OTTAWA —
After weeks of dose shortages, the federal government says it will still be a few weeks before Canada’s Pfizer deliveries fully ramp up to pre-interruption levels, while Moderna’s next shipment has yet to be confirmed.
Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin announced Thursday that Canada is expected to receive approximately 70,000 Pfizer-BioNTech doses next week, and that the number of doses coming in the next Moderna shipment slotted for the week of Feb. 22 is expected to be impacted, but how severely remains unclear.
The number of doses Canada’s been able to administer over the last few weeks has been affected in large part by Pfizer significantly reducing the number of doses it has been sending as it scales up its European facilities. However, Moderna — the second and only other currently approved COVID-19 vaccine in Canada — has experienced recent production problems resulting in slightly reduced deliveries to Canada.
This week, Canada received and distributed 79,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech to the provinces, and Moderna has sent 180,000 doses to be distributed in the coming days to sites in northern, remote and isolated communities.
Before Pfizer’s delivery delays were announced in January, Canada was planning on receiving up to 367,575 Pfizer-BioNTech doses this week, and this week’s Moderna shipment was supposed to include 230,400 doses.
Fortin said that Pfizer plans to scale up shipments later this month, forecasting shipments of at least 335,000 doses the week of Feb. 15, and 395,000 the last week of February.
Canada was expecting to receive 249,000 Moderna doses in the Feb. 22 shipment, now the government does not expect to receive that amount, “for a number of reasons” which Fortin did not elaborate on.
“I can’t really tell you what the quantity will be, but we do not expect to receive 249,000 at this time,” he said.
“This is a long game,” said Fortin, who is leading the logistics of Canada’s vaccine rollout, in an update.
He is vowing to keep the provinces and territories abreast of the evolving situation.
“I completely understand that it’s making it more difficult for provinces to prepare clinics and prepare the vaccine distribution sites,” said Fortin.
The government continues to state that by the end of March, Canada will meet its target of administering a total of six million vaccine doses, enough to fully immunize three million people, as part of the “Phase 1” vaccine rollout before opening up eligibility to millions more Canadians in the spring.
“Phase 2 of the vaccine rollout, the ramp up, will see a significant increase in vaccine supply across Canada. We’re expecting 20 million doses of authorized vaccines to be available in the April to June timeframe,” Fortin said.
Shortages have left Canada’s front-line vaccine administrators with fewer doses to dole out than they planned for. This resulted in shifting prioritizations to inoculate residents and staff in long-term care homes, and delayed appointments for some front-line health-care workers waiting for either their first or second dose.
TRIED FOR DOMESTIC PRODUCTION: ANAND
Amid the reduced shipments Canada has fallen behind several countries in rolling out its mass vaccination campaign when compared on a per capita basis and the federal Liberals have faced a continued grilling from the opposition parties over their procurement approach and lacking domestic capacity.
In an effort to bolster future domestic production, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced earlier this week the federal government had signed a “memorandum of understanding” with U.S.-based Novavax to pursue options to produce its COVID-19 vaccine at a new Montreal facility. However, that site is still under construction and vaccine production there isn’t expected to be able to start until this fall at the earliest.
“Canada likely won’t be producing vaccines here at home until 2022. Now we are learning that Moderna’s scheduled shipments for later this month, are also up in the air. Much of this uncertainty is due to the failure to plan by the Liberal government,” said Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole on Thursday.
Seeking to defend Canada’s position while testifying before a House of Commons committee digging into Canada’s vaccine capacity, Procurement Minister Anita Anand told MPs that her department “proactively and repeatedly approached leading vaccine manufacturers with offers to leverage this domestic capacity and possibility here in Canada.”
However, all of them turned the offer down, citing a desire to make vaccines in existing plants that were shown to be able to manufacture at a global scale.
“We took this issue up with suppliers, at every turn at the negotiating table to discern whether they would come to the table with this possibility of domestic biomanufacturing. The manufacturers reviewed the identified assets here in Canada, and concluded that biomanufacturing capacity in this country at the time of contracting—which was last August and September— was too limited to justify the investment of capital, and expertise to start manufacturing in Canada,” she said.
PLANNING FOR NEW VACCINES
Amid the reduced shipments Canada has fallen behind several countries in rolling out its mass vaccination campaign when compared on a per capita basis and the federal Liberals have faced a continued grilling from the opposition parties over their procurement approach and lacking domestic capacity.
As of Thursday morning, more than 1.1 million doses have arrived in Canada, resulting in nearly 872,000 first doses and 136,000 second doses being administered, according to CTV News’ vaccine tracker.
In total Canada has deals in place securing access to 40 million doses from Pfizer and 40 million doses from Moderna, which should be enough to vaccinate every Canadian who wants to be, by the end of September.
Though, there could be millions more doses on their way to Canada in the near future, if Health Canada grants regulatory approval to either the AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson vaccine candidates.
While the precise timing of Health Canada’s anticipated approval of these two vaccine candidates remains uncertain, it’s possible that new authorizations could come before the end of March, while the Phase 1 rollout is still underway.
