"Canada is winning the vaccine lottery. Other countries aren't so lucky."?

[lenny]

"
Canada is winning the vaccine lottery. Other countries aren't so lucky.

COVID-19 remains a threat until it's eliminated everywhere. Time to share the wealth.

Aaron Wherry · CBC News · Posted: May 22, 2021 4:00 AM ET | Last Updated: 32 minutes ago

Hannah Duffy, 14, gets her first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at a clinic held at Don Bosco Catholic Secondary School in Toronto. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)



Canadians are very lucky. Just a few months after the vaccination campaign was assailed by politicians and pundits as a disaster, this country of 38 million people had received 23 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine as of Thursday morning. Millions more doses are expected in the coming weeks.

Canada caught up to the United States this week in terms of the share of the population that has received a first dose. In terms of total doses administered per capita, Canada ranks third in the G20 and seventh among the 37 OECD countries.

According to a tally posted this week by Blake Shaffer, an economist at the University of Calgary, Canada ranked 13th among the 151 countries in the world with more than a million people in terms of doses administered.

Canadians can feel good about their luck. But any celebrations should be tempered by the knowledge that not everyone is so fortunate — and the fact that COVID-19 will remain a threat as long as it's circulating anywhere.

"Just because you're born somewhere in a country that has fewer resources doesn't mean that you shouldn't have access to life-saving treatments," International Development Minister Karina Gould said in an interview that will air Sunday morning on the CBC's Rosemary Barton Live.

The Liberals are going to have to live up to those words. And now that there are fewer countries ahead of Canada in the race for vaccines, it might be easier for Canadians to see how many countries have always been behind us.

Vaccine anxiety in early 2021

The panic of a few months ago was not entirely unwarranted. Even if an every-country-for-itself scramble is a terrible way to vaccinate the world's population against a global threat, Canadians could be forgiven for wanting their government to perform respectably in an unseemly competition.

But the most catastrophic forecasts were obviously premature and the metrics for measuring success needed to be properly calibrated. There was never much sense, for instance, in comparing Canada to places like the Seychelles, a country of 100,000 people that used a Chinese vaccine that is not approved for use here.

It's also fair to ask whether the federal government should have done some things differently to ensure a faster or more plentiful supply — though there's still no widespread agreement on what those things could have been.

Thousands lined up outside the Thorncliffe Park Community Hub to get the first dose of their COVID-19 vaccine in Toronto on April 24, 2021. (Alan Habbick/CBC)

 

[lenny]

But the experience of these last six months showed Canadians how fickle global vaccination can be. Some countries — like the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel — enjoyed advantages that were not easily replicated. Canada's supply was briefly impaired because a factory in Belgium was shut down for retooling.

Underneath the panic was an unacknowledged question: Why should the average Canadian be more entitled to a vaccine than the average citizen of any other country on Earth?

Wealth has its privileges

"I think it's a time for Canadians to be feeling grateful and understanding the privilege that we hold as one of the wealthier nations," said Ananya Tina Banerjee, a professor in the department of epidemiology, biostatistics and occupational health at McGill University.

Banerjee — who has family in India, the current global epicentre of the pandemic — tweeted this week that immunization should not be framed as a "vaccine Olympics" between Canada and the United States.

When vaccine distribution is measured on a continental basis, the disparities become glaring. In North America, 56.4 doses have been administered per 100 people, according to tracking by Our World In Data. Europe is second with 41.4 doses.

A Kashmiri doctor in a protective suit takes a nasal swab sample of a nomad to test for COVID-19 in Budgam, southwest of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Tuesday, May 18, 2021. (Dar Yasin/AP)

For South America, the rate falls to 23.3 doses. In Asia, it's 17.6 doses. In Africa, just 1.97 doses have been administered per 100 people.

Measured by wealth, high-income countries have administered 52.3 doses per 100 people, while low-income countries have administered 0.64.

