The Saskatchewan Trucking Association is glad to see truck drivers based in Saskatchewan receive their COVID vaccines in North Dakota.

It comes after a Memorandum of Understanding was signed by the province and the state to allow for roughly 2,000 truck drivers to receive the vaccine.

STA Executive Director Susan Ewart says there’s been very little transmission among the trucking community.

“If you think about what’s going on in Saskatchewan today and with transmission increasing and those variants happening, and access to vaccines, this is definitely a great move between Saskatchewan and North Dakota for them to provide us some assistance to help get more people vaccinated.”

Ewart says there may be other states offering vaccines in the coming weeks.

“We start with somewhere,” Ewart said. “North Dakota definitely is our closest neighbour, and so we’re really happy with where we’re going to be able to set up.”

Ewart says right now, there’s one spot outside of Drayson, North Dakota for truckers to get the shot.

“They are working on another site closer to North Portal,” Ewart said. “That’s going to be coming fairly quickly — we’re just working on logistics as far as where that’s going to be set up, but it’ll still be something a little bit closer to North Portal. We have a lot of Saskatchewan drivers that are using that crossing as well, so a couple of different spots for them to stop and get their vaccine will be great.”

It comes after Manitoba signed a similar agreement with North Dakota about a week ago.