Canada to receive Pfizer vaccine earlier than expected: officials
OTTAWA — Canada will start receiving its first doses of Pfizer Inc's COVID-19 vaccine before the end of December, sooner than expected, with millions more to follow in early 2021, officials said on Monday.
The news could help the minority Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau fend off attacks from opposition parties that have accused Ottawa of acting too slowly to tackle a worsening coronavirus second wave.
Officials had initially expected to receive a total of six million doses of vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna Inc. by the end of March.
That would be enough to inoculate three million people as both vaccines require two shots about a month apart.
But Trudeau said up to 249,000 doses of the vaccine Pfizer is producing with German partner BionNTech SE would arrive this month, and a further three million doses should be delivered at the start of 2021.
“It has been a difficult year, and we are not out of this crisis yet. But now, vaccines are coming,” he told a briefing, repeating that Ottawa expects health regulators to approve the Pfizer vaccine this week.
Several provinces are reimposing restrictions on businesses and limiting the size of gatherings as the number of new cases sets daily records. Canada has reported a total of 415,182 cases of COVID-19 and 12,665 deaths.
The doses will initially be delivered to 14 sites so priority groups such as health-care workers, the elderly and people living in remote Indigenous communities can be inoculated against the virus. The Pfizer vaccine was shown to be 95 per cent effective at preventing illness in a large clinical trial.
The armed forces will help with what Trudeau called the “incredibly complex” task of distributing the vaccines across what is the world's second largest nation by area, much of it remotely populated.
Erin O'Toole, leader of the official opposition Conservatives, said it was unacceptable Trudeau had not made clear when every Canadian would be vaccinated.
Shipment of vaccines could start in Canada within 24 hours after health authorities approve the shots, a top official with BioNTech told C theBC on Sunday, comparing it with the timeline achieved in Britain.
The vaccine jointly developed by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech is expected to be the first to secure approval in Canada, though the country has signed supply deals with seven manufacturers.
Since Britain approved Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine last week, taking pole position in the global race to begin the most crucial mass inoculation program in history, the focus has shifted to how quickly other countries could move and when the shots would be available to the public.
“If I used the U.K. as an example, we got approval at 1 a.m. in the morning, we approved the release of the vaccine and shipped it within 24 hours,” Sean Marett, chief business and chief commercial officer for BioNTech told the CBC.
The Pfizer and BioNTech contract with Canada requires the two drug makers to distribute the vaccine, which needs to be kept at around -70 C. Marett said he does not see distribution of the vaccine as a challenge at that low temperature in countries as vast as Canada or the United States because it is not a new technology.
Marett said the transportation is “well mapped out.”
“Together with Pfizer, we've designed a storage box ... in which the vaccine arrives. And you can use that as a minus 70 (Celsius) freezer,” he said.
A second wave of COVID19 is sweeping Canada, setting daily records for the number of new cases. So far, the country has reported 408,921 cases and 12,589 deaths. That has made vaccine roll-out a top priority for the government.
“This is a bit like the biological equivalent of a moon landing,” Marett said. But he added that from the UK experience, “we've seen things move pretty, pretty smoothly.”
Canada has doubled the number of doses of Moderna Inc.'s vaccine it has on firm order, Procurement Minister Anita Anand said on Friday, while the country's top doctor warned that daily new cases could top 10,000 by January.
“Canada is exercising options for an additional 20 million doses of the Moderna vaccine candidate. This will bring Canada's total allotment of this vaccine to 40 million doses to be delivered in 2021,” Anand said at a health briefing.
A regulatory review of the Moderna vaccine is ongoing.
Officials warned that Canadians will need to remain vigilant to slow the spread of the virus, even as vaccines begin to be rolled out.