Pfizer’s Reasons For Delaying Deliveries Of COVID-19 Vaccines To Ontario Are ‘Crap,’ Doug Ford Says

Premier Doug Ford says Pfizer’s reasons for shorting Ontario on shipments of COVID-19 vaccine are “crap” as public health officials scramble to contain a massive outbreak at a Barrie nursing home that’s harbouring a more contagious new variant of the virus.

Residents of the Roberta Place Retirement Lodge near the Roberta Place nursing home could soon be vaccinated in efforts to curb in the spread amid concerns new variants will become dominant in Ontario, making it harder to control the pandemic.

“We’re not waiting,” Dr. Barbara Yaffe, Ontario’s associate chief medical officer, said Thursday after a telephone meeting with the Simcoe-Muskoka Health Unit, Public Health Ontario and the Public Health Agency of Canada.

“They’re doing more testing, they’re going to step up even more on infection prevention and control and they’re looking to offer vaccination … to the retirement home next door,” Yaffe told a news conference.

Almost all of the 140-bed Roberta Place nursing home’s residents have tested positive for COVID-19 and at least 19 have died, with 69 staff and two visitors also infected. At least six of the cases are an unidentified new variant, which will be subject to more detailed lab tests in a few days.

Several ambulances were called to the nursing home Thursday. The source of the fast-moving outbreak remains a mystery, Yaffe said, although one of the visitors had close contact with someone who travelled outside Canada — but not to areas with known variants of COVID-19 such as the U.K., South Africa or Brazil.

There are fears the virus could quickly race through the retirement lodge even as the pace of COVID-19 is appearing to slow in some parts of the province recently.

Ford said Pfizer’s decision to cancel a shipment of 80,000 doses of its COVID-19 vaccine that was due in Ontario next week is “unacceptable.” The pharmaceutical giant has said the move was made to retool its plant in Puurs, Belgium, to produce higher quantities of vaccine to meet soaring demand.

“I don’t buy any of that crap,” the premier said in Oshawa, where a new pandemic isolation facility is opening.

“It’s simple,” Ford added, noting other countries are receiving shipments as scheduled, leaving Canada in the lurch. “We have a contract. Meet the obligations of the contract because lives right now are in jeopardy if you continue screwing up.”

Ford’s office said he talked to Pfizer Canada president Cole Pinnow late Tuesday. Pfizer did not reply to a request for comment from the Star.

While Ontario is hoping to keep its promise to give first injections of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines to all nursing home residents by Feb. 15, Yaffe said the new variants of COVID-19 will make it tougher for the province to reach herd immunity for all citizens. That’s because the variants are about 50 per cent more contagious.

She estimated as many as 80 per cent of Ontarians will need to be vaccinated to cool transmission. Others have said a higher proportion could be required, with a state epidemiologist in Michigan telling the Detroit Free Press that 90 per cent is the benchmark.

To date, 15 cases of the U.K. variant have been found in Ontario, in the GTA and Middlesex-London. Four cases have no travel history or known links to travellers.

“That’s what is telling us it is in the community,” said Yaffe.

Ontario officials have warned it could become the dominant strain and cause daily cases to double every three weeks, compared with 35 to 40 days for standard COVID-19.

Ontario reported 2,632 new cases Thursday, well below the high 3,000s after the Christmas holidays, and bringing the seven-day moving average down to 2,751 new infections, its 10th straight day of decline from a record high of 3,555.

“We’re seeing some improvement but we need to see more data to determine if some of those decreasing rates are real trends,” said Yaffe, adding it will take “a week or two” to be sure.