We're ready to handle vaccines, Anand says
Companies told doses won't go to waste here
OTTAWA • As 2021 becomes the year of the vaccine, Canada's Procurement Minister Anita Anand has a pitch for the pharmaceutical companies producing millions of doses of COVID vaccine for an anxious planet. Canada is ready. Pfizer and Moderna, the two front runners in the vaccine race, currently hold a product the entire world wants and Anand's job every day is to convince them to send more and more of it to Canada. A major part of that pitch is that sending their product to Canada ensures the vaccine won't go to waste.
“We procured syringes and needles and sharp containers and gauze and bandages and cotton swabs in the millions to ensure that we could get these items out to the provinces and territories to support their vaccination efforts at a local level,” she said.
Anand said that readiness was a major factor in Pfizer agreeing to deliver vaccines to Canada in December in advance of the original shipment that was planned for January.
“We were able to get early doses of the Pfizer vaccine because we were ready, because we had the logistics in place across the country to receive and administer doses.”
Pfizer is set to deliver 255,000 doses this year. Moderna, whose vaccine was approved by Health Canada on Wednesday, has committed to delivering 168,000 this month.
Anand said along with Health Minister Patty Hajdu she wrote to the head of Pfizer emphasizing all the measures Canada took to be ready to distribute vaccines to everyone who needs them.
“Canada is in a position to accept delivery of vaccines as soon as they are available. We look forward to continued close collaboration in delivering a supply of safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines to Canadians,” reads the letter.
The government is set to receive four million doses of the Pfizer vaccine and two million doses of Moderna's candidate by the end of March. In total, Canada has been guaranteed 20 million doses of Pfizer's vaccine and 40 million doses of Moderna's and has options for more from both companies.
A source, speaking on background, said Canada expects a significant increase in the volume of vaccines deliveries in the second and third quarter of next year, with almost all of Pfizer and Moderna's doses delivered by the end of September.
Those companies' full orders would allow the government to inoculate 30 million people. The government is also hopeful other vaccine makers will see their candidates approved after testing, which is still underway.
Last week Pfizer released a statement saying it had doses ready to go to U. S. states, but the American government hadn't dictated where to send them.
“We have millions more doses sitting in our warehouse but, as of now, we have not received any shipment instructions for additional doses,” said the statement.
Canada is setting up more and more sites each day to administer vaccines, what began with 14 is now dozens across the country. Anand said she makes it clear to vaccine companies that Canada is ready to accept the doses as soon as they are produced.
“Our full court press with the vaccine manufacturers, is simply to say, ` Please know that Canada is ready now to receive vaccines,' so that they can be assured that we will immediately utilize those vaccines.
All of Canada's vaccine procurements include options for more doses than the initial guarantee companies made. Anand said at this point whether Canada exercises those options will depend on whether the companies can make deliveries this year, ideally early next year.
“What drives our decisions, in large part, relating to the exercise of options, is the ability of the vaccine manufacturers to assure us that they can deliver these vaccines in an accelerated timeline.”
Anand said she was disappointed with the Conservative opposition for continuously arguing that Canada was “at the back of the line” for vaccines, or would be well behind the world.
“When the opposition party was continually saying that Canada was at the back of the line, I found those interventions unhelpful, because of the misinformation that they were continually providing to the Canadian public.”
Conservative health critic Michelle Rempel Garner said they were simply trying to wade through the government's often conflicting information.
“Their story changed, on when we were getting vaccines and how many doses, how many times?” she asked.
I ANTICIPATE A SIGNIFICANT GROWTH IN QUANTITIES AVAILABLE IN FEBRUARY AND MARCH.