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In two weeks, starting Jan. 31, deliveries are expected to drop by 50% — from 143,000 doses to 71,500.
During the week of Feb. 7, deliveries are expected to be 45% lower than promised with regular deliveries starting the week of Feb. 14.
“The impact is huge,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Monday.
Officials working on the provincial plan described a logistics nightmare of having to change gears. Instead of ramping up to vaccinate a record number of people, they’re trying to ensure that those who have received the first shot get their second.
It was the same reaction in Alberta.
“We’ll have to delay the number of planned vaccines for eligible health-care workers, and the vaccinations to other Albertans,” Premier Jason Kenney said.
“This week, new shipments of Pfizer vaccines will not be enough to match our pace of inoculation, and so appointments regrettably will have to be rescheduled.”
While Kenney mused about trying to find other vaccine supplies elsewhere, Ford said he wants Ontario to ramp up vaccine production in the future.
Contrary to what many have claimed, Canada still has vaccine manufacturing capabilities.
There have been attempts by the Liberals to blame the Harper Conservatives, or even Brian Mulroney’s government, for Canada not being a player in vaccine manufacturing. It’s nothing but politics.
The Mulroney government sold off what had been known as Connaught Laboratories to a French firm in the ’80s. Today, it’s the Connaught Campus of French vaccine giant Sanofi Pasteur and is Canada’s largest vaccine manufacturer.
