Anita Anand, Minister of Public Services and Procurement, confirmed today that Canada will have enough vaccines on hand by the end of July to adequately vaccinate everyone eligible for a shot.
The immunization campaign in Canada is already in full gear, with hundreds of thousands of doses provided every day. Those shots will be given out at a consistent rate for the foreseeable future, with Canada receiving 69 million doses by the end of the following six weeks.
With around 32 million persons over the age of 12 eligible for a vaccine, the government needs 64 million shots to administer the required two doses a figure that the country is expected to exceed by mid-July. No vaccine for children under the age of 12 has been approved by Health Canada.
This guarantee of 69 million doses by the end of July is millions more than the 55 million shots promised just last week by the federal government. The increased forecast is due, in large part, to Moderna’s tighter commitment to delivery in the last two weeks of this month and into July.
Moderna expects to give 15 million doses to Canada this month alone; 4.3 million of those shots have already been delivered, including a million doses donated by the United States yesterday. Two more shipments of 2.8 million doses each are expected to arrive before Canada Day, for a total of 5.6 million doses.
Anand said today that extra five million Moderna medicines will be supplied between now and the end of the month, though the details are still being worked out. In July, Moderna is expected to provide 6.6 million more doses.
While Moderna supplies are gradually increasing after months of uncertainty and reduced delivery, Pfizer has made some changes to its July distribution timetable. Pfizer still intends to send nine million medicines to Canada next month, but the government now anticipates “a lower allocation in early July and a bigger allocation later in July to counteract.”
This month, Pfizer has already supplied over 4.8 million medicines. This week, the New York-based business shipped another 2.4 million doses to Canada, with similar shipments planned each week for the rest of the month. Pfizer is planned to send 9.1 million extra shots in July.
When you combine what has already been given with definite projections for the following six weeks, 69 million shots are projected in the first seven months of this year. The federal government had hoped to have enough product on hand by the end of September to fully vaccinate all Canadians, which means the country is on course to complete the two-dose schedule nearly two months earlier than projected.