Robyn Christine Waite, director of policy and advocacy for Results Canada, said this sort of inequity is not unique to COVID-19.

"There have long been deadly divides [between higher and lower income countries] in health outcomes and access to services such as the tools needed to control and treat disease," Waite said. "The one thing I will say is that the pandemic has definitely shone a massive light on the inequities."

In the case of HIV and AIDS, for instance, antiretroviral drugs came to Africa long after such treatments had been available in North America and Europe.

Enlightened self-interest

Waite suggested that COVID-19 could be "pushed to the corners of the world" eventually and forgotten about in wealthy countries, becoming a "neglected disease of poverty" like AIDS, malaria or tuberculosis.

Mitchell Hammond, a history professor at the University of Victoria, said earlier outbreaks of diseases like smallpox and polio provide examples of what we would now call "vaccine diplomacy" by the United States and former Soviet Union. At the moment, the immediate and ongoing crises within their own borders has made it harder for some countries to assist others, though China has emerged a significant exporter of vaccines.

But Hammond identified two distinctions that might motivate wealthy nations to do even more now: the interconnectedness of the modern world and the fact that COVID-19 has shown an ability to produce new and more dangerous variants.

Beyond the obvious moral argument, this is an argument for self-interest. Until COVID-19 is eliminated everywhere, it threatens everyone.

A doctor tends to a patient on oxygen suffering from COVID-19 in a ward for coronavirus patients at the Martini hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia on Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2021. (Farah Abdi Warsameh/AP)

Canada contributed $440 million to COVAX (a program that allows high-income countries to purchase vaccines for themselves and lower-income countries) and $1.3 billion to the G20's Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, which distributes vaccines as well as other supplies.

Wealthy countries, including Canada, are also under pressure to waive intellectual property rights to vaccines and assist in the transfer of technology.

• Canada's 'residual positives' exemption lets hundreds fly home after recovering from COVID
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• Canada has ordered more than 400 million COVID-19 vaccine shots: Here's the progress report

Canadians themselves already have benefited from vaccine-sharing. In March, the United States agreed to lend Canada 1.5 million doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine. Before that, Canada accepted some of its allotted doses from COVAX.

In an ideal world, the global vaccination effort might have been coordinated through a program like COVAX. Countries like Canada that pursued their own deals with pharmaceutical companies have been accused of undermining COVAX.

The Trudeau government has promised to share Canada's excess doses and Gould told Rosemary Barton Live that there might be more to say about that "fairly soon."

As Waite suggests, Canada could now defer or forgo the rest of its COVAX allotment. To date, Canada has received approximately 900,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine through COVAX. That would leave another million doses due to arrive in the weeks ahead.

"[Procurement Minister] Anita Anand should make that happen ASAP," Waite said.

With the country now enjoying the good fortune of a solid supply of vaccines, Canadians should be prepared to help the rest of the world catch up."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/covid-pandemic-vaccine-canada-covax-1.6036876

 

[wetnose]

Canada ordered 400 million doses of vaccine, so we'll have plenty to share (assuming other vaccines are successful) as more production comes online:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-vaccine-deliveries-progress-report-1.6034624

We're still far behind in terms of second dosage but evidence from the UK suggests that lengthening the time between doses was the right move.

 

[masterpoonhunter]

As an aside, that "14 yr old" in the picture in the first post does not look like a 14 yr old to me. I mean I do not recall them looking like that when I was 14, 15, 16 ... Holy smokes.

 

[musingaway]

As an aside, that "14 yr old" in the picture in the first post does not look like a 14 yr old to me. I mean I do not recall them looking like that when I was 14, 15, 16 ... Holy smokes.

lol easy there buddy

 

[Newb808]

As an aside, that "14 yr old" in the picture in the first post does not look like a 14 yr old to me. I mean I do not recall them looking like that when I was 14, 15, 16 ... Holy smokes.

