Nova Scotia has reached a new milestone in its immunization efforts as it announced Tuesday that 800,000 doses have been administered so far.
Premier Iain Rankin celebrated the new milestone while touring a new COVID-19 vaccination clinic at the Halifax Convention Centre.
Rankin said the goal now is to ramp up the administration of second doses while still getting first doses into arms.
He said the province will beat the deadline of having 75 per cent of people vaccinated by September.
“I believe that more and more people I’m hearing that are advanced by two months for their second shot. So we’re going to continue to ramp up,” Rankin told Global News.
“We’ve asked for more supply. The federal government delivered with significantly more supplies, and now we’re building up our capacity and we should be getting close to it by the end of the summer. Most people will have their second dose,” he added.
Rankin said the new clinic will also help in ramping up vaccination efforts. What makes it different from other clinics is that anyone who is 12 and up can walk in and get their first done of the vaccine, if they haven’t done so already.
The clinic also has a testing unit downstairs.
“This is about trying to get to everyone. We want to hit 85 per cent and we’re continuously looking at ways that we can provide more accommodation to people that may have more availability at night or on the weekends,” said Rankin.
The clinic will start its operations on Friday.
“We hope to see people coming out as they’re frequenting restaurants and things like that downtown, that they’ll make this as part of (their routines) because it’s convenient,” he said. “So we think this is the perfect location.”