Canada expects to be ready for COVID-19 vaccine by Christmas

Canadians can brace for a Christmas miracle. The federal government announced today the country will be COVID-19 vaccine-ready before December 25th.

Work is already underway to have the logistics and infrastructure in place to roll out four COVID-19 vaccines.

“We’re not going to wait until the end of December … we are getting ready so that when it becomes possible we are poised to distribute,” Dany Fortin, who leads Canada’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution.

Officials predict Pfizer and Moderna’s cold-storage vaccines could be ready in January. The initial six million doses are enough for three million people. Priority groups are the ill and elderly, health-care workers, essential workers and Indigenous communities.

Here’s the plan for now:

Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, called Canada’s effort “one of the most consequential scientific endeavours in living memory.” It is “one of the most complex operations ever taken in public health,” she said.

The next step is for Health Canada to approve clinical trials. Nevertheless, Canada will buy at least 20 million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine.