The first 249,000 doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine could arrive in Canada by next week, and pending Health Canada approval, will be distributed among 14 sites across the country.
There will be one site in each province and two in the four largest provinces.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says shipments will continue to arrive into 2021 with millions of doses on the way.
He stresses that Canada also has contracts with Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and AstroZeneca.
The National Advisory Committee on Immunization is prioritizing the most vulnerable to be vaccinated first.
Trudeau says there is a challenge with the Pfizer vaccination, because it needs to be transported and stored at -70 degrees Celsius, and that makes it even more challenging for delivery to northern and remote communities.
More doses of other vaccines that don’t have to be stored at those temperatures will be arriving later, which Trudeau says will be delivered on a priority basis particularly for those in these remote areas.