Moderna shorts Canada again

OTTAWA — Canada will receive 82,000 fewer doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine in the next shipment, leaving the company to fill a 1.3-million dose shortfall in March in order to meet the federal government’s targets.

The reduction is the latest blow to the federal government’s vaccine deliveries which have also seen Pfizer significantly reducing the doses Canada has received in recent weeks.

Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin, who is in charge of the federal vaccine rollout, said Thursday Moderna had assured the government Canada will receive the full two million doses it was promised by the end of March.

“We have no reason to doubt that. We’re in constant discussion with them,” he said at a press conference in French.

The next shipment of Moderna is expected to arrive in Canada the week of Feb. 22, and will include 168,000 doses, Fortin said. That’s down from the 250,000 the government had originally expected.

Fortin said the government has been told to expect another two shipments to arrive in March, though he couldn’t specify exactly when they will arrive or the amount of vaccines that will be included in each shipment.

Moderna began regular delivery of its vaccine in December. Its last shipment at the beginning of the month was also about 20 per cent short of what the company had promised. By the end of February, Moderna will have delivered just short of 700,000 doses in just over two months.

Fortin also said the government still expects to receive the promised four million doses of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine by the end of March. Pfizer was supposed to deliver 1.15 million doses of its vaccine over the past four weeks, but instead only received 339,000, according to the Canadian Press.