“The announcement of vaccines gave people hope, but when the Prime Minister said we are not able to produce them in Canada, people were scared. You need to know that there is a clear data plan,” NDP leader Jagmeet Singh said during Question Time. The Government of Canada continues to work hard to protect the health and safety of Canadians during the pandemic. With today`s announcement, we have entered into agreements that ensure Canada has access to several vaccine candidates of different types, including viral vectors, protein subunits and mRNA. The diversity of our portfolio ensures that Canadians will have access to it if these vaccines have proven to be safe and effective. Canada has reached agreements with seven different companies to produce the world`s first COVID-19 vaccine, the Prime Minister said in a statement in late October. The Canadian government has purchased 422 freezers to store COVID-19 vaccines. Canada is producing a few vaccines, but not the kind that looks promising so far for COVID-19. Pharmaceutical companies Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline make protein-based vaccines, but the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are, for example, RNA vaccines that use ribonucleic acid to produce an immune response. Canada initially had a pre-emption contract for 20 million doses and exercised an option in the contract in early December to double that contract for a total of $40 million. That would be enough to vaccinate 20 million Canadians. Unlike vaccines that need to be stored at super cold temperatures, this vaccine candidate can be stored in a regular refrigerator. It should be kept cold enough for transport and long-term storage, around -20 C, which could lead to minor logistical problems – although Moderna says the vaccine can remain stable in the moderate refrigerator for about a month. Canada has signed contracts with Moderna, Pfizer, Novavax, Johnson & Johnson and now Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline, all of the most promising vaccines, but none of them have completed all the necessary clinical trials or been authorized for use in Canada.

I am still waiting for more data on this. There was a pause in the study for 11 days due to an “adverse event” in a volunteer and details of which were not disclosed due to confidentiality agreements. But the Phase 3 study resumed when, according to the company, “they found no evidence that the vaccine candidate caused the event.” M. Trudeau said he was hopeful that vaccines could be used in early 2021. He said that, as a first step, frontline health workers and vulnerable populations, such as seniors living in long-term care homes, will have priority access. Maxwell J. Smith, an assistant professor at Western University, told Global News that an over-order was a precautionary measure “because it is unlikely that Canada will receive at once any dose of vaccine it has ordered. On Wednesday, LeBlanc suggested that if, in the coming years, a second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine or subsequent booster vaccines were needed, the domestic capacity to produce the vaccines could be ready.

“Given the growing number of COVID patients across the EU, a safe and effective vaccine is more important than ever to deal with the pandemic,” Said Stella Kyriakides, Commissioner of the Health and Food Safety Union, on Tuesday. . . .