The Province is planning on getting COVID vaccines into the arms of 9,000 health care workers.

Alberta's Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw says AHS is looking forward to the arrival of more vaccine doses soon and through the month of March.

"We're hoping to be able to move very quickly through the remainder of those Phase 1A individuals and to be able, within the coming weeks to initiate that Phase 1B and offer to community seniors" she says. "I know there has been keen interest in knowing exactly when that will start and how people can book appointments, and I expect that information will be coming very soon so people have more detail about what to expect and how they'll be able to access vaccine for seniors who are 75 and over."

Dr. Hinshaw says it'll be based on the year of birth, not the actual date.

She says they're already working on a plan to reach out to seniors who are part of the next group to get immunized.

Dr. Hinshaw says she's also been in contact with her staff on the ground at the Olymel plant in Red Deer to make sure all the workers are offered all the support they need for quarantine or testing.

She says the plant had been doing well.

"This particular plant has had sporadic cases, one or two at a time for several months and the processes that had been put in place at the plant site had been very successful in preventing any kind of spread and in fact there had been no cases for some time and there had been some consideration of closing down that outbreak," Dr. Hinshaw says. "Unfortunately I think there was a concurrence of a number of events that were not limited to events directly on that plant site and therefore we did see an increase in cases."

She local health teams have been on site working with Primary Care Networks to make sure every support these individuals need is provided to them.

As for local numbers High River now has eight active cases, Okotoks 19 and Foothills County nine.

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