By David Ljunggren
OTTAWA (Reuters) – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Friday that Pfizer had reassured him that it would comply fully with Canada’s vaccine order by the end of March, as he hinted at a second COVID wave across the country. a fight against civilians leaving the house. .
Pfizer, which is rebuilding a European manufacturing facility, told Canada on Tuesday it would not receive any vaccine next week, promising more pain for provinces already complaining about a shortage of supplies.
Pfizer also said it would reduce supplies to the European Union.
Trudeau, under pressure from political opponents to do more to address the shortfall, said that although the coming weeks would be challenging, Albert Bourla, the company’s CEO, reassured him that he would provide 4 million doses of vaccinations. as planned on March 31st.
Trudeau angrily expressed that Canadians are still on vacation, despite the deteriorating second wave, and also indicated that Ottawa would introduce measures to make the trip more difficult and expensive.
He spoke on Thursday with the prime ministers of the ten provinces, some of whom want Ottawa to embark on non-essential travel. He reiterated that people should stay at home.
“We can introduce new measures that significantly impede your ability to return to Canada at any given moment without warning,” Trudeau said, promising more information over the coming days.
Canada, which has so far reported 18,622 coronavirus deaths from a total of 731,450 cases, requires that all arrivals by air be quarantined with its own application for 14 days already.
According to Trudeau, one option was to force people to spend the time in hotel rooms for which they would have to pay.
(Reported by David Ljunggren; edited by John Stonestreet)