COVID-19 vaccine deliveries back on track following weeks of delay, says Public Health Agency

Deliveries of COVID-19 vaccine doses from two approved vaccine makers Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna are back on track following weeks of reduced shipments, officials from the Public Health Agency of Canada said today.

Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin, the military commander leading Canada's vaccine logistics, said 403,650 doses of the Pfizer vaccine arrived in Canada this week. That's the largest singledelivery since shipments began in December.

Fortin said that both companies are on track to meet their targets by delivering atotal ofsix million doses fourmillion from Pfizer and twomillion from Moderna by the end of March.

And an updated delivery timeline released by PHAC says Canada should receive millions more doses than originally anticipatedbetween now and September.

"We're now coming out of this period of limited supplies. It's an abundance of supplies for spring and summer, where we can have a significant scaling-up of immunization plans in provinces," Fortin said.

Pressure on government

The federal government has come under intense pressure from opposition politicians and other critics in recent weeks as the country's vaccine rollout slowed. Pfizer began reducing shipments in Januaryas it retooled its plant in Puurs, Belgium, so that it could expand its manufacturing capacity. Moderna alsohas cut its shipments in recent weeks.

The delays have caused Canada to fallbehind dozens of other countries in measurements of doses administered by population, according to a global vaccine tracking database maintained by University of Oxford researchers.

As of last Saturday, only2.7 per cent of Canadians had received one shot of a vaccineand less than one per cent had received both doses.

Those numbers are expected to climb as deliveries ramp up, with 23 million doses expected to arrive between April and June.

WATCH |Fortin says increased COVID-19 vaccine supply expected in spring

Fortin says increased COVID-19 vaccine supply expected in spring

4 years ago

Duration 1:48

Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin provides details on the increased supply of COVID-19 vaccines expected to arrive in Canada this spring.

Pfizer has locked in a delivery schedule for the next six weeks to meet the end-of-Marchdeadline. The companyplans to ship 475,000 doses next week and then444,600 per week next month, according to the federal government's vaccine distribution tracker.

Moderna, which has delivered500,000 doses so far,will deliver a reduced shipment of 168,000 doses next week. Negotiations are still underway with Modernaon specific delivery datesfor the remaining 1.3 million doses it's committed to delivering by the end of March, but they are expected to arrive in two shipments, Fortin said.

The territories which alreadyhave administered vaccines to 32.9 percentof their adult populations will have enough doses from Moderna's next two deliveries to vaccinate 75 per centof adults by the end of March, Fortin said.

Accelerated rollout schedule

The updated timeline provided by PHACshows millions more doses arriving between now and September thanprevious projections anticipated.

It projects that Canada should have enough doses fromPfizer-BioNTech and Modernato fully vaccinate 14.5 million people by the end of June, and 42 million by the end of September. If the companies follow through with deliveries on schedule, that means Canada would have more than enough doses to fully vaccinate the country's entire population by September.

Part of that increase is due to Health Canada acknowledgingthat each vial of the Pfizer vaccine carriessix doses, not five.That change meansmore shots can be squeezed out of each vial and the company can ship fewer vials and still meet its contractual obligations to send a certain number of doses to its customers.

But the updated number also reflects recent deals Ottawa negotiated with Pfizer and Modernato accelerate deliveries.

ArianneReza, assistant deputy minister at Public Services and Procurement Canada, said today that negotiations led the companies to commit to moving up the delivery of5.1 million doses scheduled originallyto arrive in the third and fourth quarters of this year to the second quarterbetween April and June.

The timeline showsthat Canadacould haveenough doses to vaccinate even more people 24.5 million by the end of June.But that calculation is based on an optimistic scenario wherethree other vaccines currently under reviewfromAstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Novavax are approved by Health Canada and delivered on time.

Vaccine effectiveness in LTC

Deputy Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Howard Njoo said preliminary data from provincial and territorial health authorities show that vaccinations in long-term care homes are starting to have a positive effect at preventing disease. He cautioned, however,that more robust data is needed as the vaccine rollout ramps up.

"The early indications are it's starting to have an impact. The rates of infection and ... subsequentlythe hospitalizations and deaths as a result of COVID-19 exposure and having thedisease are starting to go down," said Njoo.

He also said thatfederal and provincial health experts are looking at evidence that one shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19 mightbe almost as effective as two.Njoo said data presented by two Canadian doctors in the New England Journal of Medicine this week are compelling.

Dr. Danuta Skowronski from the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control and Dr. Gaston De Serres from the Institut national de sante publique du Quebec say data in the U.S. suggestthe Pfizer vaccine was 92 per cent effective against COVID-19 two weeks after just one dose.

Original data suggested one dose gave about 52 per cent protection and two doses gave 94.5 per cent protection but the doctors say those estimatesfailed to allowtwo weeks for vaccine recipients'immune systems to respond.

The doctors suggest that with vaccine doses in scarce supply, more of the most vulnerable could be protected by delaying second doses for now.

Njoo said the doctors recently presented their evidence to a committee of federal and provincial public health officers. He added that PHAC officials are actively discussing the issue with the provinces and territories and with members of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization, which makesrecommendations on how vaccinationsshould be prioritized.