Health Canada has approved the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine for use in this country.
Moderna’s is the second coronavirus vaccine to get the green light in Canada. The announcement came on Wednesday, two weeks after authorizing a vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech.
Moderna says its vaccine requires two doses, spaced 28 days apart, and that the first doses are expected to be delivered by Christmas.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said Canada will receive up to 168,000 doses of the vaccine before the end of the year, while Moderna has promised 40 million doses to Canada by the end of 2021.
According to Dr. Zain Chagla (an infectious disease specialist and associate professor at McMaster University), more Canadians are likely to get the Moderna vaccine than the Pfizer one.
“This is the game-changer vaccine for sure,” he told CTV News. “For our long-term strategy for vaccinating all Canadians, the Moderna is probably going to be the workhorse vaccine. The Pfizer will probably be a vaccine in urban centres, in places where they’re able to set up the clinics that can do the Pfizer vaccine.”
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The news comes the same day that Quebec public health is reporting the province’s highest daily COVID-19 increase since the pandemic began in March.
According to health authorities, Quebec shattered its previous record on Wednesday when it reported 2,247 new COVID-19 cases across the province.
Montreal had the highest number of new cases in all Quebec regions with 799 (a total of 64,520 so far).
Wednesday's update is also the fourth time Quebec has set a record in a span of five days.
There are now 1,067 people receiving treatment for COVID-19 in Quebec hospitals with 142 of those patients in the intensive care ward.
The province also reported 74 more deaths linked to the virus, for a total of 7,867. Of the latest deaths, 11 took place in the past 24 hours.
Quebec’s seven-day rolling average now stands at an all-time high of 2,050 cases.
