EDMONTON (660 NEWS) – Alberta’s health minister is very disappointed there will be fewer shipments of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine coming to the province.
In a statement issued Thursday morning, Shandro said Alberta will receive 63,000 fewer vaccines through the first three months of this year.
Shandro said the provincial government was originally told that Alberta’s share of vaccines would be reduced between 20 and 80 per cent over four weeks.
“The federal government is failing Canadians,” Shandro said in the statement. “This is a grim situation that seems to be getting worse every week. We know that life for Canadians will not begin returning to something resembling normal until our most vulnerable are immunized.”
At first, the federal government said that Alberta’s share of vaccines would be reduced between 20 to 80% over four weeks.
Shortly after that, we found out that Alberta would actually receive no vaccines at all in the last week of January. 2/4
— Tyler Shandro ???????? (@shandro) January 28, 2021
Pfizer’s main production facility in Belgium has been affected by issues this month causing shortages around the world.
But Shandro puts the blame solely on the federal government and said they need to fix the issue immediately.
“Prime Minister Trudeau, Health Minister Hajdu, and Public Services and Procurement Minister Anand need to come clean with Canadians and fix this now. Anything less is unacceptable.”
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe also expressed his displeasure at the news saying his province is leading the way when it comes to vaccine deliveries per capita adding, “we can’t vaccinate people when we aren’t getting vaccines and when we aren’t getting accurate information from the federal government.”
Health-care workers are doing a great job of administering vaccines, when we get them. We're a leader in the country in vaccines delivered per capita. But we can’t vaccinate people when we aren’t getting vaccines & when we aren’t getting accurate information from the fed gov. 3/3
— Scott Moe (@PremierScottMoe) January 28, 2021
Speaking during a Health Canada update Thursday morning, Major General Dany Fortin said the provinces are citing a number from a planning document that laid out the minimum number of Pfizer doses by end of March.
Fortin insists the provinces will still get to 4 million doses.
Federal officials have struggled to give a clear answer, however it appears the confusion may lie in a question of how many doses we can get from each vial. Pfizer says 6 but Health Canada currently says 5. HC reviewing whether it can change to 6, like US and UK #cdnpoli
— Cormac Mac Sweeney (@cmaconthehill) January 28, 2021
Nationwide, there will be about 3.5 million vaccines shipped in the first quarter of 2021, which is half a million fewer than expected at the beginning of the month.
–With files from Cormac Mac Sweeney
