There was good news to consider as Interior Health's Chief Medical Health Officer Albert de Villiers held a news conference today.
The Health Canada approval of the Pfizer vaccine means the immunization process could begin here in the interior soon.
News of the vaccine approval comes on a day where Interior Health is reporting 81 new cases with four patients currently in intensive care. Initial vaccine stockpiles will be stored in Vancouver and Abbotsford, but it's expected there will be doses arriving in the interior in the weeks ahead.
"The obvious risk groups are the people in long term care," explained de Villiers, "and the people who care for the people in long term care."
He added that initial plans will likely involve taking the vaccine to the patients rather than the other way around.
"Those are people that aren't easily movable," said de Villiers. "So we will most likely have to go to them and go give the vaccine there."
As more of the vaccine becomes available, it's expected that people will access the vaccine at public health clinics.
When KelownaNow asked members of the public about the vaccine approval today, there are still a lot of people who are resistant to the idea of taking the vaccine, and de Villiers addressed that with reporters.
"There will always be people that choose not to have the vaccine," he acknowledged. "I think part of our role in health is to explain to people that this is actually a safe vaccine."
He pointed out that while the timeline was shorter in the approval process, the testing process is the same. "It's gone through all the same rigorous testing," he said.
"I do understand that some people are not early adopters necessarily and they want to check out first what the side effects will be and how it's going to be before they do it themselves," he added. "There's nothing we can say against that other than, yes. It's a safe vaccine."
Premier John Horgan said he expects as many as 4,000 doses of the vaccine to go out as early as next week.
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