Trudeau: "All Canadians can get the vaccine by September"

Committing to a timeline made last year, the Prime Minister announced today that every Canadian who wants to be vaccinated will have the opportunity by September.

Beginning March 22, Trudeau told reporters that Pfizer would deliver one million vaccine doses every week until May 10th. Trudeau also announced that AstraZeneca will be delivering 20 million doses by the end of the year.

“That’s gonna make a big difference,” Trudeau said. “Every dose makes a difference.” Four vaccines are currently authorized in Canada.

Canada has currently faced a slowdown due to two causes: 1) like many countries around the world, it currently does not manufacture any vaccines and 2) the US has not approved the export of extra dosages to Canada.

Today, the White House announced that countries “around the world” have asked for vaccines but that it has not sent them to anyone.

“The president’s priority and focus is on ensuring that the American people are vaccinated,” noted White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki. “We also want to make sure we have maximal flexibility that we are oversupplied and overprepared and that we have the ability to provide vaccines, whatever the most effective ones are to the American public."

As of today, only 1.9 million Canadians have received at least one vaccine dose, amounting to just about 5 percent of the population – behind both the US, the UK and the member-states of the European Union by a significant margin.