Vaccine supply from Europe remains secure: PM
Canada’s contract to get two million doses of Moderna’s vaccine by March 31 will be fulfilled
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he received further reassurance this week that Canada’s expected supply of COVID-19 vaccines is secure.
Trudeau says he spoke Tuesday morning with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen about Europe’s vaccine export controls and Moderna chair Noubar Afeyan Monday about the company’s Canadian contract.
He said von der Leyen reiterated that Europe won’t stop Canada’s shipments. She later tweeted that Canada is a “cherished friend” to Europe.
A spokesperson for the European Commission told The Canadian Press last week that every request for vaccine exports has been granted so far, with 37 countries receiving them, including Canada.
Trudeau said Afeyan, whose company cut deliveries to Canada this month while it struggles to fully ramp up production in Europe, promised him the company will make good on the final 1.3 million doses of Moderna’s vaccine to meet its contract to supply two million doses by the end of March.
Moderna has an earnings update for investors scheduled for Feb. 25 and is not expected to report any more details on its production situation until then.
Trudeau’s Liberals are breathing an almost audible sigh of relief as deliveries of vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech are restored following four weeks of slowdowns while a plant in Belgium was expanded.
“We are on schedule to receive our single largest Pfizer vaccine shipment to date and next week we are expecting an even larger shipment again,” Trudeau said
Tuesday morning.
Pfizer is now scheduled to ship 3.1 million doses to Canada between this week and March 31. The delayed deliveries from Pfizer and Moderna sent Canadian confidence in the vaccine rollout plummeting faster than the temperature in a polar vortex and Ottawa is bearing much
of the blame.
Trudeau said he knows everyone will feel better “as we see doses coming into Canada, getting into people’s arms” and repeated his now almost-daily promise that every Canadian who wants to be vaccinated will have that chance before the fall.