Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Friday that Pfizer will double the amount of vaccine it ships to Canada over the next month and announced the Red Cross is ready to help Ontario with the vaccination drive amid of a record wave of variants. fed infections.
Trudeau said the pandemic is particularly intense in Canada’s largest city, Toronto, where record numbers of sick people fill beds in hospital intensive care units.
“Ontario asked for more support. I can tell you today that we are ready to deploy the Canadian Red Cross to help their mobile vaccination teams. The goal is to take the doses to the people where the situation is most serious, ”he said.
A spokesperson for the premier of Ontario denied that the government had asked for help.
“While we appreciate the Premier’s offer, unless it comes with an increased supply, we don’t need the Red Cross for vaccinations in Ontario at this time. We don’t have a capacity problem, we have a supply problem, ”said Ivana Yelich, spokesperson for the premier of the province.
Ontario, however, has called on other provinces to send nurses and other health care workers. In a letter to all provinces and territories, the Ontario government said it needed thousands of nurses. Deputy Health Minister Helen Angus also asked if her counterparts have additional resources. His letter says the pandemic has pushed the capacity of hospitals, especially intensive care units, to the limit.
Angus has estimated that Ontario will need 4,145 hospital nurses over the next four months.
“We anticipate a need for this essential support for four months after the expected peak of Wave 3,” he wrote.
Trudeau said it was almost certainly the final and most difficult phase of the pandemic, but announced that Canada would receive 4 million more doses of the Pfizer vaccine in May, another 2 million in June and 2 million more. more in July.
With these additions, the country of 38 million people will receive 24 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine through the end of June. Moderna, meanwhile, said he would ship 650,000 doses of his vaccine to Canada by the end of the month, instead of the expected 1.2 million.
Canada will receive its first shipment of Johnson & Johnson – 300,000 doses this month.
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