Following Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s announcement of Canada’s vaccination schedules;

James Spencer, Pharma Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers his view:

“With the recent announcement of several potential COVID-19 vaccines one after another, countries around the world have been scrambling to put together their vaccine plans.

“Trudeau stated that he expects that a majority of Canadians will have access to a vaccine by September 2021. Canada has already entered purchasing agreements with AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Medicago, Pfizer, and Moderna, while talks with Johnson & Johnson are underway. This amounts to 194 million doses, with options to purchase 220 million more if needed.

“To ensure that Canada is able to deliver on these immunizations, the country has begun stockpiling syringes and needles that are able to work with these super-cooled vaccines. This behavior, however, harkens back to the days of mask and sanitizer stockpiling, and one can only hope this doesn’t impact the ability of other countries to meet their own citizens’ needs.

“Canada isn’t far behind the UK – one of the first countries to set out concrete plans, aiming to start vaccinations by 7 December 2020. Their goal is to immunize about 100,000 people weekly until 5 April 2021. This would be over a million people vaccinated in about a four-month time frame. Canada and the UK’s move to begin vaccinations has put pressure on politicians all over the world to provide a similar schedule for their own countries.”