There will be no delivery of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to Ontario next week. Premier Doug Ford confirmed the news Tuesday afternoon.
The province had expected to see an 80-percent reduction in deliveries next week but the federal government says there will be none delivered to Canada as expected. That’s amounts to a shortage of 83,000 vaccines. However, second doses will still be delivered within 21 days to residents of long-term care and high-risk retirement homes who have already received their first shot.
Pfizer announced late last week it would be cutting Canada’s vaccine supply in half while production upgrades were done at the plant in Belgium. Ford called this news “troubling” and a “massive concern.”
He said his message to the federal government is that nothing else matters right now and every day we are giving out fewer vaccines is a day we lose, “You know it makes me very angry. I want to make something very clear; I am not angry at the Prime Minister or the Deputy Prime Minister we’ve been working collaboratively, I’m just angry at the situation that other countries are getting it. And nothing is more important than getting these vaccines. If I was in his [the Prime Minister] shoes, I’m sure he is doing it. I’d be on that phone call every single day I’d be up that guy’s ying-yang so far with a firecracker he wouldn’t know what hit him from Pfizer. I would not stop until we get that vaccine. Other countries, small countries, populations of 5 million, we’re part of the G7, we’re a major player in the world. We have to be on these guys like a blanket. I’d be outside that guy’s house every time he moves, I’d be asking where’s our vaccines.”
Ford also confirmed that after next week there will be even fewer Pfizer vaccines delivered to the province than expected, which was about half of what was first promised.
Ford begged Pfizer to help and called on President-elect Joe Biden to help their neighbours to the North in accessing the COVID-19 vaccine from the Pfizer plant in Michigan.
