Vaccinations should be happening 24-7, says health critic

Office hours only for COVID vaccine shots, weekends off, piles of vaccine waiting on shelves to be distributed and doses going to waste.

BC health critic Renee Merrifield is on a rampage to improve all of this vaccine ineptitude.

"The (NDP) government definitely doesn't have enough distribution," says Merrifield, who is also the Liberal MLA for Kelowna-Mission.

"They've had a year to get ready for this, yet it's all still so chaotic, so haphazard."

As of today, BC has received 1.4 million doses of novel coronavirus vaccine, yet only 946,000 doses, or 67.4%, have been administered.

That means 454,000 doses are sitting on shelves waiting to be shot in someone's arm who desperately needs it.

"The health minister is bragging that 46,000 doses of vaccine were administered in one day," says Merrifield.

"Yet, we need over 70,000 doses administered daily if we are to meet the deadline of everyone getting a first dose by the end of June. We are falling farther and farther behind with every passing day."

Merrifield is pushing the government for a full, mass vaccination.

"We need to be firing on all cylinders," she says.

"Yet most places where vaccinations are offered are only open daytime, office hours. Some vaccination centres were shut down over the Easter long weekend and when it gets to the end of the day there are doses left over. If someone scheduled to get a vaccine cancels or doesn't show up there should be a stand-by list so people can be called to come in and get the vaccine on short notice."

Every drug store in the province should be a vaccine hotspot, according to Merrifield, and pharmacies that already have 24-hour openings should be administering the vaccine around the clock.

"This isn't reinventing the wheel," she says.

"It's using facilities and expertise we already have to get the vaccine in the arms of as many British Columbians as quickly and efficiently as possible."

As the province announced a record-high daily count of 1,293 new COVID cases, Merrifield said the public is rightfully afraid more restrictions may be next.

"If there are, they should be region by region restrictions," she said.

For instance, tougher restrictions in the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley where there are higher concentrations of the virus and fewer restrictions on Vancouver Island and the Interior where the pandemic isn't as bad.

"We have to be cognizant that we have to save the economy and save people's mental health," says Merrifield.