Manitoba’s health minister says a team of public servants, minus the province’s top doctor, has been enlisted to get a COVID-19 vaccine into the arms of as many people as possible.
But Cameron Friesen said the provincial task force is restrained by circumstances beyond their control.
“There is only so much advanced planning that we can do until we are in need of the detail that only the federal government can provide,” Friesen told reporters Wednesday.
As the first batch of COVID-19 vaccines is slated to arrive by early 2021, Manitoba insists its task force devoted to the coveted shot in the arm is doing everything possible, before then.
The province said the task force is preparing for the needs of each vaccine candidate, such as freezer capacity, by identifying the resources Manitoba already has and those it still requires.
Manitoba Health Minister Cameron Friesen said the province has a task force equipped to ensure a smooth rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine. (John Woods/The Canadian Press)
The group is speaking with key stakeholders, participating on national vaccine committees and ensuring the province has the means of tracking new vaccines from inventory to uptake, the government said in an email.
The task force will also make decisions on vaccine priority groups, as well as the logistics of receiving, storing and distributing it.
“This work involves significant risks, it involves significant contingency planning,” Friesen said.
“But those things, we will be ready for. We need the federal government, though, to say what’s happening.”
Friesen went on to cite the United States’ COVID-19 task force, named Operation Warp Speed, and implied that Canada’s effort might be lagging behind.
“It seems that we have a slow-lane approach to vaccine, at least expressed thus far from the federal government,” Friesen said.
Ottawa has deals in place to buy the vaccine and distribute them to provinces and territories, but Friesen said over the past week that Manitoba doesn’t know much in terms of vaccine, distribution and storage planning.
He said a phone call Tuesday involving his federal counterpart, Patty Hajdu, didn’t alleviate his concerns.
Premier Brian Pallister told a national audience on CBC’s Rosemary Barton Live Sunday that Manitoba needs national criteria to ensure fairness in distributing a vaccine. He added that vulnerable people and health-care workers are expected to be first in line.
WATCH | Manitoba’s premier says vaccine rollout should be equitable:
Brian Pallister cautions against ‘piecemeal’ plans for access to COVID-19 vaccines and wants a standard in place across all provinces and territories. 1:28
The province said in an email Wednesday that Manitoba has received an estimate on the number of available vaccine doses from the federal government, but would not reveal what that number is.
Other provinces, including Saskatchewan and Ontario, have revealed an estimated dosage.
Manitoba’s task force will be comprised of staff from various government departments, including Health, Seniors and Active Living, Finance, and Central Services.
Dr. Brent Roussin will not be at the table, Friesen confirmed.
“Our chief provincial public health officer is very busy with his assigned duties, so therefore, we cannot task him also with this,” Friesen said, “but we have expertise here. We have taken a whole-of-government approach.”
The NDP’s health critic said Roussin’s voice shouldn’t be missing from the table.
“I was surprised to hear that Dr. Roussin wouldn’t be taking the lead in terms of what the vaccine’s going to look like once it reaches Manitoba and how that those decisions are going to be made,” Uzoma Asagwara said.
They added that the province should focus less on blaming Ottawa and more on preparing.
“We know it ends up with us being in a position to react instead of being proactive,” Asagwara said.
“Where they’ve made many mistakes during this pandemic,” Asagwara said of the government, “this is an opportunity to get it right.”
Doctors Manitoba wants to be consulted
Doctors Manitoba, which represents physicians in the province, has yet to be consulted by provincial officials on vaccine rollout. President Dr. Cory Baillie hopes that will change.
“At this point, we’d like to ensure that physicians are involved in deciding who receives the vaccine first and ensure that physicians are involved in giving the vaccine,” he said.
“We know that physicians have built up trust with their patients and we think building on that trust is going to be very important in order to ensure maximum uptake in the population of the coronavirus vaccine.”
Friesen has previously said the vaccine distribution plan will be guided, in part, by the annual flu vaccination campaign, with some notable distinctions.
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador‘s chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says that so far this year, the province has recorded 230 confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable respiratory tract infection, also known as pertussis.
Late last month, Quebec reported more than 11,000 cases during the same time period, while Ontario counted 470 cases, well above the five-year average of 98. In Quebec, the majority of patients are between the ages of 10 and 14.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick has declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province. A total of 141 cases were reported by last month, exceeding the five-year average of 34.
The disease can lead to severe complications among vulnerable populations including infants, who are at the highest risk of suffering from complications like pneumonia and seizures. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, then progress to severe coughing accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.
“The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Department said in a statement.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective way to control the spread of the disease. As a result, the province has expanded immunization efforts this school year. While booster doses are already offered in Grade 9, the vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students as well.
Public health officials say whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s acting chief medical officer of health expects the current case count to get worse before tapering off.
A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere. The Pan American Health Organization issued an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
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