Fortin said that contingency plans are being put in place to handle the addition of other vaccines into the logistical planning process, stating they are plotting out “multiple scenarios” that factor in seeing provinces able to leverage clinics and pharmacies as options for future vaccine administration sites.
“We have made projections available to provinces with regards to what we expect to see in terms of additional quantities and additional vaccine candidates,” Fortin said.
Netflix (NFLX) stock slid as much as 9.6% Friday after the company gave a second quarter revenue forecast that missed estimates and announced it would stop reporting quarterly subscriber metrics closely watched by Wall Street.
On Thursday, Netflix guided to second quarter revenue of $9.49 billion, a miss compared to consensus estimates of $9.51 billion.
The company said it will stop reporting quarterly membership numbers starting next year, along with average revenue per member, or ARM.
“As we’ve evolved our pricing and plans from a single to multiple tiers with different price points depending on the country, each incremental paid membership has a very different business impact,” the company said.
Netflix reported first quarter earnings that beat across the board on Thursday, with another 9 million-plus subscribers added in the quarter.
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Subscriber additions of 9.3 million beat expectations of 4.8 million and followed the 13 million net additions the streamer added in the fourth quarter. The company added 1.7 million paying users in Q1 2023.
Revenue beat Bloomberg consensus estimates of $9.27 billion to hit $9.37 billion in the quarter, an increase of 14.8% compared to the same period last year as the streamer leaned on revenue initiatives like its crackdown on password-sharing and ad-supported tier, in addition to the recent price hikes on certain subscription plans.
Netflix’s stock has been on a tear in recent months, with shares currently trading near the high end of its 52-week range. Wall Street analysts had warned that high expectations heading into the print could serve as an inherent risk to the stock price.
Earnings per share (EPS) beat estimates in the quarter, with the company reporting EPS of $5.28, well above consensus expectations of $4.52 and nearly double the $2.88 EPS figure it reported in the year-ago period. Netflix guided to second quarter EPS of $4.68, ahead of consensus calls for $4.54.
Profitability metrics also came in strong, with operating margins sitting at 28.1% for the first quarter compared to 21% in the same period last year.
The company previously guided to full-year 2024 operating margins of 24% after the metric grew to 21% from 18% in 2023. Netflix expects margins to tick down slightly in Q2 to 26.6%.
Free cash flow came in at $2.14 billion in the quarter, above consensus calls of $1.9 billion.
Meanwhile, ARM ticked up 1% year over year — matching the fourth quarter results. Wall Street analysts expect ARM to pick up later this year as both the ad-tier impact and price hike effects take hold.
On the ads front, ad-tier memberships increased 65% quarter over quarter after rising nearly 70% sequentially in Q3 2023 and Q4 2023. The ads plan now accounts for over 40% of all Netflix sign-ups in the markets it’s offered in.
Netflix reported first quarter earnings after the bell on Thursday. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File Photo (REUTERS / Reuters)
Alexandra Canal is a Senior Reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X @allie_canal, LinkedIn, and email her at alexandra.canal@yahoofinance.com.
Oil prices initially spiked on Friday due to unconfirmed reports of an Israeli missile strike on Iran.
Prices briefly reached above $90 per barrel before falling back as Iran denied the attack.
Iranian media reported activating their air defense systems, not an Israeli strike.
Oil prices gave up nearly all of early Friday’s gains after an Iranian official told Reuters that there hadn’t been a missile attack against Iran.
Oil surged by as much as $3 per barrel in Asian trade early on Friday after a U.S. official told ABC News today that Israel launched missile strikes against Iran in the early morning hours today. After briefly spiking to above $90 per barrel early on Friday in Asian trade, Brent fell back to $87.10 per barrel in the morning in Europe.
The news was later confirmed by Iranian media, which said the country’s air defense system took down three drones over the city of Isfahan, according to Al Jazeera. Flights to three cities including Tehran and Isfahan were suspended, Iranian media also reported.
Israel’s retaliation for Iran’s missile strikes last week was seen by most as a guarantee of escalation of the Middle East conflict since Iran had warned Tel Aviv that if it retaliates, so will Tehran in its turn and that retaliation would be on a greater scale than the missile strikes from last week. These developments were naturally seen as strongly bullish for oil prices.
However, hours after unconfirmed reports of an Israeli attack first emerged, Reuters quoted an Iranian official as saying that there was no missile strike carried out against Iran. The explosions that were heard in the large Iranian city of Isfahan were the result of the activation of the air defense systems of Iran, the official told Reuters.
Overall, Iran appears to downplay the event, with most official comments and news reports not mentioning Israel, Reuters notes.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said that “there is no damage to Iran’s nuclear sites,” confirming Iranian reports on the matter.
The Isfahan province is home to Iran’s nuclear site for uranium enrichment.
“Brent briefly soared back above $90 before reversing lower after Iranian media downplayed a retaliatory strike by Israel,” Saxo Bank said in a Friday note.
