Vaccination Set-Backs :Pfizer-BioNTech, Canada, EU

"[There will be] fluctuations in orders and shipping schedules [as Pfizer works to increase production volume]s".

"As part of the normal productivity improvements to increase capacity, we must make modifications to the process and facility. Although this will temporarily impact shipments in late January and February, it will provide a significant increase in doses available for patients in late February and March."

"[The] fluctuations [triggered by the improvements in the Puurs plant would] provide a significant increase in doses available for patients in late February and March."

Pfizer and BioNTech statement

 

"We received this message today a little before 10 a.m. (0900 GMT). We had expected 43,875 vaccine doses from Pfizer in week 3 [next week]. Now it appears that we will get 36,075 doses."  

Institute of Public Health, Norway

"At short notice, the EU Commission and, via it, the EU member states, were informed that Pfizer [and BioNTech] would not be able to fully meet the already promised delivery volume for the next three to four weeks due to modifications at the Puurs plant, [Belgium]."

German authorities

"Not only does it impact the planned vaccination schedules, it also decreases the credibility of the vaccination process." 

Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia health ministers

 

"[Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla stated he would do everything possible to reduce delays. He would]  personally [work to bring the deliveries on track] as soon as possible."

"He reassured me that all guaranteed doses of the first quarter will be delivered in the first quarter."   

EU Commission head Ursula von der Leyen

Pharmacy technician supervisor Tamara Booth Rumsey prepares a Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine at The Michener Institute, in Toronto on Jan. 4, 2021. Photo by Carlos Osorio / Reuters

"I'm just angry at the situation and that other countries are getting it and nothing is more important than getting these vaccines. This vaccine is the difference between life and death for our most vulnerable."

"I would be [if he were Prime Minister Justin Trudeau] on the phone every single day."

"I would be up that guy's [Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla] yin-yang, so far with a firecracker he wouldn't know what hit him." 

Ontario Premier Doug Ford

"When they say that every Canadian will have a dose of vaccine by September, what assumptions have they made on approval, timelines and availability of other vaccine candidates, and if those don't come to pass, what's plan B?"

"I really don't take any pleasure in saying that they [Canada's Liberal federal government] haven't delivered."

Conservative health critic Michelle Rempel Garner

Canada, according to the Bloomberg news service, is 12th on the world list of vaccines delivered on a per-capita basis, behind such countries as Israel, the United Kingdom, the United States and the United Arab Emirates, along with a number of small European countries. The world leader in administering first doses is Israel, with over 25 percent of its population being inoculated primarily with the use of the Pfizer vaccine. Unconfirmed reports are that Israel was willing to pay more than other countries for the vaccines, and had agreed it would share anonymized patient data out of its health system with Pfizer.

All those countries that had contracted with Pfizer-BioNTech for doses out of the Pfizer manufacturing facility in Belgium were notified by the pharmaceutical giant that there would be a delay in shipments while the plant was being upgraded, after which production would resume as normal, but at an accelerated rate that would compensate for the lapse and lower numbers shipped through the end of January to mid-February.

That this news represented a setback to the emergency plans of the affected countries to inoculate as speedily as possible as many of their population that the allotted doses could account for, represents a classic understatement of the disappointment felt at plans gone awry. Understandably so, since lives are so heavily dependent on each country's vaccination plan being carried forward as expeditiously as possible. But reduced vaccine shipments it is, with no exceptions for those vaccine customers whose vaccines are sourced through the Belgium plant.

Canada had received 82 percent of its anticipated shipment of 208,000 doses most recently but no deliveries would take place all of next week while in the first two weeks of February when doses had been expected to rise to 367,000 weekly, that has now changed to a lower number until late February when the shipments would return to expectations, numbers growing in late February into March. Most of Canada's deliveries have been from Pfizer to the present, while smaller numbers of doses have been received of the Moderna vaccine.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced somewhat less than reassuringly: "Our vaccination objectives for the first quarter of the year, January to March are not changing. The total number of doses committed to us is still the same, with every Canadian who wants to get vaccinated, able to get vaccinated by September." September is a long, long way off. And Canada is in the midst of its second wave of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19, with booming echoes of the Christmas and New Year's holiday family- and group-get-togethers still rebounding.

Two days ago, in Ontario alone, another 5,000 cases were diagnosed, accompanied by an additional 80 deaths for the day. The provincial premier made a direct plea to then-incoming U.S.President Joe Biden to forward doses to Canada from a Pfizer plant located in Kalamazoo, Michigan, as a good neighbour willing to mitigate Canada's dire shortage of vaccine shots. Unfortunately when the U.S. signed its order with Pfizer, it was with the proviso that the output from the facility would be dispersed only in the United States for this year.

"We expect this situation to last in Canada until mid-February when we will be able to increase allocations to catch up", explained Pfizer spokeswoman Christine Antoniou. "Multiple countries around the world will be impacted in the short term but we are confident we will deliver the total committed doses by the end of Q1."

This setback apart, Canada is considerably behind other countries in its inoculation program. Only six million doses will arrive in Canada before the end of March, enough to doubly inoculate three million Canadians out of a total population of 38 million people. Before the end of September a total of 80 million doses between Pfizer and Moderna is expected to arrive, sufficient to inoculate the entire population. And between then and now the virus will continue to infect people and to end the lives of many.

The situation is a battlefield with only one of the actor-antagonists -- in this case the novel coronavirus -- capable for the time being of prevailing, at dreadful cost to the other.