Dr. Alan Bernstein says the COVID-19 pandemic should serve as a wake-up call. Mike Blanchfield, Canadian Press
ASSOCIATED PRESS
A dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is prepared by Pharmacy Technician Supervisor Tamara Booth Rumsey at The Michener Institute in Toronto on Jan. 4, 2021.
OTTAWA A leading Canadian health expert on the federal government’s COVID-19 Task Force says the pandemic should be viewed as a wake-up call for Canada to create its own domestic vaccine manufacturing capacity.
Dr. Alan Bernstein says that with new variants of the novel coronavirus emerging, Canadians might need multiple vaccines for several years.
“The government’s made hints of doing it. But I think the sooner we get on with it, the better,” Bernstein, who is also the head of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), said in an interview Friday.
Vaccine deliveries are getting bigger but provinces still need time to have enough doses. Mia Rabson, Canadian Press
| Updated January 19, 2021
OTTAWA Canada’s vaccine deliveries are getting bigger almost every week but there won’t be enough doses shipped to provinces and territories to “ramp up” the vaccination program for another few months, Maj. Gen. Dany Fortin outlined on Thursday.
Fortin said deliveries of vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna will hit one million doses per week starting in April.
The confirmation aligns with plans made public Thursday by the Ontario government that it won’t be able to expand its vaccine program beyond the first four priority groups until April.