Snowstorm delays Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine shipments by 24-36 hours

By News staff

The federal government has confirmed Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine shipments have been delayed by 24 to 36 hours due to the snowstorms that have disrupted much of Canada and the U.S.

The shipment was expected to arrive on Tuesday, but they will now be arriving tomorrow or Thursday.

The Pfizer-BioNTech doses are shipped to Canada from Belgium through the U.S. and will be delivered directly to the site they are administered due to cold storage requirements.

Deliveries of the vaccine had been slowed down over the last month while a plant in Belgium was expanded.

However, the Trudeau Liberals say the deliveries will be ramping up over the next few weeks and Pfizer is scheduled to ship 3.1 million doses to Canada between this week and March 31.

“We are on schedule to receive our single largest Pfizer vaccine shipment to date and next week we are expecting an even larger shipment again,” Trudeau said at a news conference on Tuesday morning.

Canada is still expected to receive the same amount of doses despite the poor weather delays.

Snow, ice and bitter cold also forced authorities to halt vaccinations from Pennsylvania to Illinois and from Tennessee to Missouri in the United States.

The Biden administration said the weather was expected to disrupt shipments from a FedEx facility in Memphis and a UPS installation in Louisville, Kentucky. Both serve as vaccine shipping hubs for a number of states.

With files from The Canadian Press

 

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