Boasts about province's untapped vaccination capacity ridiculous when most doses in freezers - Winnipeg Free Press

The Pallister government can boast all it wants about having the capacity to immunize all eligible Manitobans by the end of April.

But if over half the province's vaccine inventory is still sitting in freezers, officials don't have much of a leg to stand on.

The province had received a combined 38,890 doses of the vaccine as of Wednesday and had injected 12,409 of them (32 per cent of its inventory).

Premier Brian Pallister claimed last week that if the province had enough vaccine from the federal government, it could immunize all Manitobans by the end of March?

This week, officials came up with an alternative claim: all Manitobans could be inoculated with two shots by the end of April if enough doses were available.

Premier Brian Pallister claimed last week that if the province had enough vaccine from the federal government, it could immunize all Manitobans by the end of March.

How they could do that when they can’t even keep up with existing federal supply is a mystery.

The Pallister government should spend more time getting vaccines into Manitobans' arms today and less making baseless claims about what it "could" do.

What they don’t say is they’re also receiving shipments every week from the federal government that will supply most of that.

They have to ensure they have 4,100 doses for Brandon next week and 2,500-odd doses per week for personal-care homes over the next month.

However, much of that will be supplied by the thousands of doses coming in every week; 9,360 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine (which increases to 16,380 per week next month) and 23,400 doses of Moderna over the next seven weeks.

The poor vaccine planning is made worse by the woeful lack of information the province is providing to the public

Despite a pledge to publish an online dashboard to provide Manitobans with up-to-date information on vaccine inventory, injections and other logistical details, officials have decided to reduce daily updates to three times a week

On Sunday, the province reported it had received a total of 22,230 doses of the Pfizer vaccine

It’s exactly what the federal government said Manitoba would get this week

Manitoba is also scheduled to receive 7,400 doses of the Moderna vaccine this week

The way the Pallister government sees it, the less Manitobans know about the rollout, the less insight they have into how deficient it is