Now that dose-one mobile vaccine clinics are finished in rural communities near Kamloops, people who did not get a first dose still have a chance to do so.

Interior Health chief medical health officer Dr. Albert de Villiers says vaccine clinics will  be returning to many communities.

And for now, he says people who live reasonably close to a mass vaccine clinic can go there.

“We do not like people travelling too much, but if the travel isn’t too far and you live in a close-by community then you’re welcome to go a close-by community as well,” de Villiers says.

“But we’ll definitely come back to some of these smaller communities. Some of the smaller communities we started relatively early, so we’re probably going to get to dose two in the near future, and then at that time, people can come in and get the dose one as well, as soon as we set up a clinic,” he says.

“My understanding is they are going to go back to some of these communities, and be able to get some more vaccine in there, run some more clinics, if we see the rates are lower. To see if there’s actually more people who need it.”

Interior Health has had vaccine clinics in nine rural communities in the Thompson-Nicola region, with larger clinics in Kamloops and Merritt. A full list of mobile clinics hosted by IH can be found here.

De Villiers also says he doesn’t know yet what the uptake has been on vaccines in rural communities, where every adult has been offered their first dose.

“We are working at getting more granular, specific information for each community. And I know there is going to be something released provincially at the Local Health Area level around rate of infection and rate of vaccine. We haven’t seen the final one yet, but that is coming soon,” he said last week.