WORK TO DO
It will still be months before a COVID-19 vaccine will be widely available, Trudeau says
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is trying to offer Canadians modest hope about progress in testing and vaccine development after Canada notched an all-time high of new COVID-19 cases in a day.
Trudeau told a news conference Friday that the government is spending $214 million toward the development of COVID-19 vaccines, signing deals with two Canadian biotech firms.
But even as he touted Canada’s portfolio of potential vaccines, Trudeau warned it’s unlikely that any of these candidates will be ready to distribute to Canadians this year or early next year.
“We are hopeful that the vaccines will arrive yesterday, but they won’t,” said Trudeau. “There’s still a number more months of work to do.”
Trudeau said his government signed a $173-million contract with Quebec’s Medicago to secure the rights to buy 76 million doses of its vaccine, should it meet health and safety standards. The funding will also be used to establish a production facility in Quebec City, he said.
Ottawa is also investing $18.2 million in a potential vaccine from British Columbia’s Precision Nanosystems. Meanwhile, the National Research Council is spending $23 million to support other Canadian vaccine initiatives, Trudeau said.
The prime minister said Canada has signed six agreements with a number of companies taking part in the global race to
produce a safe and effective vaccine for COVID-19.
It’s reasonable to expect that vaccines will start to roll out at some point in 2021, said Trudeau, but even then, supply will be limited, and high-risk populations will be prioritized for inoculation.
The prime minister also said Canada has acquired “hundreds of thousands” of rapid test kits from medical company Abbott.
Two trucks carrying kits have already arrived in Ontario, said Trudeau, and provincial and territorial authorities will decide how to best deploy the tests as they’re rolled out.
Chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam said Friday that a record 2,788 new illnesses were reported Thursday, bringing the country’s total tally to just over 209,000.