🤦🏻‍♂️

Back on topic, we sure as hell are lucky here in Canada in terms of our vaccination rollout as well as other Covid metrics.
”Just a few months after the vaccination campaign was assailed by politicians and pundits as a disaster...”
I recall a lot of whining on the topic here too, even quite recently. Not going to bother digging up the comments but yeah LOL. We are THIRD in the G7 for vaccinations per capita only behind the USA and UK(possibly the two wealthiest and most geopolitically influential western countries.)
And oh yeah, we’re “behind” countries in South America, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, damn Trudeau!! Those countries, by and large, have been “vaccinated” with lesser jabs and many of them still have economic restrictions in place.
Not bad at all.

 

[overdone]

🤦🏻‍♂️

Back on topic, we sure as hell are lucky here in Canada in terms of our vaccination rollout as well as other Covid metrics.
”Just a few months after the vaccination campaign was assailed by politicians and pundits as a disaster...”
I recall a lot of whining on the topic here too, even quite recently. Not going to bother digging up the comments but yeah LOL. We are THIRD in the G7 for vaccinations per capita only behind the USA and UK(possibly the two wealthiest and most geopolitically influential western countries.)
And oh yeah, we’re “behind” countries in South America, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, damn Trudeau!! Those countries, by and large, have been “vaccinated” with lesser jabs and many of them still have economic restrictions in place.
Not bad at all.

lol, lucky, haha

it's taken 6 months almost to get 20M doses

Japan isn't comparable, they didn't put any pressure on vaccines because they didn't have very many cases or deaths per capita

they're way behind everyone

and the rest of the G7, sure, go look at the second doses, they're way ahead of us and not really very far behind in first doses

the others are all in the mid 30% to 40% and the US is there too

go look at the actual number of vaccines, they are all at the same or more than Canada, specially the US

for christ sakes the US was vaccinating more people per day than we've been getting in a week



and success? we're down to one vaccine, Pfizer, Moderna, just yesterday, Leblanc said we can't count on when they might deliver, not that we've been able to for the last month plus

it took us this long to get to 20M, we still need another 10M to get to 75% for the first shot, another month of only Pfizer, lol

lucky, yes, definitely

then we're going to need another 3-6 months to get that many for the second doses

cause we're way way behind all the others, even Japan has almost as many 2nd doses as us, lol


lipstick on a pig, looking under a fence is still a pig

how sad that you think we're lucky to have a complete incompetent bunch of leaders in the Liberals, specially Trudeau

pathetically sad

we should have had everyone with 2 shots a month or 2 ago if we didn't have a complete child in charge

we only have 35M people roughly over 12

below adequate equals lucky now

race to the bottom

 

[lenny]

for christ sakes the US was vaccinating more people per day than we've been getting in a week

But the US has many times the larger population.

The US also has their own vaccine plants & have been hogging vaccine doses for themselves.

Yet:

"The percentage of Canadians who have received their first COVID-19 vaccine has, for the first time, surpassed the United States."

"...As of the evening of May 21, Canada has vaccinated 49.3 per cent of the population with one dose, according to COVID Tracker Canada.

"... By comparison, 48.6 per cent of the American population has received at least one dose of the vaccine...

https://globalnews.ca/news/7871681/covid-vaccine-first-dose-canada-passes-us/

 

[Newb808]

lol, lucky, haha

it's taken 6 months almost to get 20M doses

Japan isn't comparable, they didn't put any pressure on vaccines because they didn't have very many cases or deaths per capita

they're way behind everyone

and the rest of the G7, sure, go look at the second doses, they're way ahead of us and not really very far behind in first doses

the others are all in the mid 30% to 40% and the US is there too

go look at the actual number of vaccines, they are all at the same or more than Canada, specially the US

for christ sakes the US was vaccinating more people per day than we've been getting in a week



and success? we're down to one vaccine, Pfizer, Moderna, just yesterday, Leblanc said we can't count on when they might deliver, not that we've been able to for the last month plus

