That number dropped by half this season, between October 2025 and January 2026, when about 230,000 COVID-19 vaccines were administered.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This comes after Alberta\u2019s United Conservative Party government made it much harder for its residents to get vaccinated against the pandemic virus this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Alberta Vaccine Dashboard\/Alberta.ca<\/p>\n
Changes include a $100 \u201cadministrative cost\u201d<\/a> up front at a public health clinic for most Albertans. For those who find a pharmacy to get the shot instead of at a designated public health clinic, there may be an extra charge depending on the pharmacy.\u00a0<\/p>\n Initially, Danielle Smith\u2019s UCP government wanted even healthcare workers <\/a>to pay for COVID-19 vaccines \u2014 only seniors in supportive-living and people who are immunocompromised qualified for an exemption.\u00a0<\/p>\n They reversed this decision in August for some workers, after nurses<\/a> and healthcare workers<\/a>\u2019 unions advocated at the bargaining table for free, voluntary vaccines for their members.\u00a0<\/p>\n Still, Gallaway says this data shows COVID-19 vaccines are now too expensive and inaccessible for most people in a province that has a documented vaccine hesitancy problem \u2014 having been the epicentre of Canada\u2019s measles epidemic <\/a>that led to the loss of our measles elimination status last year \u2014 and a respiratory illness season that is overwhelming hospitals<\/a> like never before.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we\u2019ve heard over the last few months is extreme frustration from Albertans who were trying to use the booking system to get the vaccine, and also frustration from Albertans who were told they would have to pay if they wanted to get it,\u201d Gallaway said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe [booking] system online, it was confusing, it didn\u2019t always work, it was clunky, people couldn\u2019t figure out where or when they might be able to get an appointment [and] there would be weeks where there wasn\u2019t one available.\u201d<\/p>\n Anecdotally, Gallaway said his organization has heard from Albertans who left the province to get vaccinated, on trips to BC, US, Mexico or elsewhere. In BC, which had a higher vaccination rate than the national average<\/a> in 2024, the COVID-19 vaccine was explicitly made free to all Canadians who travelled there.\u00a0<\/p>\n In October<\/a>, federal health minister Marjorie Michel said the feds would not step in to help people in Alberta and Quebec \u2014 the only other province to implement a fee and other barriers to access \u2014 afford the COVID-19 vaccine.\u00a0<\/p>\n According to Gallaway, neither the provincial nor the federal government will address another major oversight in Alberta\u2019s restrictions to free COVID vaccine access.<\/p>\n \u201cAlberta\u2019s COVID vaccine rollout meant that [Indigenous people] could only get a free vaccine if you were getting it in your home community in reserve, so if you are an Indigenous person living in Edmonton, you do not have access to free vaccination clinics,\u201d Gallaway said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe wrote to both the federal and provincial ministers to say, \u2018You\u2019re violating people\u2019s treaty rights. You need to solve this.\u2019 They both pointed to each other as the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n The UCP\u2019s justification for instating a fee and other barriers to accessing COVID-19 vaccines was that this would reduce the number of \u201cwasted\u201d vaccine doses, citing a $135 million cost in 2023-24. <\/p>\n The party\u2019s MLAs and Premier Danielle Smith have also been spouting<\/a> and touting<\/a> anti-vaccine rhetoric since she won the UCP leadership race in 2022<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n There are now countless large-scale, peer-reviewed studies to show that COVID-19 vaccines save lives.\u00a0<\/p>\n The latest, a global JAMA Network study<\/a>, found that between 2020 and 2024, conservative estimates indicate that COVID-19 vaccines have averted 2.5 million deaths and lengthened the lifespans of people 60 and above.\u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile the latest available Canadian data<\/a> \u2014 from June 2021 to January 2022 \u2014 shows people who were not vaccinated against COVID-19 had a far greater likelihood of being hospitalized or dying due to the virus.\u00a0<\/p>\n Source: Public Health Agency of Canada report<\/p>\n In Quebec, where the vaccine costs between $150 and $180 for most people besides healthcare workers, seniors, and other high-risk groups, the government also cited high costs of wasted vaccine doses in prior years as its rationale.\u00a0<\/p>\n There, like in Alberta, hospitals are overwhelmed<\/a> by an early respiratory illness season, and a new measles outbreak<\/a> with nine confirmed cases is currently underway as of Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n According to Sant\u00e9 Qu\u00e9bec, the Crown corporation that coordinates the province\u2019s health system, 1.1 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered across the province so far, since the start of this season\u2019s immunization campaign on October 6. This number is down from 1.4 million during the same time period last season, and 1.6 million the year before.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the first campaign with stricter eligibility criteria,\u201d a spokesperson for Sant\u00e9 Qu\u00e9bec wrote in an emailed statement to PressProgress.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe cannot distinguish between doses administered through the Quebec Immunization Program and those administered privately; however, we can state that the vast majority of the latter were administered free of charge.\u201d This quote has been translated from French, for clarity.<\/p>\n Neither Alberta\u2019s ministry of primary and preventative health services, nor the Premier\u2019s office has responded to PressProgress\u2019s repeated requests for comment in time for publication.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a government that\u2019s anti-science and that is pandering to a very niche right-wing base that the Premier thinks she needs to keep happy, rather than looking at what\u2019s best for Albertans or our health care system,\u201d Gallaway said.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Our journalism is powered by readers like you.<\/p>\n We\u2019re an award-winning non-profit news organization that covers topics like social and economic inequality, big business and labour, and right-wing extremism.<\/p>\n Help us build so we can bring to light stories that don\u2019t get the attention they deserve from Canada\u2019s big corporate media outlets.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/CANADA-Vaccine-info-.png\")
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