Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he’s ready to deploy mobile Red Cross vaccination teams to Ontario, where infections are soaring.
Speaking at a press conference in Ottawa today, Trudeau said the federal government is ready to provide other types of assistance if Ontario requests it.
On the vaccine front, Canada has signed a deal with Pfizer to buy an additional eight million doses of the company’s vaccine, the prime minister announced.
Of those, four million are to arrive in May, with two million more in each of the following two months.
Under the new delivery schedule, Canada now expects to receive about two million Pfizer doses weekly during May and June, Anita Anand, Canada’s procurement minister, told reporters.
Anand said Pfizer will also deliver 400,000 doses in June that had previously been expected in the third quarter.
Canada now expects 24 million Pfizer doses between April and June, she said.
Anand said Canada expects to receive 300,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in late April. It is to be delivered to provinces in early
She confirmed that there will be another delay in the deliveries of the Moderna vaccine.
At the end of April, Canada will only receive 650,000 of the 1.2 million doses expected.
In addition, up to two million doses of the 12.3 million doses scheduled in the second quarter may only show up in the third quarter.
Trudeau said Canada is on track to fully vaccinate all adults who want the shot by the end of September.
Anand said Canada now expects to receive a total of between 48.7 million and 50.7 million vaccine doses by end of June.
“We are not resting and will continue to work around the clock to accelerate vaccine deliveries to Canada,” she said.
