Health committee  That's because they have—

Health committee  They have supply.

Health committee  I can't tell you how procurement works. It's not my—

Health committee  I think that given the scarcity of vaccines, you have to make the best decision given what you have.

Health committee  I can't say it's easy, no.

Health committee  I'll start with the last part of your question. What changed since the original recommendation was that data came out of the U.K., Quebec and B.C. showing that at eight weeks we still had higher than 80% effectiveness, even in the long-term care residences, which to us was a sign that these vaccines are actually quite good.

Health committee  You would have to ask the Public Health Agency of Canada how many people fell into the high-risk categories. They have that data. It's just that I don't know them by heart.

Health committee  We did, and the immunologists we consulted said that this was a theoretical risk and that they didn't see why extending the interval would increase the risk of having variants show up. The most important thing—

Health committee  It was a discussion, but I can try to get you something in writing.

Health committee  But you know what? Because we're in a pandemic, at times we have to make decisions that are difficult.

Health committee  Know that during the pandemic everything is more or less a “population level experiment”. When we decide to do a lockdown and when we decide to do other things, we don't necessarily have the data. We have to make decisions based on incomplete data, and that's why you have experts who will generalize from what they know from other situations to try to make the best decision.

Health committee  There is a bulletin that was published last week from NACI with the pros and cons of that recommendation. We will be having more data in that statement when the provinces have published their data. At this point in time, they were provided to us, but under a confidentiality agreement, and we're waiting for those to be public to update that statement.

Health committee  Of course not.

Health committee  It's based on the data we have from the U.K., from B.C. and from Quebec, where up to eight weeks we see that actually the effectiveness is quite good. As I said, we don't have data for up to four months in terms of effectiveness, but we have modelling data and we have expertise in immunology.

Health committee  If we had had enough vaccines to vaccinate all Canadians quickly, or at least those most at risk, with two doses of vaccines, we would not have needed to extend the interval. That's for sure.