The health authority serving the Athabasca region is working to get children between the ages of five and 11 vaccinated.
Athabasca Health Authority (AHA) CEO Allan Adam said they have started administering the new children’s vaccines and added they have been seeing good uptake in one community in particular.
“Stony Rapids, I was just talking to the nurse this morning, in the community here, we did eight already, yesterday I believe and so in that area it is pretty good,” he said.
Adam explained nurses working in other communities served by the AHA are also preparing to offer vaccinations in their communities.
Overall vaccine uptake has been trending upwards in the Athabasca basin with some of the latest numbers showing over 80 per cent of people having received their first dose, while just over 50 per cent of people are now fully immunized.
“The communities (have) really become receptive to it,” said Adam.
While rolling out the vaccine for kids between the ages of five and 11 Adam said they have been running into hesitancy in some of their communities. He explained this hesitancy is in part due to the number of vaccines being made available, which includes seasonal flu shots along with COVID vaccines.
“People are just thinking, yeah, we’re being over needled here,” he said.
Educating people in the region about the vaccines is what Adam credits for the steady increase in vaccine uptake for those 12 and older. He added making people aware the fact that the Pfizer vaccine, which has been approved for kids is a third of the strength of the vaccine given to older people is important.
“There’s all kinds of different things that people need to be educated on,” said Adam.
Currently there are no active cases of COVID-19 in any of the communities served by the AHA. Adam said no new cases have been reported for six weeks now. He credits this to the increase in vaccinations and people taking the virus seriously.
“People really got to see that it is real and that information that we were sharing with the communities, the leadership and so forth that when COVID did hit that they acknowledged it and they knew that necessary action needed to take place,” he said.
(Photo Courtesy of Government of Saskatchewan)