it took us this long to get to 20M, we still need another 10M to get to 75% for the first shot, another month of only Pfizer, lol

lucky, yes, definitely

then we're going to need another 3-6 months to get that many for the second doses

cause we're way way behind all the others, even Japan has almost as many 2nd doses as us, lol


lipstick on a pig, looking under a fence is still a pig

how sad that you think we're lucky to have a complete incompetent bunch of leaders in the Liberals, specially Trudeau

pathetically sad

we should have had everyone with 2 shots a month or 2 ago if we didn't have a complete child in charge

we only have 35M people roughly over 12

below adequate equals lucky now

race to the bottom

So we’ll leave Japan out? Ok then, Canada has the lowest infections and infection fatalities, per capita(remember some countries are more populated than others [more on that later]) in the G7.
“go look at the actual number of vaccines, they are all at the same or more than Canada, specially the US”
No shit the US is ahead but the rest is false. Germany is right behind us in PER CAPITA VACCINATIONS GIVEN and all the rest, places like Germany which have endured way more restrictive and lengthy lockdowns than Canadians on average, are even further behind (never mind first or second doses.)
“for christ sakes the US was vaccinating more people per day than we've been getting in a week”
I know if you look at a map it might look like we’re even bigger than the states but their population, in fact, is almost ten times ours. They peaked at 4M per day, which has fallen right off btw, and Canada is basically averaging 400k per day(our daily record for most vaccinations per capita is higher than the USA’s btw) per day. Guess what 10 times 400k is?

 

[overdone]

So we’ll leave Japan out? Ok then, Canada has the lowest infections and infection fatalities, per capita(remember some countries are more populated than others [more on that later]) in the G7.
“go look at the actual number of vaccines, they are all at the same or more than Canada, specially the US”
No shit the US is ahead but the rest is false. Germany is right behind us in PER CAPITA VACCINATIONS GIVEN and all the rest, places like Germany which have endured way more restrictive and lengthy lockdowns than Canadians on average, are even further behind (never mind first or second doses.)
“for christ sakes the US was vaccinating more people per day than we've been getting in a week”
I know if you look at a map it might look like we’re even bigger than the states but their population, in fact, is almost ten times ours. They peaked at 4M per day, which has fallen right off btw, and Canada is basically averaging 400k per day(our daily record for most vaccinations per capita is higher than the USA’s btw) per day. Guess what 10 times 400k is?

yes, the US has 10 times our population

Germany 2X

so quit using stats like the idiot Liberals that fit your narrative, how about basic numbers

real numbers

Trudeau's vaccines produced in Canada, zero, money put into Canada in 2020 to re-tool, build a plant, invest in private companies already in the vaccine business, pretty much zero

Japan, has almost as many 2 dose vaccinations as Canada in real numbers, with virtually no vaccines

you can sit and manipulate stats all day long, pick the one's that fit your bias

in real numbers, Canada isn't doing well, has NOTHING TO BRAG ABOUT

FOR FUCK SAKE, TURDEAU STOLE VACCINE FROM THE 3RD WORLD, THE POOREST PEOPLE OUT THERE, WHO'VE HAD VIRTUALLY NO VACCINES, IT'S SOMEWHERE AROUND 0.03%

TO SAVE HIS PATHETIC FAILURE ON THE ISSUE

the fact is, even with a completely incompetent orange menace in charge, a trust fund baby, like we have

the US still had more leadership than we did, that's why they're ahead

same with the UK, an adult in charge

Trudeau went to CHINA< CHINA< for vaccines

to the worst place anyone with even 2 brain cells to rub together to make a thought wouldn't have done

that's why anyone who thinks we're LUCKY is seriously deluded about reality


just watch the news on Sunday, once again, the idiots, "experts" are now talking about how vaccinating 12 yr olds with limited supply is moronic

while you aren't giving a second dose to those who actually have a risk of dying, hospitalization, ICU, serious problems

