BC’s top doctor is acknowledging the distribution of a possible COVID-19 vaccine is ‘not going to be easy’ but the province is doing everything it can to be ready to provide the immunization to British Columbians once it is approved and distributed to the province.
Pfizer said Monday that an early peek at the data on its coronavirus vaccine suggests the shots may be 90 per cent effective at preventing COVID-19. But Dr. Bonnie Henry says one of the major challenges with distribution is the vaccine must be stored at -70 C.
“We are working, the BC CDC has been working with Health Canada and the public health agency, and across this country, to make sure we have the logistics in place to get the vaccine as soon as it’s available and approved for use, as soon as the safety has been confirmed, and that we know who the vaccine is going to work best in,” Henry said.
“So those are the things that we’re working on, and I’m quite excited. I think it’s not going to be easy, but early in 2021, we should have the vaccine to add to our tools to stop this pandemic.”
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These are preliminary results that have been released by Pfizer and it’s a phase 3 trial in humans. There are about 44,000 people in the trial.
Vancouver-based Acuitas Therapeutics, a biotechnology company, is playing a key role through a technology known as lipid nanoparticles, which deliver messenger RNA into cells.
The province says the federal government is in charge of securing doses of the vaccine and allocating the vaccine to the provinces. But the expectation is British Columbia will be responsible for storing the vaccine at freezing temperatures and shipping it across the province.
“The challenging thing with this vaccine is that it needs to be stored at ultra-low temperature, -70. And so there’s not a lot of -70 freezers that are available in our communities, and it means the logistics of getting this vaccine are going to be complicated,” Henry said.
The other challenge will be who gets the vaccine first and how is it distributed. The province is learning from the flu immunization process where spaces like arenas and community centres are being used to ensure people can physical distance when waiting for and receiving the immunization.
The National Advisory Committee on Immunization has provided some early guidance on who they are recommending receives the vaccine once available.
Key populations include
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- Those at high risk of severe illness and death from COVID-19 including older people, those with high-risk conditions and those most likely to transmit COVID-19 to those at high risk of severe illness and death from COVID-19 and workers essential to maintaining the COVID-19 response
- Healthcare workers, personal care workers, and caregivers providing care in long-term care facilities, or other congregate care facilities for seniors
- Other workers most essential in managing the COVID-19 response or providing frontline care for COVID-19 patients
- Household contacts of those at high risk of severe illness and death from COVID-19
- Those contributing to the maintenance of other essential services for the functioning of society (e.g., police, firefighters, grocery store staff)
- Those whose living or working conditions put them at elevated risk of infection and where infection could have disproportionate consequences, including Indigenous communities
“The vaccine is going to be in limited supply. We’re not going to be able to give it to everybody at once,” Henry said.
“We can give it to people who are more likely to have severe illness and protect them. If we can protect our seniors and elders in the community and long-term care, if we can protect health care workers so that we can prevent outbreaks in our health care settings and make sure that we keep our health care system working, those are things that we need to focus on. It’s going to be challenging. We are thinking through all of the ways of making that work.”
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