Premier Jason Kenney to provide update on Alberta’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout

Premier Jason Kenney is scheduled to provide Albertans with an update on the province's COVID-19 vaccine rollout Monday morning.

The premier is scheduled to speak about the progress of Alberta's COVID-19 vaccine distribution at 11 a.m. MT. Global News will stream the announcement live in this story post.

Appearing on Shaye Ganam's show on the Corus radio network earlier Monday morning, the premier said he anticipates at least 300,000 doses of vaccine will be administered in Alberta this week.

Kenney said the province's direction to Alberta Health Services has been to keep vaccine inventory as low as possible, but admits it takes some time to distribute the supply after it arrives in the province.

“We're going as fast as we can,” Kenney said.

On Monday morning, Alberta began Phase 2C of its vaccine rollout plan, with more than 240,000 additional health-care workers now able to book their immunization appointment. This group includes nurses, doctors, dentists and any health-care workers in patient care facilities or those who provide direct patient care in the community.

Read more: Alberta's COVID-19 vaccine rollout expands to front-line health-care workers on Monday

Due to limited vaccine supply, all other groups in Phase 2C will become eligible in the coming weeks.

Also Monday, a rapid flow-thru vaccination site was set to open at the Edmonton Expo Centre where, once fully operational, 154 vaccination stations will have the capacity to complete more than 7,100 immunizations per day.

Read more: Edmonton Expo Centre will open as COVID-19 vaccination site April 12

More than 1.7 million Albertans are now eligible to book a COVID-19 vaccine appointment, according to the province.

Those who are eligible for vaccination can book an appointment via the AHS online booking tool, by calling 811 or through a participating pharmacy.

As of April 9, Alberta had administered 847,630 doses of COVID-19 vaccine and 163,532 Albertans had been fully vaccinated with two doses.

As of Sunday, there were 14,293 active cases of COVID-19 in Alberta, with variant cases of concern making up 50.5 per cent of active cases. View link »