Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has provided an update on the temporary Pfizer vaccine dose shortage, as well as rapid testing kit delivery.
As of today, he says almost a million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine has been delivered to the provinces and territories.
One bump in the road is happening in vaccine production – this morning Procurement Minister Anita Anand says production issues in Europe will temporarily reduce Pfizer-BioNTech’s ability to deliver vaccines to Canada.
“I want to be very clear – this does not impact our goal to have enough vaccines available by September for every Canadian who wants one,” said Trudeau. “It will also not change our second-quarter goals. Canada must still get ready for the ramp-up phase in Q2.”
In the meantime, the PM says as of today, over 14 million rapid test kits have been sent to provinces.
And the Federal government is monitoring variants of the virus that are emerging, including the new Brazil variant which like the UK variant, is believed to be more transmissible.