The $5 a barrel trading range in oil prices over the past week has been driven by traders attempting to “quantify the level of risk premium needed to reflect heightened tensions but with no impact on supply,” the bank said, adding “Expect prices to bid ahead of the weekend.”
At the time of writing Brent was trading at $87.34 and WTI at $83.14.
Premier David Eby is warning real estate investors and speculators that his government is tilting the rules toward families seeking homes as it tightens the rules on short-term rentals.
Eby said Thursday that the rule changes on May 1 will limit short-term rental units to within the principal home of a host, but the move isn’t a ban on platforms such as Airbnb if they aren’t used to create de facto hotels from B.C.’s housing stock.
“If there’s a major event [such as a] Taylor Swift concert, a FIFA-like event and somebody wants to rent out their primary residence and go away for the weekend to avoid the crush of the crowds, they can still do that,” Eby said.
The changes were announced by the government last spring, giving those who own short-term rentals a year to conform.
Eby said the changes will allow both the province and local governments to crack down on speculators.
“If you’re flipping homes, if you’re buying places to do short-term rental, if you’re buying a home to leave it vacant, we have consistently, publicly, repeatedly sent the message: Do not compete with families and individuals that are looking for a place to live with your investment dollars.”
Eby made his comments as the province announced new figures gathered in March that showed more than 19,000 entire homes being listed as short-term rentals.
Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon said the new rules also require short-term rental platforms such as Airbnb to share listed property data with the province and local governments.
He said they expect a significant amount of the homes listed on short-term sites to be back in the long-term rental pool.
“Our view is even if half of those units were to come back onto the market, that is substantial,” Kahlon said. “The cost that it takes to build new housing, when you can get even half of the 19,000 back on the market, that’ll make a substantial difference in our communities.”
He said previous efforts to limit short-term rentals are increasing housing supply in some places.
“We’re seeing, already, in many communities that action happening,” Kahlon said. “We have heard many stories of people finding rentals now because of opportunities when it comes to short-term rentals coming onto the market.”
The new principal residence requirement for short-term rentals will allow local governments to request that a platform remove listings that don’t display a valid business licence.
Valid short-term rental hosts will also be required to display a business licence number on their listings if a licence is required by local government.
The new rules will apply to more than 60 B.C. communities, and Kahlon said a compliance enforcement unit will be phased in to help municipalities deal with rule violations.
Much of the monitoring and enforcement, however, will be conducted online through a new rental data portal that will allow local governments to track and request removal of listings from platforms.
“With this new digital portal, local governments will be able to upload, within moments, listings that they believe are operating illegally within their community,” Kahlon said.
The platform will have five days to remove listings that aren’t following the rules, and if they don’t, they will be fined, he said, noting there’s an up-to-$10,000-a-day-per-listing fine for platforms that don’t co-operate.
“We believe that’s enough of a deterrent for the platforms to co-operate with local governments,” said Kahlon
A website launched Thursday for hosts will allow them to get information about their requirements from the province and their municipality, and their responsibility to notify anyone that’s booked.
“Hosts and platforms have a responsibility to notify anyone that’s booking of all the changes that have been coming,” said Kahlon. “They’ve been notified about this since September or October when the legislation has come in, and they’ve had plenty of time to set up their policies to do that.”
The rules do include some exceptions, including some strata hotels and motels operating before last December being exempt if certain criteria are met.
Eby said the overall message to property investors looking for short-term gains is clear: Build homes that people need and government will do all it can to help expedite the process.
“But if you are standing neck and neck with a family that’s looking for a place to live, and you’re trying to do a speculative investment, [while] they’re looking for a place to live, we are going to tilt the deck every single time towards that family,” Eby said. “And we’re gonna keep doing it.”
Eby also said a positive side-effect of short-term rental regulation has been the re-emergence of hotel construction, with 1,400 rooms “in the development pipeline” in Vancouver.
“Those investors in those hotel rooms weren’t able to make the decision to proceed,” Eby said, citing the previous competition from short-term rentals. “Very clearly, with these regulations in place, there will be visitors to stay in hotel rooms, there will be a market for hotel rooms and they’re making the decision to proceed. This is very good news.”
Victoria-based Property Rights B.C. has filed a lawsuit against the province and city of Victoria to fight the new regulatory system.
It maintains the province overstepped its authority and its lawsuit is focused on preserving the rights to own and operate short-term vacation rentals. The organization is also seeking a delay in enforcement.
Asked about the lawsuit, Eby said he can’t comment on a matter that’s before the courts, “but what I can say is we’re very confident in the legal authority of the province to regulate the housing sector in this way and we’ll make the arguments that are needed in court to address that.”
More communities initially exempt from the province’s new regulations have opted in, including Gabriola Island, Mill Bay/Malahat, Cobble Hill, Cowichan Station/Sahtlam/Glenora, Cowichan Lake South/Skutz Falls, Saltair/Gulf Islands and North Oyster/Diamond. Tofino previously announced it would opt in.
Municipalities with fewer than 10,000 people, resort communities and regional districts are exempt from a requirement restricting short-term rentals to principal residences and either a secondary suite or laneway home/garden suite.
