Alberta expanded eligibility for second doses of COVID-19 vaccine on Friday. Since then, more than 250,000 Albertans have booked their second shot.
On June 18, Premier Jason Kenney said anyone who received their first dose of vaccine during or before May could book their second dose through an Alberta Health Services clinic, participating pharmacy or physician’s office.
The health minister said Friday’s announcement made an additional 1.1 million Albertans eligible for their second dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
Second doses will help us not just be #OpenForSummer, but open for good!
That’s why it’s so great to see 250,000 Albertans already book their second dose after we announced May first-dose recipients could get fully vaccinated.
Don’t forget ➡️ https://t.co/cuT30TiLgY pic.twitter.com/Tbfxi4t4N4
— Jason Kenney (@jkenney) June 20, 2021
While Alberta’s percentage of partially vaccinated people is lower than the national average — standing currently at 70.6 per cent — it has the highest proportion of fully vaccinated eligible people at 28.6 per cent.
So far, Alberta has distributed 3,775,674 doses of COVID-19 vaccine.
Alberta Health confirmed 100 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday out of 4,878 tests. That put the provincial positivity rate at about 1.8 per cent.
In a tweet, Dr. Deena Hinshaw explained: “Over the last 24 hours we identified 100 new cases, of which 89 were new since yesterday. The remaining 11 cases were probable cases that occurred previously but have since been confirmed.”
There were 2,127 active cases across the province as of Sunday.
There were 214 Albertans in hospital with COVID-19, 53 of whom were in intensive care.
One additional fatality was reported to Alberta Health in the last 24 hours. A woman in her 80s with comorbidities died in the Calgary zone.
After hitting the 70 per cent partially vaccinated threshold on Thursday, Kenney announced Alberta will enter Stage 3 of its “Open For Summer” plan on July 1.
