A health-care worker holds up a vial of the AstraZeneca Covishield vaccine at a COVID-19 vaccination clinic in Montreal, Thursday, March 18, 2021. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson)
WINNIPEG — A delay in COVID-19 vaccine delivery from the federal government has Manitoba rescheduling immunization appointments at several pop-up clinics.
The province says delays in two deliveries of the Moderna vaccine is the culprit. A delivery of 28,300 doses expected the week of March 22 didn’t arrive until April 3, while an order for 28,400 doses expected this week will not arrive until next week.
“The province has carefully reviewed all available vaccine supplies in the province to minimize the effects of this supply disruption,” a bulletin said. “It is not possible to use Pfizer vaccine for pop-up clinics because these doses will be used at other vaccine appointments.”
Appointments booked at Glenboro (April 7), Matheson Island (April 8), Pine Dock (April 8), Faulkner (April 8), Whitemouth (April 8), and Piney (April 9) pop-up clinics will be honoured, but no additional appointments are being made. Other pop-up clinics scheduled this week will not be affected.
All 24 pop-up clinics scheduled from April 12 to 15 throughout the province will need to be rescheduled due to this supply disruption, with approximately 7,200 people affected. These include:
• Steinbach (April 12, 13, 14 and 15)
• Pine Falls (April 13)
• Stonewall (April 13)
• Flin Flon (April 13, 14 and 15)
• Virden (April 13)
• Russell (April 13)
• Gladstone (April 13)
• Pinawa (April 14)
• Eriksdale (April 14)
• Teulon (April 14)
• The Pas (April 14)
• Swan River (April 14)
• Killarney (April 14)
• Portage la Prairie (April 14 and 15)
• Arborg (April 15)
• St. Laurent (April 15)
• Beausejour (April 15)
• Dauphin (April 15)
Those people with appointments at the above pop-up clinics are being contacted by phone, email or text message. The province says those affected can choose to book an appointment at a super site or wait for another pop-up to be rescheduled. The pop-up clinics will be rescheduled based on vaccine deliveries.
More than two million doses of vaccines are set to arrive in Canada this week, including 1,019,070 doses of Pfizer, 855,600 doses of Moderna and 316,800 doses of AstraZeneca. Manitoba has so far administered 210,088 vaccine doses, while the province has received a total of 372,030 doses to date.
