Premier Jason Kenney will join Alberta Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw for an update on COVID-19 Thursday afternoon.
The update comes after Hinshaw said Wednesday a framework for loosening public health restrictions would be coming soon.
Meanwhile, Health Minister Tyler Shandro said in a Thursday statement Alberta will receive 63,000 fewer COVID-19 vaccines than expected in the first quarter of this year.
Shandro criticized the federal government’s handling of the vaccine rollout, noting that for the third time this month, Ottawa had notified the province that its Pfizer vaccine allocation will be slashed again.
“The federal government is failing Canadians. This is a grim situation that seems to be getting worse every week. We know that life for Canadians will not begin returning to something resembling normal until our most vulnerable are immunized. Prime Minister Trudeau, Health Minister Hajdu, and Public Services and Procurement Minister Anand need to come clean with Canadians and fix this now. Anything less is unacceptable,” he said.
As of Jan. 26, the province had administered 101,123 doses of COVID-19 vaccines and 11,362 people are fully immunized with two doses.
Alberta reported 459 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, for a total of 8,203 active infections, and 12 additional deaths.
Kenney and Hinshaw will speak at 4:30 p.m.
