Early recipients included a personal support maintenance worker in Toronto and an elderly resident of Montreal as Canada began distributing its first 30,000 doses.
“I feel this is emotional because there are so many concerned and anxious families and health workers across the country, how we have all worked so hard as a nation to save lives and prevent the spread,” said Patti Hajdu, Canada’s health minister. He said he cried when he spoke to one of the early recipients in Montreal.
Canadian officials initially acknowledge that vaccine release will not be as widespread in the United States or the United Kingdom as they describe as a global struggle for “fierce competition” for early levels.
“We are dealing with an incredibly competitive global environment,” Canadian Procurement Minister Anita Anand told a news conference on Monday. “We have been able to negotiate hard and boldly to bring the initial scale to this country.”
When Trudeau told Canadians last week that the country would receive 249,000 doses by the end of the year, Anand made it clear that the figure could actually be less than half.
Dangerous second wave
Canada estimates that by the end of 2021 it will have at least four times the population of its population of about 38 million, but this is now the timeline for federal officials.
“Our portfolio includes agreements signed with seven vaccine manufacturers, giving us access to up to 414 million doses, the highest number of individual doses in any country in the world,” Anand said. Together Canada’s vaccine portfolio.
But with Canada now engulfed by a second wave of epidemics, officials are concerned that vaccines may not come quickly to save lives.
Authorities are prioritizing those residents with health workers because new restrictions on businesses and meetings have failed to stem the tide of new events or prevent the virus from infecting long-term facilities.
Several states, including Ontario, Quebec and Alberta, have admitted new cases and hospitalizations in the past week.
Canadian public health officials say about 2,900 people are currently hospitalized with Covit-19, and one-fifth of those patients are in intensive care.
Last week, Canada recorded a daily average of 100 cow related deaths, which was very close to the spring peak.