People were lined up at a Kelowna pharmacy on Sunday morning hoping to get a dose of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
Lakeside Medicine Centre Pharmacy decided to hold a drop-in vaccine clinic to deploy the shots as quickly as possible.
Pharmacist Greg Andreen said the pharmacy received 400 doses, and around 230 people had made appointments to get one on Thursday or Sunday.
So instead of waiting for more appointments to be made, the pharmacy decided to run a drop-in vaccine clinic Sunday.
“The government wants these doses into people’s arms ASAP. We could have done it in the store starting this coming week but we thought we are going to be here Sunday morning anyway we might as well put it out there and just have it as a drop-in,” Andreen said.
The pharmacy’s effort to deploy the 400 vaccines as quickly as possible seems to have worked.
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Andreen said, as of 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, the pharmacy had distributed around 240 doses that day and it only had 25 doses remaining.
“We had a huge lineup here first thing in the morning … all of those people have been dealt with and we still have people filtering in,” Andreen said.
Andreen said some people have registered with multiple pharmacies in the hopes of getting vaccinated but have yet to get a dose.
“What makes the difference when you say, ‘first-come-first-serve’ … people know that if they are there in time, they are going to get a dose,” he said.
A list of B.C. pharmacies providing AstraZeneca vaccines to people 55+ is available here.
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