National Post (National Edition)
Trudeau says more vaccine coming
OTTAWA • Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged vaccines deliveries into Canada would continue to grow in the weeks and months ahead as provinces began to catch up with prior deliveries.
Trudeau said earlier in the week he was frustrated with the pace provinces were administering the vaccines the federal government has supplied. Provincial premiers pushed back this week and said they would soon run out if the federal government doesn't deliver more. Trudeau said Friday he promised premiers up to date information on deliveries so they could be ready to roll out doses.
“The need for predictability allows provinces, to schedule deliveries, to schedule inoculations, to have the most efficient possible system,” he said.
“And as soon as we get more information from the companies, we will pass that immediately along to provinces, so they can plan.”
Currently there are two vaccines approved in the fight against COVID, one from Pfizer and the other from Moderna.
According to Maj.-Gen Dany Fortin, who is overseeing the federal deliveries, Pfizer will deliver 208,000 doses per week for the remainder of January and then ramp up in February to approximately 366,000 doses per week.
Moderna will deliver 171,000 doses next week, a similar delivery in the first week of February and then upwards of 250,000 late in February. Before the end of March, Pfizer is set to deliver a total of four-million doses to Canada and Moderna will deliver two million. Including the doses delivered in December, the government expects 1.2-million doses to be delivered by the end of January and an additional 1.9 million in February.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who has been criticized for a slow rollout of the vaccines, said his province has now picked up the pace and will need more doses soon.
“All of Ontario will be out of Pfizer vaccines by the end of next week, my friends, we are all hopeful that the federal government will get us more vaccines.”
Ford said hospitals in Toronto and Ottawa were already running out and would have to cancel appointments to vaccinate people this weekend. According to information complied by the COVID-19 Open Data Working Group, Ontario has received approximately 148,000 doses of the vaccines so far and administered 87,000 of them.
The working group comprises researchers from the University of Toronto and University of Guelph. They estimate the federal government has distributed 436,000 doses so far, and the provinces have injected 234,000 of them into high-priority groups.
Ford said Trudeau is working aggressively to get the vaccines, but said his province is in a desperate situation.
“He is working his back off. He is trying his very best. He really is,” he said. “He understands the situation we are all in.”
Ford's call for more vaccines comes as COVID cases continue to rise in his province and across the country. He pleaded with residents to limit their contacts, and stay at home as much as possible as hospitals face strains.
“If these basic measures continue to be ignored the consequences will be more dire. The shutdown won't end at the end of January and we will have to look at more extreme measures.”
Procurement Minster Anita Anand said the provinces have increased the amount of people they're vaccinating and she said she is pleased more doses are being given.
“The provinces' work to date, especially over the past week has been impressive as they increase their own capacity to administer vaccines.”
The government has previously pledged to have enough vaccines available in Canada so everyone who wants one will receive it by September. That includes a total of 60-million doses from Pfizer and Moderna, enough to vaccinate 30 million of Canada's 38-million people.
Anand said getting enough for everyone will require more companies' vaccines to be approved, but she remains confident in the targets.
“We know that two additional vaccine candidates are in rolling review with Health Canada, being AstraZeneca and Johnson Johnson, and so the numbers that we are using for our predictions are based on the assumption that the vaccines that we have procured will indeed be approved by Health Canada.”
AstraZeneca's vaccine has been approved in other countries and is easier to ship and store than either Pfizer or Moderna's vaccine. The Johnson and Johnson candidate is a one-dose vaccine, potentially simplifying the inoculation effort.
Dr. Supriya Sharma, Health Canada's chief medical advisor, said reviews of both vaccines are well underway, but they still need more information from some of the companies.
“The reviews are progressing and progressing well. We're working very closely with our international partners but there's still some questions before we make a final decision.”