Published 15:00 IST, December 4th 2020
'We are hard at it': Canada plans to start COVID-19 vaccine delivery by January
The Canadian government is targeting January as the starting point for distribution COVID-19 vaccine throughout the country, vaccine distribution Czar said.
- World News
- 2 min read
The Canadian government is targeting January as the starting point for distribution COVID-19 vaccine throughout the country, vaccine distribution Czar Major General Dany Fortin revealed during a press conference. Fortin, who was appointed at the position last week, stressed that the Canadian military was scheduled to perform a “dry run” of the plan on December 7. If things go as planned, they would then set up provincial distribution points by December 14 and be fully prepared for inoculation by December 25.
"We are hard at it ... so that we are certain to be ready when [the vaccine] comes in January," Fortin said.
With over 3,90,000 cases and 12,300 deaths, Canada is now prepping to battle a possible second wave of the infection. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Trudeau touted the possibility of a COVID-19 vaccine by early in 2021. In addendum, he had also said that most of the residents would probably be vaccinated by next September.
Meanwhile, Major General Fortin also said that the federal government would contract private logistics firms to facilitate the distribution. Reaffirming his stance on early distribution, he said that the distribution contracts to the firms would be awarded as early as December 15.
According to top officials, Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate could be approved by Health Canada as early as next month. With Ottawa inking a deal with Pfizer’s to secure at least 20 million doses of its vaccine candidate, experts predict that as many as three million Canadians could get vaccine shots by March 2021.
Trudeau appeals to stay-at-home
With festival season approaching, Trudeau appealed to the citizens to stay-at-home despite the Christmas season around the corner. In a live-streamed address, the Canadian leader warned, people needed to immediately shrink the number of people they meet, halt nonessential movement, and work from home just as he will as the coronavirus cases across Canada were “spiking massively.” Citing the overwhelming numbers of the confirmed COVID-19 cases that have strained the healthcare systems to the brink of collapse, Trudeau said, “ a normal Christmas" in 2020 was “quite frankly right out of question.”
Updated 14:59 IST, December 4th 2020