It seems the H1N1 pandemic and the vaccine associated with it are both reaching their peaks.

At an announcement at Regina's Healthline call center office on Thursday Deputy Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Saqib Shahab and Health Minister Don McMorris announced that the vaccination clinics will open to the general public early next week. The exact time and date will be up to the individual health regions, but Shahab expects all should be making the change by Wednesday.

The Health Ministry is continuing to ask that people seeking a shot not all show up at once. The immunizations will continue to be held in mass clinics in larger centers and Shahab says the 66,500 doses arriving on Monday could be followed by as many as two more shipments in the following week. He says its unlikely that clinics will run out before those doses are shipped, so there should be no rush. 

Shahab says the roll-out seems to be doing its job, as the reality of infection rates appears less severe than what was planned for.

"A lot of the planning assumptions were based on worst-case scenarios like a third of the population getting ill, much higher levels of hospitalization. What we are seeing is higher than usual numbers of hospitalization but certainly nowhere near what was planned for."

Shahab also indicates that the virus may be reaching the peak of its second wave. That's based off B.C.'s experience with the virus, as its second wave of H1N1 started a few weeks prior to Saskatchewan's. Shahab expects that could happen within in a few weeks.

However it appears the virus may still be taking a toll as there are another two deaths being investigated that could be tied to H1N1. Earlier this week another two deaths were confirmed as H1N1-related, bringing the total in Saskatchewan up to nine.