The province just issued an "Update on Nova Scotia's COVID-19 Immunization Plan" 
Today's COVID briefing is scheduled to start at 3pm. I'll be live-blogging it here.
We're about to start, 22 minutes after scheduled start.
McNeil repeats today's number (it's 1).
McNeil: New Brunswick is kinda out of control, so we gotta be careful.
McNeil: the first community clinic for those over 80 will start Feb. 22 in Halifax. (as per press release upthread)
Strang: we've had very low numbers and "this is good news" but things could change.
Strang: vaccine supply is still "unpredictable"
Strang: there's been a drop off in asymptomatic people getting tested, probably because they don't think there's much risk. But we encourage people to get tested.
Strang: repeats vaccine numbers. (see here: halifaxexaminer.ca/featured/1-new…)
Strang: our low numbers allow us to keep holding back the 2nd dose
Strang: we now have 10 cold storage sites.
Strang: starting Feb. 11, people in LTC homes will start getting their second dose.
Strang: at the end of April or in May, when we get a continuous and dependably large number of vaccines, we'll expand community clinics.
Strang: "the facts are clear" that an age-based approach is the best and safest.
Strang: so age based will be our first stream. Second stream is work-based — health care workers and people who live in congregate living situations (jails, shelters, TFWs), truck drivers, rotational workers, large food precessing plants.
Strang: we'll also focus on African NS and Indigenous communities.
Strang: the decisions we've made on sequencing vaccination have been well thought-out.
Strang: the first 80+ community clinic will be Feb 22-25 at IWK, and will be by invitation only, randomly selected.
Strang: people who don't get the invitation should be patient.
Strang: in the weeks after, we'll have 10 community clinics. By early March we'll have the first pharmacy-based clinics.
Strang: compliance inspectors completed over 260 inspections over the last week, and compliance is high.
Strang: we'll have an update on restrictions on Friday.
Q. will restrictions on restaurants be relaxed for the Super Bowl?
McNeil: No.
McNeil: No.
Strang: for that first Halifax clinic, it will be a small # of people — 300 to 400 — who will get vaccinated. We're learning how to do it.
Strang: during mass vaccination, even people here temporarily (like students) will be able to get vaccinated
McNeil: we're hoping and praying that New Brunswick numbers come down. But we put public health first, so we're not changing the travel restrictions.
Strang: in terms of testing for variants, our first criteria is for travellers, and since basically all our cases right now are travellers, we're sending them all off for testing.
Strang: we're trying to figure out how to do the gene sequencing here in Halifax
Strang tells me that everyone should expect "some" level of COVID restrictions through the summer, even as more and more people get vaccinated.
I asked Strang about what the thinking is about vaccination passports *for tourists* coming into NS through the summer, but he responded with an answer for people who already live here.
Strang hints that there will be an announcement Friday re spectators at sporting events.
Laroche asked something along the lines I had wanted to, which is basically more of Strang's thinking on age cohorts as being the best approach for vaccination.
Strang replies that age is "by far" the biggest risk factor, and the complications of verifying other factors (this essential worker versus that one, etc) will muck the whole system up and slow things down.
Presser is over.
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