63-thousand 345 COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in Saskatchewan.
The province also announced that 81% of long-term care residents have received their first dose of the vaccine, while 46% are fully vaccinated.
In addition, 76% of residents of Saskatchewan’s personal care home have received their first dose of the vaccine, with 24% received their first and second doses.
A Pfizer vaccine shipment expected this week have now arrived in Saskatoon and Regina, while shipments for the North West, North Central and South West regions was expected to arrive today (Wed).
Vaccines Being Adjusted For Variants
The Director of the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO) at USask says research is being done on all variants of COVID-19.
Dr. Volker Gerdts says that means testing their own vaccine, and other vaccines, to see how they perform against the variants.
“We have adjusted our own vaccine now to the new variants to ensure that in the future our vaccine will be more effective,” Dr. Gerdts said. “Many vaccine manufacturers are doing that right now.”
This comes as seven confirmed cases of COVID-19 variants have been detected in Saskatchewan to date.
Six of them are the U.K. B 1.1.7 variant with one presumptive case in Saskatoon, and the seventh is the South African B 1.351 SA variant.
On Tuesday, the province announced 2 residents in the Regina region tested positive for the U.K. variant, though its not linked to travel at this time, but public health’s investigation continues. These individuals were tested at the end of January.
The presumptive case in Saskatoon is a person who was transferred from out-of-province for acute care.
One resident in the North Central, was tested at the end of January and the result came back positive for the South African variant.