Alberta’s decision to reduce access to publicly funded COVID-19 vaccines so far appears to set the province on a different course than many other Canadian jurisdictions.

Most Albertans will no longer be eligible for a free COVID-19 shot this fall.

The provincial government recently announced plans to limit coverage to specific high-risk groups, including Albertans living in care homes and group settings, those receiving home care, people on social programs such as AISH, and immunocompromised individuals.

All other seniors, pregnant Albertans and health care workers are not included, despite strong recommendations by the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) that they should be vaccinated. NACI also recommends that everyone else may receive an annual dose.

The Alberta government has cited vaccine waste as a key reason for its decision. It pegs the cost at roughly $110 per dose and estimates $135 million worth of vaccines have been discarded.

“I think over the last number of years we’ve seen Alberta become more of an outlier when it comes to vaccine policy and vaccine programming,” said Dr. Samir Sinha, a geriatrician and director of health policy research at the National Institute on Ageing.

“As far as I know right now Alberta is the only province in the country that has diverged from the NACI recommendations.”