Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin, the military commander leading vaccine logistics at the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), said today Canada doesn’t know how many Moderna doses will arrive in the weeks ahead and the company hasn’t said why it has reduced shipments to our country.
Speaking to reporters at a public health briefing, Fortin said 180,000 Moderna doses arrived this morning but the government has no “visibility” on how many more shots will be delivered this month and next.
Despite these unknowns, Fortin said Canada is still expecting two million Moderna doses to be delivered by the end of March to meet the prime minister’s promised vaccination targets.
According to a planning document disseminated to the provinces this week, PHAC has already warned provinces to expect disruptions with the next scheduled Moderna delivery, which is set to arrive on Feb. 22.
The Massachusetts-based company, which delivers shots every three weeks, told Canadian officials last week that the shipments for the week of Feb. 1 would be reduced by 20-25 per cent, and now it appears this month’s second shipment is also likely to be lower than expected.
“Moderna reduced shipment quantities for the week of 1-7 Feb. (from 230,400 to 180,000 doses). The week of 22 Feb. will also be impacted, but Moderna cannot confirm allocations for that week yet,” the PHAC document sent to the province reads.
Fortin said he had no idea just how many doses will be on hand by the end of the month, but he knows it will be less than expected.
“I can’t really tell you what the quantity will be. We don’t expect to receive 249,000 at this time,” he said, referencing the figure the company had previously provided. “We’ll soon be able to share that with provinces, in confidence. We just don’t know what those numbers are for certain.”
Trudeau tries to reassure provinces
Fortin conceded that the dearth of information is “a real limitation in the short term,” saying he understood why provinces are frustrated that they’ve had to cancel appointments and push back second doses as a result of the severe delivery disruptions.
“I completely understand that it’s making it more difficult for provinces to prepare clinics,” he said.
Amid the anxiety over delivery disruptions, Trudeau spoke for close to an hour on a call with premiers late Thursday, according to multiple sources speaking to CBC News.
Trudeau sought to reassure some frustrated premiers that Canada is still on track to meet its delivery targets for the first quarter even with the companies revising down deliveries this month.
The provinces were told to prepare to quickly vaccinate people once deliveries return to a more normal pace next month, sources said.
WATCH | Moderna vaccine delays remain unexplained:
Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin says he’s not sure how many doses Canada will receive of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine in the weeks ahead and doesn’t know what’s causing the delay. 2:37
While Pfizer has offered some explanation for why its shipments have been dramatically lower than expected — plant upgrades at a facility in Belgium caused deliveries to drop by 80 per cent — Fortin said Moderna hasn’t said why it’s had to put off tens of thousands of doses to a later delivery date.
“They haven’t shared the specific challenges that they may experience in their yields or in their production,” Fortin said. “I think Moderna has indicated that they are, in good faith, trying their best to provide as many doses as possible.”
In a statement to CBC News, a spokesperson for Moderna said the company is trying to step up production at the European facilities that supply Canada with shots.
“Vaccine manufacturing is a highly complex process. In normal circumstances it may take three to four years to prepare for the industrial launch of a vaccine. Moderna is proud of its achievements to date with the support of its partners,” the spokesperson said.
While Canada’s Moderna supply will be curtailed this month, the company is churning out more shots in the U.S. Shipments there have increased by about 35 per cent in the last week.
We should not be drawing away from poorer countries — we should be having the capacity here. We’re a G7 country and we’re trailing.– Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole
The spokesperson said, because Moderna’s vaccine was partially funded by monies from former president Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed, it is obligated to send a certain number of doses to the U.S. this quarter.
“Moderna has provided short term revised delivery guidance outside of the U.S., including to the government of Canada, based on the ramp up trajectory of drug substance manufacturing in Switzerland,” the spokesperson said.
To meet the prime minister’s target of six million COVID-19 shots delivered by the end of March, more than 3.5 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna products will have to be delivered in the month of March alone — or roughly 885,000 doses a week.
Pfizer, which delivers its product weekly, is expected to deliver 79,000 doses this week and an additional 70,000 doses for the week of Feb. 8., before ramping up at month’s end.
Canada ranks 33rd on vaccine effort
Health Canada regulators are expected to approve another promising vaccine candidate — the product from AstraZeneca — in the “coming days,” which could give a jolt to Canada’s stalled vaccination campaign.
But for that product, too, Fortin said he didn’t know how many, if any, doses would be delivered in the coming weeks. He said PHAC has developed a number of possible delivery scenarios if AstraZeneca secures the green light, but that information would not be made public.
Canada has fallen behind other developed nations in the number of shots administered per capita as supply disruptions derail planned vaccinations.
According to data collated by the University of Oxford-based Our World in Data, Canada now ranks 33rd globally, well behind allies like the United States and the United Kingdom but also middle-income countries like Turkey and Serbia.
Canada’s vaccination effort has also been outpaced so far by those in Bahrain, Denmark, Germany, Israel, Italy, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain and the United Arab Emirates, among others.
Canada’s decision to tap COVAX supply draws opposition fire
The government, meanwhile, is under fire on another vaccine-related matter. Canada has opted to receive shots from COVAX, a vaccine-sharing initiative funded by wealthier countries to ensure low- and middle-income countries have access to shots.
In announcing funding for the initiative last year — Canada is among the most generous financial donors to the program — the prime minister said the country intended to draw on the COVAX supply to bolster the vaccination campaign at home.
But now some opposition leaders say it is an embarrassment that Canada is intending to rely on this program for additional doses. COVAX has said Canada will receive at least 1.9 million AstraZeneca doses from the program by the end of June.
