Saskatchewan residents should soon be able to roll up their sleeves to get the latest\u00a0COVID-19\u00a0vaccine.<\/p>\n
Michael Fougere, CEO of the Pharmacy Association of Saskatchewan, said he expects the province’s fall immunization program to roll out on Oct. 14.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“You can go to your pharmacist and make a reservation for this any time now,” he said, adding those booking ahead will still have to wait until at least Oct. 14 to receive the vaccine.<\/p>\n
Fougere said the immunization program will run until March 2026 and there will not be any kind of fees associated with receiving a COVID vaccine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We’re pleased the province is\u00a0fully supporting COVID through the season,” he said. “Other provinces are not doing that.”<\/p>\n
Neighbouring Alberta\u00a0is one of a few provinces that has announced it will be restricting the free COVID vaccine to specific groups considered to be high risk. Other Albertans will have to pay $100 to receive the shot as of Oct. 1.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Joseph Blondeau, head of clinical microbiology at Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon, said\u00a0he is just starting to see a spike in respiratory illness.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“This is not atypical,” he said about the timing of the province’s immunization program being rolled out.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We certainly want to get those out before the respiratory season is fully here, and it’s not fully here yet,” said Blondeau.<\/p>\n
He urged people to get vaccinated against both the flu and COVID.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Blondeau said the virus that causes COVID-19 is still around and constantly changing. He said there is strong data around the\u00a0vaccine that indicates it prevents severe disease and hospitalization in most patients.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“None of us want to get severely infected and require hospitalization,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In an email to CBC News Thursday, the province said it plans to announce the full details of the fall immunization program in the coming days. It emphasized the COVID-19 vaccine will not come with a charge, as it is part of the provincially funded immunization program.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Saskatchewan residents who have a valid Saskatchewan health card are eligible to receive a publicly funded COVID-19 vaccine,” a spokesperson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saskatchewan residents should soon be able to roll up their sleeves to get the latest\u00a0COVID-19\u00a0vaccine. Michael Fougere, CEO…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61686,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[134,527,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-61685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}