Feds, premiers at odds over vaccine doses; Canadians confidence in vaccine rollout fades

Federal and provincial officials are at odds over how many doses Canada will receive from Pfizer before the end of March, creating a lot of confusion over our vaccine deliveries.

Canadian officials say Pfizer and BioNTech are already assuming Canada will agree its COVID-19 vaccine vials contain six doses instead of five and the companies are using that to project how many vials it will send Canada in the coming weeks.

Some premiers – like those of Saskatchewan and Ontario – are claiming the feds have told them we could receive half-a-million fewer doses than Canada has purchased in the first quarter.

But the person in charge of vaccine distributions, Major Gen. Dany Fortin says those provinces are citing the lowest figure from a planning document that gave minimum and maximum projections, adding that the federal government still expects its four million doses from Pfizer by the end of March.

“The provinces are referring to an allocation table that was issued for planning purposes that details what we might expect to see as a minimum for the month of March. So that so the numbers are accurate in terms of planning,” Fortin said Thursday.

Meanwhile, Fortin says in the next two weeks Canada will receive nearly 150,000 doses from Pfizer, and in the last two weeks of February, that number will jump to more than 700,000.

Vaccine number dispute. Premier of Saskatchewan claims feds have told provinces to expect less doses than promised by end of March. Federal officials insist they will be getting 4-million #cdnpoli https://t.co/5IujJqqTV4

— Cormac Mac Sweeney (@cmaconthehill) January 28, 2021

“We expect to scale up and to continue towards meeting the first quarter target of four million Pfizer-BioNTech doses,” Fortin said. “and I want people to rest assured that we have a very active dialogue with Pfizer-BioNTech.”

Fortin says while we received zero doses this week, next week 79,000 are expected to arrive followed by another shipment of around 70,000 doses before a significant ramp-up.

Deputy chief public health officer Doctor Howard Njoo says Health Canada is still examining whether that sixth dose can be extracted consistently.

“I think what Health Canada is going to be looking at, is there enough evidence and information from the submission by Pfizer to indicate that you can in a regular and consistent manner, draw out six doses from each vial,” Njoo said.

To date, Health Canada has approved two vaccines for use with Doug Ford calling on health officials to establish a third, such as AstraZeneca.

Meanwhile, a new poll suggests Canadians support for the federal vaccination efforts have plummeted in the last six weeks.

The Angus Reid Institute survey shows since mid-December the number of people who say the federal government are doing a good job has dropped from 47 to 36 per cent. The number of people who say they are doing a bad job has doubled and the people who have confidence in the government to deliver the doses effectively has fallen 11 points.

The federal government along with the provincial governments in Ontario, Alberta and Manitoba all received failing grades in people’s overall confidence in them to deliver the shots.

The Trudeau government has promised anyone who wants a vaccine will be able to get one before the end of September.

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With files from 680 News Parliament Hill reporter Cormac Mac Sweeney and The Canadian Press