TORONTO – After last week’s news that 22 million doses of vaccine delivered to Canada are still unused, now Canada is going to buy another 40 million doses of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine over the next two years.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced in a tweet the agreement reached with the Massachusetts-based drug manufacturer, saying that the agreement could be extended until 2024 and that integrated into the agreement there are options that would give Ottawa access to as many as 65 million doses if necessary. It is not yet clear how much money Canada has offered Moderna for the project.

In addition, days ago the CEO of Moderna Stephane Bancel and the Federal Minister Champagne signed an agreement concerning the construction of a plant for the production of mRNA vaccines in Canada.

Canada already has enough vaccines to completely inoculate all those who are currently entitled to them but their administration has slowed down in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, according to the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada Theresa Tam, the fourth wave of the pandemic is already underway: the government is therefore urging all Canadians to get vaccinated because, as Tam said, the Delta variant is much more infectious and the vast majority of new cases concern unvaccinated sections of the population. “Nationwide, there are now over 13,000 active cases, more than double the number of two weeks ago,” Theresa Tam said.

Data on deliveries, distribution and injections of vaccines provided by Health Canada and the provinces show that nearly 22 million doses have been delivered to Canada but not yet used. This includes a national reserve of nearly 10 million doses and over 11.7 million doses provided to provincial and territorial governments that have yet to be administered.

In the first week of August about 150 thousand doses were inoculated every day while in the first week of July to be vaccinated daily were in 500 thousand.

Nearly 23.6 million Canadians are now fully vaccinated, or 71.3% of all people aged 12 and over.