the UK is changing their strategy trying to get more 2nd doses faster

we're months away from that

with only one vaccine to depend on, Moderna is not delivering on it's contract

you know part of the 400 million doses we're so so lucky to be getting, maybe, sometime, well who the fuck knows when

and Trudeau can't steal from Covax cause India stopped exporting and isn't going to start anytime soon

yes, soooo lucky, to have an incompetent man child trust fund baby who's our first black PM lying sack of shit, fake feminist

so lucky

now go get some more stats that fit the narrative

facts, science, 4 months, mix-matching, all about Trudeau's failure, politics, not facts or science

but, just wait another day, I'm sure they'll put out another stat to prove we're lucky, lol

 

[yinhala]

Japan has about 2% population fully vaxxed. That is still less than Canada, also having over 50% popluation with 1 shot is better than less than 20% w/first shot and 10% w/2 shots

 

[Chubby lover]

Ur welcome to my shot. Not sure why anyone would get this shot on a flu that’s 99% survivable and you can still get it after you get the shot

no thanks

 

[yinhala]

so i guess since a seat belt doesnt protect you 100% of the time you wouldnt use one then right? Also it reduces the effects of the disease if you do get it. But again there is no mandatory vaxx so there you go

 

[musingaway]

so quit using stats like the idiot Liberals that fit your narrative, how about basic numbers

real numbers

So right wingers are now at the point where math and statistics is “idiot librul” conspiracy now? The Facebook grandpas get angrier and more irrational....

 

[musingaway]

It's worrying when they start living up to their own satire... Veep - Muslim Math

 

[lenny]

Ur welcome to my shot. Not sure why anyone would get this shot on a flu that’s 99% survivable and you can still get it after you get the shot

no thanks

99% survivable means you die 1 in 100 times.

Who's foolish enough to play that sort of Russian Roulette with their life?

Besides which "long covid" is another issue.

Personally, i'd rather not even become infected, sickly for a week or two, bedridden, hospitalized, in ICU, or on a ventilator, either.

Nor risk being a carrier of the virus & infecting others who may suffer the same.

The sooner people get vaccinated, the sooner life returns to normal. Covidiots have delayed that already by months via their irresponsible actions.

 

[vanperb]

Ur welcome to my shot. Not sure why anyone would get this shot on a flu that’s 99% survivable and you can still get it after you get the shot

Because it's not only about you. Transmission to others needs to be considered. Sure you might survive, but what about the your friend, your mom, your wife, your child. You roll the dice for them every single time you're with them after you've been infected.

Learn some empathy. Toxic individualism is what will kill us all.

 

[Bambiha]

There is nothing like Indian controlled Kashmir . It’s like saying Canadian controlled Montreal . Lol

 

[wetnose]

So right wingers are now at the point where math and statistics is “idiot librul” conspiracy now? The Facebook grandpas get angrier and more irrational....

It's all the leaded gasoline from the 1950/60s (yes, the good ol' days).

When they were younger, their immune system could suppress the effects of lead, but now decades later....

 

[Chubby lover]

Because it's not only about you. Transmission to others needs to be considered. Sure you might survive, but what about the your friend, your mom, your wife, your child. You roll the dice for them every single time you're with them after you've been infected.

Learn some empathy. Toxic individualism is what will kill us all.

I got banned for a month for my last comment so I’ll tread lightly this time

I am just totaly sick of the fear in people over this

every single one of my friends whowere told they have this said it was Notning. Usual flu like symptoms and no taste. Everyone of them were down for a few days andgood after. One one buddy was told he had it and he to stay inside for 2 weeks he no symptoms. he Renoed his bathroom
I know 2 people who died of it
First one crushed in her logging truck truck her death cert said cause of death covid

my other friend 61 dropped dead of a massive jammer

cause of death of. Yup covid

that’s why I question all of this

if I’ve upset the mods and get banned again so be it