U.S. working on plan to lend doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to Canada, Mexico

The White House says it’s working on a plan to lend 1.5-million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to Canada.

Press secretary Jen Psaki has confirmed the effort, but emphasizes the details have not been fully worked out.

.@chchtv @CHCHNews “God bless America, they’re coming to the rescue”

Doug Ford reacting to the news that the US is sending 1.5Million doses of Astrazeneca to Canada.

Ford says he’ll drive his pickup to the States to pick them up himself if he could.

— Phil Perkins (@PhilPerkinsCHCH) March 18, 2021

The U.S. currently has seven-million “releasable” doses of the vaccine, which has yet to receive approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

Psaki says the administration is balancing the need to let the approval process play out, with helping stop the spread of COVID-19 in other countries.

She says the doses would be a loan, in lieu of future exchanges with Canada and Mexico — either of the AstraZenece vaccine or another version.

Last week, Canadian provinces began administering 500,000 doses of the version of the AstraZeneca vaccine produced at the Serum Institute of India.

The federal government has purchased 20 million doses directly from AstraZeneca, but did not have a timeline for when they would arrive.

EU Regulator says Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine “safe and effective”

This comes as the European Medicines Agency has found no definitive link between the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine and reports of blood clots.

It says the drug is safe and effective.

Many European countries halted use of the AstraZeneca vaccine following reports of blood clots in about three dozen patients.

Earlier today, Britain’s drug regulator said a “rigorous scientific review” ruled out the AstraZeneca vaccine as the cause of blood clots in veins, but promised a more detailed study of clots in the brain.