“Three out of 100 Canadians have received at least one dose, compared to about 14 in the US and 21 in the UK”
BBC: Canada has secured the world’s largest number of potential Covid vaccine doses per capita – but it’s struggling to get its hands on some of those doses and to get jabs into arms. Canada’s inoculation drive began 14 December, and the country has so far given just over 1.18 million doses. It currently stands at 40 in global rankings of doses per 100 people, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Just over three out of 100 Canadians have received at least one dose, compared to about 14 in the US and 21 in the UK. Canada was criticised at the end of last year for buying up multiple times the supply it needs to cover its population.
It has signed deals with seven vaccine suppliers – Moderna and Pfizer, as well as ones with pending authorisation like AstraZeneca and Johnson and Johnson – for a total of over 400 million doses. But it seems it wasn’t positioned for priority delivery of the two authorised jabs.
That’s partly because the country decided to invest in vaccines from European factories, afraid that the US, under former president Donald Trump, would issue export bans.But European factories are struggling with supply and recently it has been the EU, not the US, that has been threatening those bans. Canada lacks domestic production capacity for vaccines.
There have been delivery delays, with reduced or cancelled orders, in recent weeks for both the Moderna and Pfizer inoculations.
As of this week, 2.43% of the population had received at least one dose of the vaccine.
Almost 12% of people over 80 and just over 55% of priority healthcare workers have received at least one jab, according to government data.
Canada is expecting six million doses by the end of March, a deadline Mr Trudeau has said suppliers expect to meet.
There are indications Canadians – many who have been under strict winter lockdowns – are frustrated with the slow pace of vaccinations.
The last sentence is the best.
‘There are indications Canadians – many who have been under strict winter lockdowns – are frustrated with the slow pace of vaccinations’.
Yes, we are frustrated.
The British and South African variant(s) are now in all 10 provinces. We have no vaccines for the original COVID19 virus and there is still NO plan to distribute the vaccine from province to province.
Plus, the end of March is a long fucking way away for those who’ve been house-bound since Boxing Day.
Given Health Canada’s published rate of vaccine delivery & the PM’s (Mr Butts’ friend’s) promise of vaccination by Sep, the 3.1M doses forecasted by Health Canada from now to Apr 4 falls 11M doses short of the PM’s own promise. It’s not politics. It’s arithmetic. pic.twitter.com/08Kidj3VS3
— Duncan Dee (@duncandee) February 15, 2021
If you’ve been looking for someone to blame for all of this, you can lay it at the feet of the federal government. They gambled and lost, then lost again after Pfizer and Moderna delayed production and delivery delaying general vaccinations by months while 3 new deadly variants are spreading like wild fire across the country.
What drives most Canadians crazy is knowing how fucked we are at all levels of Government. In a perfect world the federal government’s ineptitude would be offset by a caring and knowledgable Provincial government. Outside BC and the Atlantic provinces, the Provincial response has been as bad, if not worse than Trudeau’s effort so here we are, stuck inside, going broke and crazy.
That’s why these lockdowns are pissing us off. We know the stats and we see people on respirators. We’re doing what we’ve been told to do, for the most part.
We’re going broke, losing our houses and it’s supposed to get worse in March/April. Not only do we not have a plan, we don’t have vaccines and Ontario is planning on reducing restrictions over the next 2 weeks.
A quick summary of #SARSCoV2 variants in Canada.
1. They’re widespread, so closing international borders is too little, too late
2. They explode cases rapidly; see NL
3. Partial lifting of PH measures is going to make it all worse
4. Vaccination rollout is too slow to help us— Gerald Evans (@skepticalIDdoc) February 13, 2021
Canada is at the bottom of this list. That is not a sign of success.
Hopefully, vaccine doses will start to flow and reverse this unsettling poor performance. We need a national mass vaccination plan that can handle millions of doses per month. pic.twitter.com/GJ64ncpE08— Don Davies MP (@DonDavies) February 14, 2021
Canada’s elderly are ‘terrified’ vaccines may not come soon enoughhttps://t.co/zLTKeXOuNM
Back in December 2020, Canada’s coronavirus vaccination campaign looked promising as first doses were administered. But two months later supplies are down to a tr… https://t.co/mBcxhWYEAZ— Mostak Rony (@RonyMostak) February 15, 2021
Complaining about it all won’t speed anything up but at least we know who to blame, and that matters to me.
It should matter to you, too.
DB
Dean Blundell
Dean Blundell is a Canadian radio personality. Best known as a longtime morning host on CFNY-FM (The Edge) in Toronto, Ontario. In 2015 he was named the new morning host on sports radio station CJCL (Sportsnet 590 The Fan). Dean started his career in radio in 2001 and for nearly 20 years been entertaining the radio audience. Dean’s newest venture is the launch of his site and podcast which is gaining tremendous momentum across North America.
