Moe 'troubled' as Trudeau admits Canada may wait for COVID-19 vaccine

Canadians can expect the first doses of a Covid-19 vaccine in early 2021, likely later than those countries that can produce it themselves, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday.

Trudeau faced a barrage of questions about when and how such a rollout would unfold at a morning press conference on Friday, acknowledging public anxiety amid alarming infection rates and hospitalizations that have already scuttled holiday hopes for much of the country.

Bernstein said a hollowing out of the pharmaceutical industry, combined with government complacency about Canada's ability to buy vaccines offshore, left the country with little manufacturing capacity.

"Doctors have underlined that if all goes well, there is a very good chance that a majority of Canadians can be vaccinated by next September", Trudeau told a regular briefing.

"I can understand the eagerness with which people want to know, 'When is this going to be over, when are we going to get the vaccine?' What we can say is we are working extremely hard to deliver it as quickly and as safely as possible", Trudeau says.

In a tweet shared on November 26, the NDP leader said Trudeau had failed to "fix" the issues caused by the Conservative Party in years gone by.

Trudeau said the military would form part of a special national operations center to coordinate the logistics and distribution of vaccines.

There are now 60,000 active COVID-19 cases across Canada.

There, the prime minister lays out the contracts and the number of doses the federal government has lined up from three companies that have vaccine candidates.

"The comments that were made by the prime minister were troubling - and they should be troubling for all Canadians, to say the least", Moe said. I asked him the three simple questions: When are we getting it?

AstraZeneca's vaccine candidate uses viral vector technology, taking a common cold virus that infects chimpanzees and modifying it so it contains SARS-CoV-2 genetic material but can't multiply and make the person getting the vaccine sick.

Premiers and other federal parties have been demanding a clear plan from the federal government on how they will vaccinate the nation against COVID-19, calling for firm dates and details.

Deputy chief public health officer Dr. Howard Njoo said Thursday that priority groups should start receiving vaccine doses early next year.

And he said the Canadian military will play a role in distribution of the vaccine.