AstraZeneca – Ford speaks with Pfizer Canada, AstraZeneca as premier searches for solutions with vaccine rollout
As Ontario’s premier grows more and more impatient concerning the federal authorities’s ambiguous response to its COVID-19 rollout, it seems Doug Ford is taking the matter into his personal palms.
Ford’s workplace tells 680 NEWS the premier spoke with Cole Pinnow, the President of Pfizer Canada, and AstraZeneca’s Canadian CEO Jane Chung on Monday.
Ford is anticipated to talk to Janssen – a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson – on Tuesday, with one other assembly with Moderna’s representatives scheduled for subsequent week.
Producers Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca have all filed purposes to have their vaccine candidates permitted in Canada.
Talking in Vaughan, Ont. on Monday, Ford stated he has three foremost questions – what kind of vaccine is being rolled out, what number of doses will likely be accessible and when will it arrive.
“There’s something going on. Either someone isn’t being honest or there is incompetence, maybe both,” stated the premier.
“That’s not accusing anyone – the federal government or the pharmaceutical companies – but the clock is ticking. Everyone is spending hundreds of millions of dollars and you can’t give me a delivery date? It’s unacceptable.”
Ford has stated he’s rising annoyed with the dearth of transparency and urgency from the federal authorities in relation to a transparent sense of when Ontario can anticipate the COVID-19 vaccine to be permitted and accessible.
Final week, Ford admitted that his authorities desires particulars and a transparent timeline of vaccine shipments from Justin Trudeau and the feds, saying it’s unimaginable to plan with out it.
Ontario introduced its COVID-19 activity drive precisely one week in the past, appointing retired General Rick Hillier to steer the province’s vaccine rollout.
RELATED: When COVID-19 vaccines might be accessible in Canada and Ontario: What we all know thus far
On the time, Ontario’s minister of well being, Christine Elliott, promised that progress continues to be made in relation to the province securing doses of Pfizer and Moderna’s lately introduced vaccines.
Final week, Britain turned the primary nation to run ultimate stage trials of an experimental COVID-19 vaccine being developed by Janssen.
That shot makes use of a innocent chilly virus to ship the spike protein of the coronavirus into the physique, which scientists hope will immediate an immune response.