Nunavut’s chief public health officer says the government is working to get the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for teens, but he says there is no timeline on when doses might arrive.
Dr. Michael Patterson says Nunavut is looking at swapping doses of Moderna for doses of Pfizer, as the Northwest Territories has already done.
Last week, Health Canada approved the Pfizer vaccine for use in young people 12 and older, but Nunavut only has the Moderna vaccine.
Patterson also says there has been outdoor transmission of COVID-19 in Iqaluit, including among people on smoke breaks at work sites and between kids playing together outside.
He says almost one-quarter of Iqaluit’s cases are people under the age of 18.
There are 69 active infections in Iqaluit, a city of about 8,000, and four people have been hospitalized in Ottawa.