Green Party Leader Annamie Paul said Canada’s move to take doses from COVAX could prolong transmission of the virus elsewhere and allow more variants to mutate.
“This is the wrong decision, this is the wrong time to make this decision,” she said.
“People in Canada do not want this kind of decision made in their name. So, we are asking for the government to either rescind this decision, or alternatively make up for whatever doses it has taken out by returning them to the COVAX facility so that our international neighbours can enjoy the same protection we do; so we can get out of this pandemic together.”
As the only G7 country slated to draw doses from the COVAX facility, Paul said the decision also harms Canada’s international reputation.
During question period, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland defended the Liberal government’s decision to tap into COVAX vaccine supply. 1:06
Speaking in question period, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said the government will do it all can to bolster Canadian supply, even if it means tapping a program principally designed for developing countries.
“Our government will never apologise for doing everything in our power to get Canadians vaccinated as quickly as possible,” Freeland said. “We’ve been clear from the start: no one will be safe until everyone is. We’re focused on getting Canadians vaccinated while making sure the rest of the world is vaccinated too.”
Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole declined to say if he would accept the supplies from COVAX if he were prime minister, insisting Canada would not be facing this dilemma under his leadership.
“It’s hard for me to divorce the inaction of the government over the last 10 months with what I would do today. We would not be in this position today because last year I was asking for independence on everything from PPE to vaccine manufacturing,” he said.
“We should not be drawing away from poorer countries — we should be having the capacity here. We’re a G7 country and we’re trailing,” he said.
While a laggard compared to many other wealthy nations, Canada has administered more shots per capita than G7 partner Japan.
Japan, with a population of 126 million people and just 5,400 COVID-19-related deaths, hasn’t yet started its vaccination campaign. Unlike Canada, Japan is planning to produce 90 million shots of the AstraZeneca vaccine domestically.
TORONTO – Roots Corp. may have built its brand on all things comfy and cosy, but its CEO says activewear is now “really becoming a core part” of the brand.
The category, which at Roots spans leggings, tracksuits, sports bras and bike shorts, has seen such sustained double-digit growth that Meghan Roach plans to make it a key part of the business’ future.
“It’s an area … you will see us continue to expand upon,” she told analysts on a Friday call.
The Toronto-based retailer’s push into activewear has taken shape over many years and included several turns as the official designer and supplier of Team Canada’s Olympic uniform.
But consumers have had plenty of choice when it comes to workout gear and other apparel suited to their sporting needs. On top of the slew of athletic brands like Nike and Adidas, shoppers have also gravitated toward Lululemon Athletica Inc., Alo and Vuori, ramping up competition in the activewear category.
Roach feels Roots’ toehold in the category stems from the fit, feel and following its merchandise has cultivated.
“Our product really resonates with (shoppers) because you can wear it through multiple different use cases and occasions,” she said.
“We’ve been seeing customers come back again and again for some of these core products in our activewear collection.”
Her remarks came the same day as Roots revealed it lost $5.2 million in its latest quarter compared with a loss of $5.3 million in the same quarter last year.
The company said the second-quarter loss amounted to 13 cents per diluted share for the quarter ended Aug. 3, the same as a year earlier.
In presenting the results, Roach reminded analysts that the first half of the year is usually “seasonally small,” representing just 30 per cent of the company’s annual sales.
Sales for the second quarter totalled $47.7 million, down from $49.4 million in the same quarter last year.
The move lower came as direct-to-consumer sales amounted to $36.4 million, down from $37.1 million a year earlier, as comparable sales edged down 0.2 per cent.
The numbers reflect the fact that Roots continued to grapple with inventory challenges in the company’s Cooper fleece line that first cropped up in its previous quarter.
Roots recently began to use artificial intelligence to assist with daily inventory replenishments and said more tools helping with allocation will go live in the next quarter.
Beyond that time period, the company intends to keep exploring AI and renovate more of its stores.
It will also re-evaluate its design ranks.
Roots announced Friday that chief product officer Karuna Scheinfeld has stepped down.
Rather than fill the role, the company plans to hire senior level design talent with international experience in the outdoor and activewear sectors who will take on tasks previously done by the chief product officer.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Mediated talks between the union representing HandyDART workers in Metro Vancouver and its employer, Transdev, are set to resume today as a strike that has stopped most services drags into a second week.
No timeline has been set for the length of the negotiations, but Joe McCann, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1724, says they are willing to stay there as long as it takes, even if talks drag on all night.
About 600 employees of the door-to-door transit service for people unable to navigate the conventional transit system have been on strike since last Tuesday, pausing service for all but essential medical trips.
Hundreds of drivers rallied outside TransLink’s head office earlier this week, calling for the transportation provider to intervene in the dispute with Transdev, which was contracted to oversee HandyDART service.
Transdev said earlier this week that it will provide a reply to the union’s latest proposal on Thursday.
A statement from the company said it “strongly believes” that their employees deserve fair wages, and that a fair contract “must balance the needs of their employees, clients and taxpayers.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
MONTREAL – Travel company Transat AT Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter compared with a profit a year earlier as its revenue edged lower.
The parent company of Air Transat says it lost $39.9 million or $1.03 per diluted share in its quarter ended July 31.
The result compared with a profit of $57.3 million or $1.49 per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue in what was the company’s third quarter totalled $736.2 million, down from $746.3 million in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Transat says it lost $1.10 per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of $1.10 per share a year earlier.
Transat chief executive Annick Guérard says demand for leisure travel remains healthy, as evidenced by higher traffic, but consumers are increasingly price conscious given the current economic uncertainty.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
