The government says its contribution to the COVAX vaccine program has “always been intended” to secure additional coronavirusvaccine access for Canada, on top of supporting vaccination rollouts in lower-income countries.
“COVAX is not a fund for developing countries only but a mechanism to ensure equitable access to vaccines for all countries that are participating in it, including Canada,” Guillaume Dumas, a spokesperson for International Development Minister Karina Gould, said in a statement emailed to Global News.
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The comment comes on the heels of criticism directed at the government over the news that Canada is the only country in the G7 to draw vaccines from the fund, which was established “to guarantee fair and equitable (vaccine) access for every country in the world.”
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“The COVAX vaccines were a way the developed countries, like Canada, were helping poorer countries have access to vaccines,” Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole said in a Thursday press conference.
“The very fact that Canada is the only G7 country asking the COVAX consortium for vaccines is a demonstration that we have no plan, and Canadians need vaccines to get the country working to secure our future.”
Canada is slated to receive a minimum of 1.9 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine as a part of the COVAX fund. Maj-Gen. Dany Fortin, who is leading the logistics of Canada’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout, added on Thursday that this number may increase to as many as three million doses.
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While Canada is the only G7 national availing itself of these vaccine doses, other countries that are not considered lower income are also receiving doses from the fund. Singapore and New Zealand are both receiving over 200,000 doses each from the fund.
Still, O’Toole slammed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as having “no plan,” saying that a lack of proper planning is the reason Canada is “taking vaccines from a multi-country fund that was intended to help poorer countries.”
Dumas pushed back on this criticism in his statement.
“We’ve been clear from the start. Canada is strongly determined to vaccinate Canadians while making sure that the rest of the world is not getting left behind. Our participation into COVAX is a concrete example of that,” Dumas said.
“Our contribution to the global mechanism had always been intended to access vaccine doses for Canadians as well as to support lower income countries.”
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Dumas said Canada made a different investment to ensure that lower-income countries have access to vaccines – and that isn’t where Canada’s vaccines are coming from.
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“We made a separate contribution to the mechanism’s Advanced Market Commitment specifically for vaccine access in lower income countries. We are not using a specific fund made for developing countries,” he said.
O’Toole has been a vocal critic of the vaccine rollout since day one, repeatedly accusing the Liberal government of not having a vaccine plan.
However, when pressed multiple times on Thursday as to whether he would have accepted the COVAX fund vaccine doses, he refused to answer the question.
“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,” O’Toole said.
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Experts have warned that until the entire world is able to access a vaccine, Canada will remain stuck in a small “bubble” – even if our population is fully vaccinated.
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“It’s the old adage, ‘No one is safe until everyone is safe,’” Raywat Deonandan, an epidemiologist with the University of Ottawa, told Global News in December.
“We cannot get close to the eradication of coronavirus unless vaccines are made available to everyone.”
It’s a message Dumas echoed in his Thursday statement.
“We’re having a comprehensive approach to fighting the pandemic,” he said.
“As we know that the virus won’t be defeated until it is defeated everywhere.”
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.
