(Photo: Government of Alberta)

By Troy Gillard

Pfizer-Biontech scaling back shipments to Canada

WATCH: Shandro addresses COVID-19 vaccine shipment delay

Jan 15, 2021 | 3:20 PM

Health Minister Tyler Shandro called Alberta a model for the rest of Canada for its COVID-19 vaccination rollout and said federal problems with vaccine procurement are hampering the province’s efforts.

“We need vaccines,” Shandro said. “That is the bottleneck that we are facing as we work to ramp up both the number of doses that are administered and the groups that we include in the vaccine distribution.”

On Friday, federal Procurement Minister Anita Anand said production issues in Europe will temporarily reduce Pfizer-BioNTech’s ability to deliver vaccines to Canada.

As of Jan. 14, 74,110 doses of vaccine have been administered in Alberta.

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Shandro said shipments are expected to continue in the coming weeks but the number of doses will be fewer.

By the end of March, Shandro said, Pfizer believes it will be on track for Alberta to receive the total committed doses for the first quarter of the year.

With global demand high, Shandro said, “next week, the amount of vaccine that Canada receives will be reduced by about 20 per cent.”

He said the number of trays of vaccine received will be reduced by 80 per cent next week and in the two weeks that follow only half of the expected doses will be in Canada.

He said they are waiting for details from the federal government on how Alberta’s allocation will be affected.

“This is out of our control but it will impact Alberta’s immunization schedule,” said Shandro. “As a result of fewer doses of vaccine coming into our province, it will take longer to complete immunization of the priority health-care workers who are currently part of phase 1.”

It will also delayed planned immunization of other in the high-priority category, the health minister said.

Shandro added health officials will continue to give out as many doses as possible as quickly as possible. He expects that by Monday all residents and staff in long-term care and designated supportive living facilities will be vaccinated.

Major-General Dany Fortin told Canadians on Friday that there will be plenty of vaccines in Canada even though Pfizer has said it is temporarily cutting back vaccine deliveries because of modifications to European production lines.

Fortin — who’s leading the country’s vaccine distribution and rollout — says it won’t affect the September goal of vaccinating every Canadian who wants a shot.

He also says Canada will continue to ramp up for the second phase of vaccinations.

Fortin says Pfizer told him this morning Canada is still on track to receive approximately four-million doses by March 31.

(With file from Chris Brown – CHAT News Today, and The Canadian Press)