Canada Hopes To Receive First Doses Of Coronavirus Vaccine In January - Minister

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th November, 2020) The Canadian government hopes that the country will get the first doses of the coronavirus vaccine in January 2021, President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and Minister for Intergovernmental Affairs Dominic LeBlanc said.

Last week, Canadian media reported that the country had signed a contract with US companies Moderna and Pfizer to receive 6 million doses of vaccine against COVID-19 in early 2021. According to Canadian Deputy Chief Public Health Officer Howard Njoo, the majority of Canadians will receive the vaccines by the end of the next year.

"At the beginning of next year, in January of 2021, assuming those approvals are given ... Canadians will be able to start being vaccinated," LeBlanc told the CTV broadcaster on late Wednesday.

He has not disclosed details of the signed contracts on the vaccine deliveries but stressed that the number of doses coming to the country would steadily increase.

"We will start to receive the first millions of doses early part of 2021 ... Those contracts are in place and that distribution will be made very effectively with provinces and territories," Leblanc added.

Michelle Rempel Garner, a lawmaker from the opposition Conservative Party, has expressed doubts that the Canadian government would be able to receive coronavirus vaccines by January 2021.

The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11. To date, more than 60.2 million people have been infected with the coronavirus worldwide, with over 1.41 million fatalities, according to Johns Hopkins University (JHU).

Canada has registered 350,971 coronavirus cases so far, with more than 11,000 fatalities, JHU says.