Canada has recorded an additional 6,800 new cases of the virus as of Friday while the federal officials announced that there will be a four-week delay in vaccine shipments due to production issues.

Procurement Minister Anita Anand said in a press conference on Friday that only half of the total number of Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccines will arrive in the country in the next month.

She did mention that the delay is for a short period only. This gap is expected to normalize by the end of March. The reason behind the delay happened as the manufacturing company was increasing its capacity of European countries.

This can only mean that there are reduced deliveries of the vaccine from the manufacturing facility in Europe to countries including Canada. The good news is that this change in course will not be affecting the countries long-term vaccine plans.

Concerns were raised by various provincial leaders like Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, B.C.’s Health Minister Adrian Dix, and Ontario Premier Doug Ford since the second shot of the vaccine is expected to be administered 21 days after the first shot to achieve maximum effectiveness.

This news was released in the backdrop to the countries graph showing an exponential increase in the number of new cases a day by February which is calculated to cross 10,000. This is if the people of Canada continue to maintain the permissible number of people they meet each day.

According to Chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam, the increase in new cases was because of the large public gatherings that Canadians indulged in during the holidays.

As per her, the currently permissible extents should also be curbed to control the spread. If Canadians increase their social contacts, the number of cases per day can also increase to as much as 30,000.

The total number of COVID cases in Canada as of Friday is just under 700,000 out of which 601,000 people have recovered since. The death toll of the country is at 17,729 while 192 new fatalities were reported.

Canada has taken 20,238,921 tests and 765,100 doses of the vaccine have already been distributed across the country.

On Friday, Ontario reported the highest number of cases at 2,998 and 100 deaths. Many provinces reported new cases. Only the Northwest Territories in the Canadian north has reported one case of the virus.

As per Johns Hopkins University, the exponential increase in the number of new cases was reported while the global rate has reached a new milestone with two million who have succumbed to the virus since the beginning of the pandemic.

The number of people who were diagnosed with COVID-19 has reached 93,751,000. The countries that are leading in terms of both infections and deaths are U.S.A, India, and Brazil.

It is only a matter of time and patience that the whole world will collectively reach the end of one of the most dreading times in modern history.