New Brunswick political parties are accusing the province’s official Opposition of politicizing the COVID-19 vaccine.
The accusation came after a Thursday question period dominated by demands from Liberal MLAs for details on the province’s plan for the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out.
Liberal health critic Jean Claude D’Amours demanded details on the province’s plan from PC health minister Dorothy Shephard.
Shephard repeatedly answered that the plan was relayed to the interim-Leader of the Liberal Party who had received a briefing on the plan at a meeting of the COVID Cabinet committee on Wednesday evening.
After the heated exchange, Green Leader David Coon told media that he hoped the Liberals aren’t trying to politicize the delivery of COVID-19 vaccine.
“It’s too important to get this right, to ensure we have the full confidence of the public on the vaccine roll-out to be using it as a political football,” said Coon.
People’s Alliance Leader Krist Austin also called the exchanges in question period an example of political posturing.
The New Brunswick Emergency Measures Organization (EMO) provided details on how the COVID-19 vaccine will be delivered when the initial doses arrive next week.
The first round of vaccinations will be carried out at the Miramichi Regional Hospital, which has an ultralow-temperature freezer to store the vaccine
Greg MacCallum, director of the New Brunswick EMO, said it could take much of the next year to administer vaccines to everyone in the province.
Shephard said the 1,950 doses of the Pfizer vaccine will be used to inoculate long-term care residents and staff, as well as staff from provincial rapid COVID-19 response teams, ambulance workers, health-care workers involved in COVID units, seniors 85 and older and First Nations nurses.
MacCallum said his vaccine task force was in the process of finalizing how many people from each priority group would get shots in the initial round.
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