Pfizer already assuming six doses per vial
But Canada hasn’t yet approved any changes
OTTAWA — Pfizer and BioNTech are already assuming Canada will agree their COVID-19 vaccine vials contain six doses instead of five and are using that to project how many vials they will send Canada in the coming weeks.
Pfizer only formally requested Jan. 22 that Canada join the United States and Europe in changing the vaccine’s authorization to reflect that extra dose. That would mean they could ship fewer vials of vaccine to Canada and still meet their contract to ship four million doses by March 31, and 40 million by the fall.
Deputy chief public health officer Dr. Howard Njoo said Thursday that Health Canada is still reviewing the request to formally change the label and is examining whether that sixth
dose can be extracted consistently enough to warrant a formal adjustment.
But Pfizer is already using the six doses as it calculates how much vaccine Canada is going to get for all shipments after Feb. 8.
A document distributed to the provinces Thursday shows they will be getting 2,722 vials of vaccine between Feb. 8 and March 31. By Pfizer’s math, those vials contain 3.2 million doses of vaccine.
But using Canada’s math, at five doses per vial, there are only 2.7 million doses currently allocated for Canada in that time frame, which would leave Pfizer half a million doses shy of its contract.
“Pfizer is using a different calculation than my team is currently using,” said Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin, the military commander brought in to manage logistics for the federal vaccine rollout.
But Fortin said Pfizer is still committed to four million doses by the end of March, “full stop.” If Canada rejects the change, Pfizer would send more vials to account for it, he said.
The differing numbers left provincial governments confused and angry Thursday. While the chart they were given clearly lays out that Canada and Pfizer are using two different calculations, provincial leaders professed exasperation.
“We can’t vaccinate people when we aren’t getting vaccines and when we aren’t getting accurate information from the federal government,” said Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe.
A spokesperson for Moe’s government said Saskatchewan has been able to get six doses from about half its vials of Pfizer vaccine so far, but it is not consistent.
“Due to this inconsistency, health officials view the ability to draw additional vaccine as a surplus benefit, not a benchmark to plan for,” said communications director Jim Billington.
Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott said her province has asked workers to do what they can to get that sixth dose.
“It really, really helps us when we have the shortage of vaccines coming in right now from Pfizer,” she said.