OTTAWA—With Quebec warning it could run out of some medical supplies within a week, the federal government is scrambling to buy what it can on a fiercely competitive global market as it enlists Canadian companies to crank out a domestic stock of much-needed gear.

Government officials said Tuesday that Ottawa will spend an additional $2 billion to almost double Canada’s estimated supply of ventilators, critical-care breathing machines used for patients who fall dangerously ill from COVID-19.

This money is also going toward new orders for “millions” of additional testing kits, along with more than 157 million surgical masks and 60 million heavier N95 protective masks, Public Services and Procurement Minister Anita Anand said Tuesday.

However, it’s not clear when all that equipment will be available.

During his daily address from Rideau Cottage, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada’s health-care system has what it needs “for the foreseeable future,” but added that the country needs to prepare for projected worst-case scenarios that are “fairly dire.”

He did not elaborate on how bad things could get, but stressed that Canadians can avoid the worst of the pandemic by obeying edicts to stay home and avoid close contact with others to curb the spread of the coronavirus that has killed more than 33,000 people around the world.

While Canada is now testing up to 15,000 individuals a day — a number that fluctuates — Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, acknowledged that “we need more lab testing.”

“Even though Canada is testing quite a lot of people, we want to do more. That is an absolutely critical area,” she told reporters Tuesday.

Tam also conceded the lack of test kits that have been delivered to remote Indigenous communities and the challenge of processing any tests that are done. “They’ll be linked to the bigger system of the provinces and territories as well but I think this is absolutely a gap we have to fill because even the (tested) samples have to be flown vast distances to referral laboratories.”

Two days ago, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S.’s top infectious disease adviser to President Donald Trump, told CNN the U.S. could have “millions of cases” of COVID-19, and could see between 100,000 and 200,000 Americans die based on models for the virus.

Canadian officials have suggested between 30 and 70 per cent of Canadians could become infected.

“There’s no question that we will need more masks, ventilators, and testing kits. But how many more we need depends entirely on you,” Trudeau said.

“If you stay home and follow public health recommendations, you can slow the spread. And that means fewer patients in our hospitals, fewer patients to test, fewer ventilators to use on critical patients.”

Some jurisdictions have already warned of impending shortages. In Quebec, Premier François Legault told reporters Tuesday that “certain equipment” needed to fight the pandemic in the province will run out in “three to seven days.”

The Star has reported that nurses in Toronto are forced to ration protective masks they use every day, while several provinces — including Ontario, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan — have confirmed they are ordering hundreds of new ventilators to prepare for a possible surge of critically ill patients that need intensive care.

Anand, the federal procurement minister, said Ottawa is now bulk-buying what it can from suppliers around the world, and that supplies are expected to start arriving in the coming days.

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Anand said the federal government is looking “aggressively” to buy “at least” 4,000 additional ventilators and has already secured contracts for 1,570.

Last week, Deputy Public Health Officer Howard Njoo confirmed estimates of about 5,000 ventilators in hospitals across Canada, though it is not clear how many of them are available at any given time.

The buying spree comes as countries around the world grapple with the same pandemic and jockey for supplies.

Federal health officials admitted Tuesday that global competition for medical equipment necessary to the COVID-19 fight is intense.

Deputy Health Minister Stephen Lucas said federal measures to streamline and fast-track approvals of drugs, test kits and medical devices has already allowed two new diagnostic tests to be made quickly available to Canadian laboratories, and additional tests are being approved.

“Despite all these efforts we anticipate there will be shortages of health products given global demand,” Lucas told a Commons health committee.

Canada is looking all over the world to buy whatever it can, Anand’s office told the Star, while Trudeau said Tuesday that Canadian embassies around the world are working to make sure shipments of purchased supplies are received “in the coming days.”

Trudeau stressed Canada can’t rely on international shipments amidst the pandemic and needs to ramp up domestic production of “essential supplies” in the coming weeks and months.

On March 20, the government announced it would shift its industrial policy to help Canadian manufacturers retool factories to make gear needed for the pandemic. As of Tuesday, three companies in Ontario and Quebec had signed deals to make new ventilators, surgical masks and testing kits for Canada’s response to the virus, Trudeau said.

Five more companies had signed “letters of intent” to make even more supplies, including Precision Biomonitoring, Fluid Energy Group, Irving Oil, Calko Group and Standfield’s, Trudeau said.

Alex Ballingall is an Ottawa-based reporter covering national politics. Follow him on Twitter: @aballinga

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