Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the state of the pandemic is “frightening,” and is vowing that the number of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines being delivered to Canada will “scale up,” in February.
This week, more than 124,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine were delivered to 68 sites across the country, and over the rest of January Canada will receive more than 208,000 Pfizer doses per week. Referring to the vaccine delivery schedule as it stands amid provincial calls for more doses, Trudeau added that more than 171,000 Moderna doses will be delivered by the end of next week.
“Quantities of both the Pfizer and the Moderna vaccine will scale up in February. Remember that Canada has the most vaccines secured per capita in the world, which means that, by September, we will have enough vaccines for every Canadian who wants one,” he said during his national update on the COVID-19 response on Friday.
On Thursday night Trudeau held a call with his provincial and territorial counterparts about the pace of the vaccine rollout. After calling for premiers to get on with it, provinces and their health care facilities have accelerated their administration of immunizations and are now calling for larger deliveries of doses from the federal government, more quickly.
According to a readout from the cross-Canada call from the Prime Minister’s Office, the federal and provincial governments vowed to keep working together on the vaccine rollout, and also discussed the continued rise in COVID-19 cases and increasing outbreaks in long-term care homes.
