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Source: https://nationalpost.com/news/how-ottawa-utterly-botched-canadas-covid-vaccine-acquisition
How Ottawa utterly botched Canada's COVID vaccine acquisition
Despite spending more money on this pandemic than anyone else, Canada is lagging behind almost every other developed nation in vaccination numbers
Author of the article:
Tristin Hopper
Publishing date:
Feb 05, 2021 • 6 hours ago • 4 minute read
It’s now becoming increasingly clear that as the world mobilizes to immunize itself against COVID-19, Canada is falling seriously behind. At a time when more than half of Israelis have gotten the jab, Canada has only two per cent of its population vaccinated. Recent analysis by The Economist found that while virtually all of Europe will be fully vaccinated by the end of this year, the earliest Canada can hope for is mid-2022. And in one of the sharpest rebukes to Canada’s pandemic performance yet, the federal government has tapped into a global vaccine-sharing pool initially meant for developing nations.
The coming months will reveal much of the failures and oversights that allowed this to happen, but below is a primer on why you’re going to be vaccinated much later than if you were an American, Brit or even Serbian.
Betting our vaccine hopes on a deeply questionable Chinese plan
At first, Canada seemed to have vaccine-acquisition under control. The Chinese pharma company CanSino had developed what was then one of the world’s most promising vaccine candidates, and Ottawa struck a deal to have it undergo human trials in Canada, with Canadian laboratories free to reproduce and manufacture the shot.
But only days after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the arrangement, China shut off all shipments of the CanSino vaccine to Canada in what is believed to have been a spiteful retaliation for the continued imprisonment of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver. In hindsight, it may have been a bad idea to bet the country’s pandemic recovery on one of Canada’s top geopolitical enemies.
Being seriously late to the vaccine-buying party
Right now, Canada is technically the world’s most prolific “hoarder” of COVID-19 vaccine doses. The federal government has signed massive pre-orders for at least six approved or pending COVID-19 vaccines, with the result that Ottawa has effectively signed up for nearly nine vaccine doses per Canadian.
But with many of these contracts being inked after the collapse of the CanSino plan, Canada is lingering at the back of the line on these orders. It wasn’t until August 5 that Canada announced a plan to secure doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, and as of this week both companies have delivered a mere 1,157,940 vaccine doses to Canada, with further deliveries delayed. In the U.K., by contrast, 10 million people have gotten their first vaccine dose as of Feb. 3, including 90 per cent of the over-75 population in England, which has significantly blunted the deadliness of the pandemic.
This might be a good place to mention that Canada has led the world in per-capita spending related to the COVID-19 pandemic...
How Ottawa utterly botched Canada's COVID vaccine acquisition
Despite spending more money on this pandemic than anyone else, Canada is lagging behind almost every other developed nation in vaccination numbers
Author of the article:
Tristin Hopper
Publishing date:
Feb 05, 2021 • 6 hours ago • 4 minute read
It’s now becoming increasingly clear that as the world mobilizes to immunize itself against COVID-19, Canada is falling seriously behind. At a time when more than half of Israelis have gotten the jab, Canada has only two per cent of its population vaccinated. Recent analysis by The Economist found that while virtually all of Europe will be fully vaccinated by the end of this year, the earliest Canada can hope for is mid-2022. And in one of the sharpest rebukes to Canada’s pandemic performance yet, the federal government has tapped into a global vaccine-sharing pool initially meant for developing nations.
The coming months will reveal much of the failures and oversights that allowed this to happen, but below is a primer on why you’re going to be vaccinated much later than if you were an American, Brit or even Serbian.
Betting our vaccine hopes on a deeply questionable Chinese plan
At first, Canada seemed to have vaccine-acquisition under control. The Chinese pharma company CanSino had developed what was then one of the world’s most promising vaccine candidates, and Ottawa struck a deal to have it undergo human trials in Canada, with Canadian laboratories free to reproduce and manufacture the shot.
But only days after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the arrangement, China shut off all shipments of the CanSino vaccine to Canada in what is believed to have been a spiteful retaliation for the continued imprisonment of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver. In hindsight, it may have been a bad idea to bet the country’s pandemic recovery on one of Canada’s top geopolitical enemies.
Being seriously late to the vaccine-buying party
Right now, Canada is technically the world’s most prolific “hoarder” of COVID-19 vaccine doses. The federal government has signed massive pre-orders for at least six approved or pending COVID-19 vaccines, with the result that Ottawa has effectively signed up for nearly nine vaccine doses per Canadian.
But with many of these contracts being inked after the collapse of the CanSino plan, Canada is lingering at the back of the line on these orders. It wasn’t until August 5 that Canada announced a plan to secure doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, and as of this week both companies have delivered a mere 1,157,940 vaccine doses to Canada, with further deliveries delayed. In the U.K., by contrast, 10 million people have gotten their first vaccine dose as of Feb. 3, including 90 per cent of the over-75 population in England, which has significantly blunted the deadliness of the pandemic.
This might be a good place to mention that Canada has led the world in per-capita spending related to the COVID-19 pandemic...