TORONTO – About 5.2 million doses of covid-19 vaccine in two weeks. [GTranslate]Canada is poised to change pace in the national mass vaccination campaign in an effort to match the federal government’s road map that provides at least one dose of vaccine for all Canadians who want to do so by July 1st. Last week about 3 million doses arrived in our country, while within the next seven days another 2.2 million will arrive.

In detail – according to government data – Canada this week will receive 1,019,070 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech, 855,600 of modern and 316 thousand of AstraZeneca. From the beginning of 2021 to the end of March, Canada received 9.5 million doses, compared to the 6 million that had been set as the minimum quota by the federal government.

Of these, according to the latest data collected by the covid19tracker.caportal, about 8,610,000 doses were distributed to the Provinces and Territories, while 6,450,860 doses were administered. In total, 704,407 (or 15.1% of the population) Canadians received the first and second dose of vaccine and are fully immunized against Covid-19. This is encouraging, not least because vaccine supplies are expected to increase further in the near future.

Between now and the end of May, Pfizer will send one million vaccines a week to Canada, which will increase to 2 million vaccines per week in June. For Moderna and AstraZeneca there will also be a progressive increase in supplies, while from the end of April the fourth vaccine approved last month by the regulator, that of Johnson and Johnson, will also arrive in Canada, the only one that in order to be completely effective need a single dose.

Should the federal executive’s approved roadmap be met, 44 million doses will have been delivered to our country by Canada Day.

In the face of these encouraging data, however, there are still clouds on the horizon. The incidence of the new variants – in particular the B117 or English variant – has led to a surge in the epidemiological curve in Ontario and other provinces.

As confirmed by the health authorities, there is a significant reduction in the average age of infected people hospitalized and who are admitted to intensive care, while the daily number of new infections is growing progressively despite the new restrictions that came into force last Saturday in an attempt to curb the covid-19 rush.

Faced with this situation characterized by great instability, the goal set by the various levels of government is to achieve herd immunity as soon as possible, which according to experts will come when about 80% of the population has developed antibodies against Covid-19.

Until then, the watchword will be not to let your guard down.