Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Wednesday that Health Canada has approved the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, with Canada slated to receive 40 million doses and the first doses arriving in the coming days.
Trudeau also announced that Canada will receive an additional 250,000 Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines, bringing the total to more than 750,000 that will be received in January.
In total, Canada is set to receive 1.2 million COVID-19 vaccine doses from both Moderna and Pfizer by Jan. 31.
The Canadian government will also be providing up to $70 million to the Canadian Red Cross, split into two funding packets of $35 million.
Up to $35 million will go to Red Cross personnel to support Outbreak Crisis Management activities and up to $35 million will be used for testing-related activities led by the Red Cross COVID-19 Testing Assistance Response Teams (CTART).
Through this funding, the Red Cross is continuing to build and maintain its capacity to support deployments to those communities in greatest need.