Trudeau, premiers to talk about pace of COVID-19 vaccinations in virtual meeting

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will convene a virtual First Ministers meeting today, with speeding up COVID-19 vaccinations high on the agenda.

Earlier this week, Trudeau voiced frustration over the pace of getting Canadians inoculated against the novel coronavirus.

As of Tuesday, Canada had received nearly 425,000 doses of the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines — but fewer than 150,000 Canadians had received shots by then.

In his first news conference of the year on Tuesday, Trudeau said he shared the frustrations of Canadians who think the vaccinations should be going faster.

Some provinces acknowledge there have been bumps in the road administering the vaccines, particularly with trying to get the delicate Pfizer product to remote areas.

But premiers, including Ontario’s Doug Ford, have said the real concern in the days and weeks ahead will be over Ottawa’s ability to get vaccines to the provinces quickly enough.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 7, 2021.

The Canadian Press