, had given over 2700 shots as of June 3. It’s not known how many shots have been administered at Vitalité clinics, because the health network won’t share the numbers. CHMA requested the information on June 8, and has yet to receive the numbers.
The last Vitalité vaccination clinic in Sackville was June 5. The next will be July 14, and Vitalité has also informed the town that they may host another two weeks later, on July 28.