Europeans will wait just one week for their Pfizer shipments to return to normal levels, while Canadians will wait for four weeks, writes Tasha Kheiriddin in the National Post. Below is an excerpt from the article which can be read in full here.
By Tasha Kheiriddin, January 21, 2020
Sick of lockdown? Want your life back? Get the vaccine. That is, if it’s available. Last Friday, Pfizer announced it would be shipping Canada only half the number of vaccines originally planned for next month, as it retools its production facility in Belgium. On Tuesday, Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin, who oversees the federal vaccine rollout, said Pfizer has now deferred all shipments to Canada for next week.
Canada was supposed to receive 735,150 doses between Jan. 18 and Feb. 14, following the 600,000 doses delivered to date. Not anymore. Provincial governments are now scrambling to rework their vaccination plans — at a time when the pandemic is raging and a more contagious strain of the virus is spreading.
Why is Canada at the back of the line? Conservative health critic Michelle Rempel Garner dumped it squarely in the lap of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. “It’s up to the prime minister to explain to Canadians why they won’t be able to get vaccinated for months, while European countries have minimal delays in receiving vaccines … why we might be looking at many more months of lockdown — with the lost jobs, time with families, and mental-health challenges that accompany them.”
***TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE, VISIT THE NATIONAL POST HERE***
