Dosages of Canada’s vaccines will be handed out to provinces based on population, an Alberta Health spokesperson says.

That would mean how many doses each province gets will be decided by how many people it has — not how many health-care workers, how many cases it’s facing, or how many seniors live there.

“Provinces and territories did not place orders, allocations are being provided by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) on a per-capita basis,” spokesperson Tom McMillan said.

“Per Alberta’s perspective, we’re following the same approach we’ve taken to all vaccines which is that all the provinces work with the federal government to come together.”

The distribution model could become complicated if dosages of the vaccine are available in waves — and not all at once — forcing government officials to prioritize who first gets the vaccine.

Dr. Howard Njoo, Canada’s deputy chief public health officer, said on Tuesday it’s likely the first phase of the vaccine rollout won’t see enough doses for everyone “all at once” and instead will come in “batches.”

Raywat Deonandan, an epidemiologist and professor at the University of Ottawa, said per capita distribution is not the right plan — particularly if there’s a limited amount of the vaccine.

Imagine a Canada that doesn’t have provinces, he said. “You would send it to where it is needed without having to consider the ancient Canadian curse of the federal-provincial divide.”

“If you have a limited resource, you apply that resource strategically, not politically, not equitably,” said Deonandan.

“It’s just not the time for equity, strangely enough. This is a time for strategic application,” he said.

“Maybe you should distribute it based upon, not the per capita, but the actual cases per capita. If not that, then maybe the deaths per capita. If not that, then maybe who is closest to health-care capacity overrun,” he said.

When asked about per-capita distribution, PHAC did not offer a direct answer and said final plans were still being worked out.

“Final key populations for early COVID-19 immunization will be determined by (the National Advisory Committee on Immunization), once more is known about the vaccines for Canada and their delivery schedule,” the agency said in a statement.

“Allocations of vaccines and rollout will be determined by (federal, provincial and territorial) governments, informed by NACI advice.”

The Alberta government spokesperson said it’s using the recommendations provided by NACI as a starting point for distribution.

Those guidelines say vaccines should first be distributed to vulnerable populations like seniors, those with underlying medical conditions and front-line health-care workers.

Just how the COVID-19 vaccine will be distributed and to who has become a hot topic after two drug companies announced successful early results.

Last week, Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech announced their vaccine candidate showed signs of being 90 per cent effective. Canada has signed on to purchase 20 million doses of that vaccine.

Then on Monday, Massachusetts-based Moderna said early results showed its vaccine candidate was 94.5 per cent effective. Canada has inked a deal with Moderna for 56 million doses of its vaccine.

Njoo said the current goal is to vaccinate the vast majority of Canadians by the end of 2021. The government is hopeful that January could mark the beginning stages of a national rollout of vaccines.

While there’s no law that states the public health agency must do it that way, per capita makes the most sense given the complexity of trying to decide who gets the vaccine first, said Katherine Fierlbeck, a professor political science at Dalhousie University. Provinces could also choose to redistribute vaccines between each other, she said.

“(PHAC) had guidelines (during H1N1) but it was up to the provinces to put the guidelines into action,” Fierlbeck said. “Different provinces did things differently, as they do, and there was a lot of confusion.

“The distribution of anything is political.”

Just getting the vaccine to the provinces will not be easy. The Pfizer vaccine requires ultracold storage of minus 80C. The Moderna vaccine would only require temperatures that a standard household refrigerator could provide.

With files from Tonda MacCharles

Kieran Leavitt is an Edmonton-based reporter covering provincial affairs for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: