Vaccination lottery could be coming to Alberta

Albertans have answered the call and gotten their first dose of COVID vaccine.

Active cases are down by 40 per cent from June 1 and Premier Jason Kenney says it's thanks to the vaccines.

Albertans who have received their first dose vaccination in March or earlier have now booked their second dose and those who were vaccinated in the month of April would be able to book their next shot on June 14th and that those vaccinated in May would be able to do that on the 28th.

"We are speeding up the second doses for Albertans who received their first shot in the month of April and we're doing that a week ahead of when we planned," Kenney says. "This's means an additional 640,000 Albertans can start booking their second doses right now."

There have been fewer than 500 adverse reactions to the vaccines with more than 3-million doses administered.

The premier is even looking at following the actions that Manitoba and some U.S. states have taken to entice people to get their first dose as the demand starts to wane, a lottery.

"I've asked that a little more research be done on that, I believe (Health) minister (Tyler) Shandro will be coming back to our emergency management cabinet committee with options on that next Monday, we just want to make sure the cost of that would be justified by the uptake in vaccines, in part by observing how this has worked in the U.S. but it's become quite a widespread thing down south."

There are 306 people in hospital with 81 in intensive care units.

Locally, there are 50 active COVID-19 cases in Grande Prairie and 41 in the County of Grande Prairie.