First Nation offered vaccines to those outside community to avoid wasted doses – CBC

Pandemic Response Team doesn’t encourage opening eligibility, says unused doses will go to other First Nations

Apr 07, 2021

A southern Manitoba First Nation struggling to entice its members to be vaccinated allowed more than 100 people outside of the community to get the shot to prevent the doses from being wasted.

Dennis Meeches, the chief of Long Plain First Nation says word got out about a vaccine clinic, which was held last Wednesday in Portage la Prairie, Man., and dozens of people showed up to line around the block.

He says the clinic was meant to provide doses for on and off-reserve members, but only 69 members were immunized that day, and the vaccines were set to expire in 10 days.

“The numbers weren’t the best for Long Plain members so we extended that to employees, off-reserve members, employees and then we went a little bit beyond that,” Meeches said.

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/long-plain-first-nation-covid-19-vaccine-1.5978208