It appears as if the initial doses of a COVID-19 vaccine will not be available in Canada’s North.

This morning, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the federal government is buying 249,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, which requires ultra-cold freezers.

Those initial doses will be not be made available in any of the territories due to a lack of suitable equipment, national media reports stated.

The 249,000 doses will be distributed on a per-capita basis to health care workers and long-term care residents as the priority groups.

Initial comments from Yukon government officials were cautious.

“We are happy to hear that vaccine roll-out is moving forward,” cabinet spokesperson Matthew Cameron said in an emailed statement.

“We have conversations with the federal government this week, including with the Prime Minister.

“While no vaccines have been approved by Health Canada yet, we expect to have information on vaccine availability and distribution for Yukoners as early as this week.”

On Friday, Premier Sandy Silver said an announcement on when a COVID-19 vaccine will be available to the public could come as soon as later this week.

Silver met with reporters to discuss the latest developments to ongoing situation. That included new recommendations from federal health officials regarding vaccine distribution.

Dr. Theresa Tam, the chief public health officer of Canada, announced Health Canada was recommending the first people to be treated with any of the potential vaccines should be front-line health care workers, the elderly, and Indigenous communities.

That places the Yukon in a very good position to have priority access to the vaccines, Silver said.

“What I can say is that I had a conversation last night (Thursday) with minister LeBlanc (Dominic, the minister of Intergovernmental Affairs),” Silver said.

“What I said was we’re getting a lot of pressure for a distribution plan, and he understood that. My comment to him was that it makes no sense to have dribs and drabs of the vaccine coming up here to the Yukon.

“We want to see it all at once, one mass amount for us. We want all of our doses right away.

“We have proven through our flu vaccines, where we had a record year this year, that we have the ability to distribute it.”

Silver said the guidelines proposed by Tam have “the right language.

“The Yukon has precisely the proper demographics and population size to make it feasible to handle the full vaccine load in one go,” he said.

“I’ve been telling the federal government we want to be prioritized. We have a very loud voice at that table, and I’m cautiously optimistic that our requests will be adhered to.”

Silver said he would be “very, very surprised” if the discussions with the federal government, the provinces and the territories aren’t formalized by this week.

After that, he said he believed actually distributing the vaccine “won’t be that complicated” once the Yukon receives supplies of it.

“Whether you’re getting a flu vaccine or a COVID vaccine, it’s a very similar process,” Silver said.

“Once the vaccines are here, we could do it alone or we could do it in partnership (with other agencies).

“Once we know, it’ll be very quick to confirm what we’re doing. Nobody wants to get this information out more than I do. All the way through the pandemic, people have wanted to make sure the message gets out about where we want to be. I appreciate the pressure, but information will come very quickly.”

Tam’s suggested guidelines were welcomed by both Yukon Party Leader Currie Dixon and NDP Leader Kate White.

“We’ve said all along that we agree with the premier’s position and the government’s position that the North should be treated differently and a strict per capita model would be insufficient for our needs,” Dixon said.

“We know that there are more seniors in our territory than are coming in the first round. Our question all along is how we keep distributing this. There are logistical issues and decision-making issues.

“This is something we’ve asked numerous times, and I think if you’re a senior or an elder in our territory, will you participate in this vaccine or not,” Dixon said.

If there is “some special top-up for the North, we haven’t seen it,” he said.

“We would like some clarity as to how this is going to work and we think Yukoners are interested in knowing how this is going to work.

“People are going to be clamouring for this, and we are going to need a solid distribution system. I think it would be better served to communicate those decisions now.

“The vaccines could be distributed as soon as December,” Dixon added.

“That’s what we’ve been asking.”

White said she hadn’t had a chance to examine Tam’s guidelines, but she had some knowledge of it.

“When it comes to vaccine distribution, people are looking for information,” she said

“Yukoners are smart. Plans here have changed and evolved as time has gone on. People expect the plans will change.

“People are able to adapt and change, but they need some information” White added.

“The sharing of information is really important right now. I think being in government and trying to shield yourself from criticism is a hard thing to hear. We’re in elected spots, and we face a great deal of criticism.”

People are looking for leadership, White added.

“You can release information and tell people this is how we expect it to look. Any information right now is helpful.”

See related stories in today’s local news section.