Why Isn't Canada Producing COVID-19 Vaccines?

[calzephyr]

I'm glad CBC came along with this explainer on why Canada isn't producing COVID-19 vaccines. It kind of took me aback months ago that Canada had to wait on American and European shipments. Huh, what?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/domestic-vaccine-manufacturing-canada-1.6004427

When the pandemic began, Canada — unlike many other countries — lacked a facility that could be retooled easily to produce the viral vector COVID-19 vaccines from AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson, or the mRNA products offered by Pfizer and Moderna.

The nation's vaccination campaign has improved in recent weeks after a slow start marred by production delays and missed deliveries. Canada is now performing better than most other countries in the G20 but it's still being outpaced by at least two other countries: the United Kingdom and the United States.
.
.
.
The two countries that easily outpaced Canada's vaccination effort have one thing in common: they have homegrown pharmaceutical companies that make their own products at domestic facilities — a bulwark against the vaccine nationalism that has disrupted global supply chains.

And Calgary-based Providence Therapeutics is looking elsewhere after claiming provincial and federal governments have shut out their mRNA vaccine.

Comments

[daryl_wor]

Thank you. This is decidedly good information to have. There is the repeated saying now, "We're all in this together." I would hope that on this topic it is true.