OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada will receive some doses of Pfizer Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine earlier than scheduled and is on track to inoculate the entire population by the end of September, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Friday.
He also told reporters that Canada had bought four million additional doses of Moderna Inc’s vaccine. Trudeau’s Liberal government is under fire for the slow pace of vaccination, in part caused by temporary supply delays.
Canada will now receive an additional 2.8 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine between April and June and 6.2 million more than initially planned between July and September. It has ordered a total of 40 million doses from Pfizer.
“That’s part of the reason why we can say with such confidence that everyone who wants a vaccine in Canada will get one by the end of September,” Trudeau said.
Canada has recorded a total of 21,088 deaths and 817,163 cases so far. An average of 3,350 new daily cases were recorded in the past week, down from 8,000 in early January.
“We’ve made great progress,” chief medical officer Theresa Tam told reporters.
(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Dan Grebler)
