EDITORIAL: Feds, provinces need to work together on vaccines

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Let’s assume Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is telling the truth when he says that despite current shortages, Canada is going to get six million doses of COVID-19 vaccines over the next seven weeks, up to the end of March.

And that vaccine deliveries starting in April — presumably by then coming from more approved suppliers than just Pfizer and Moderna — will increase to the point where every Canadian who wants to be vaccinated will be by September.

If true, that means provincial governments, which have been begging for more vaccines for weeks, are going to be swimming in them, relatively speaking, in a very short time frame.

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Given that, plus the fact the Pfizer vaccine has to be stored at extremely low temperatures and both Pfizer and Moderna require two doses, there will need to be enormous co-operation between the federal and provincial governments to get these vaccines into people’s arms.

It’s not a good sign Trudeau last week rejected requests from the premiers to see what the federal government’s contracts with its vaccine suppliers say, so they can prepare for distributing them.

This isn’t about disclosing confidential information, it’s about public health officials understanding how many vaccines their province is likely to get, and when, so they can prepare.

Canadians cannot afford a repeat of what’s happened up to now, where provinces like Ontario bungled the early distribution of vaccines by not having sufficient resources to distribute them, and then had to suddenly change their plans about how to vaccinate people because of unexpected shortages.

If the provinces know there will be an increasing number of vaccines available to them week after week, they may decide to distribute all the vaccines they receive immediately, confident they will have sufficient vaccines to administer the second dose in recommended time frames.

But if not, they’ll have to hold back half of the vaccines to make sure the second dose is given appropriately, which will double the time it takes to inoculate Canadians, as long as only two-dose vaccines are available.

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This isn’t the time for partisan politics and blame games.

It’s time for the federal and provincial governments to work together to protect the lives of Canadians, which is the fundamental purpose of government.