Uncertainty over Manitoba’s Moderna doses

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This article was published 05/02/2021 (1736 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Manitoba’s vaccination officials are in the dark as they try to plan for the distribution of Moderna doses.

Ottawa has given the province no idea about to the arrival of three-quarters of the Moderna doses it promised this winter, a vaccine task force member told the Free Press.

The federal government continues to tell Manitoba it can expect 90,000 doses of Moderna before the end of March, but it can only provide delivery dates for 22,800 doses.

The shipment that arrived in Canada on Thursday came up short, meaning Manitoba will get 300 fewer doses than it was promised.

Weekly planning tables sent to the provinces by Ottawa had shown confirmed allocations for February and shipment estimates for March. Now, they are blank.

The internal document contains no figures for the eight weeks from Feb. 8 to April 4. “All quantities to be determined, pending direction from the manufacturer,” the latest version of the document says.

The lack of data underscores the difficulty provinces face as they try to staff super sites, plan for second doses and determine allocations for remote communities.

Already, the data Manitoba received could only account for 53 per cent of adults being vaccinated by Sept. 30, and 74 per cent by Dec. 31. The federal government continues to insist all adults will be able to be vaccinated by Sept. 30.

Canada’s only other approved vaccine is made by Pfizer, which cut back deliveries as it expands its European production lines.

On Thursday, Canadian officials failed to explain the Moderna delay, but the company told The Canadian Press it’s facing the same problem as it expands one of its facilities, in Switzerland.

Moderna was to deliver 230,000 doses to Canada this week, but only 180,000 arrived on Thursday.

A Moderna spokeswoman said it will still deliver its promised two million doses to Canada by the end of March. The company has delivered about half a million thus far, meaning 1.5 million is outstanding.

Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin, the military commander who is managing the logistics of vaccine deliveries for the Public Health Agency of Canada, said Thursday Canada doesn’t expect to get the 249,600 doses it was initially allocated for the Feb. 22 shipment, either.

The bad news was revealed after a month of smaller shipments from Pfizer-BioNTech, which was supposed to deliver more than 1.1 million doses from Jan. 18 to Feb. 14. Instead, it will deliver fewer than 340,000 doses.

Fortin said Pfizer will resume more normal shipments on Feb. 15, with 335,000 doses expected that week, and almost 400,000 a week later.

Provincial governments have expressing their frustration with the vaccine shortages and the lack of precise information from Ottawa.

“I have advocated for both a consistent supply of vaccines and a consistent supply of information,” Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said

“Unfortunately, we continue to get neither.”

He said he would push Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to do better during the weekly phone call between Trudeau and premiers Thursday night.

Canada’s reliance on the foreign production of vaccines came to the forefront in the last week when Europe — where all of Canada’s vaccines are made — imposed export controls to protect their own supply. Europe has assured Canada it won’t affect Canada’s shipments and Ottawa said, so far, that has proven to be true.

Canada’s shipments from Pfizer and Moderna this week were allowed to proceed, and next week’s Pfizer shipment has been approved.

Canada will get fewer than 500,000 doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine this winter, after believing just two days ago it could be more than twice that number. Those doses will come from the global vaccine initiative known as the COVAX Facility, but they can’t be sent until the World Health Organization approves AstraZeneca’s vaccine.

Dr. Seth Berkley, the CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which is one of the COVAX’s co-ordinators, said some doses will not be sent out until the summer because of the approval delay.

Canada should get about 475,000 doses before the end of March, and another 1.4 million by the end of June, pending approval of the AstraZeneca vaccine by WHO and Health Canada. Both are expected imminently.

Canada has also ordered 20 million doses from AstraZeneca directly, but Fortin was tight-lipped about when any of those doses will arrive in Canada.

“We are planning a number of contingencies,” he said.

— with files from The Canadian Press

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca