Canada's 'gamble' on delaying, mixing and matching Covid-19 vaccines paid off

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/canada-vaccine-effectiveness-data-delayed-doses-mixing-matching-covid-19-vaccines-1.6205993

by colinprince • 5 years ago

107 168 5 years ago

cbc.ca

refurb8• 5 years ago

“Bold” strategy? Canada had no option if they wanted to vaccinate quickly. Unlike the US and Europe, Canada dragged its heels on pre-ordering vaccines. Once it was apparent they couldn’t control the case numbers without vaccines, they took what they could get, prioritized first doses then realized they had different vaccines delivered for 2nd doses.

The fact the mixed vaccines gives good protection is more luck than anything. Canada was forced into that decision before there was any solid data.

But hey, i do the same thing when I do interviews. My mistakes becomes “prescient” when they just happen to work.

defaultname3• 5 years ago

"Unlike the US and Europe, Canada dragged its heels on pre-ordering vaccines"

Canada was one of the first countries to pre-order vaccines, signing massive agreements with just about every candidate maker. I'm aware of literally a single deal happening with another country prior to Canada's orders.

What thwarted Canada's efforts was that the US defacto nationalized the medical establishment in that country, while Canada had basically become beholden to larger centers courtesy of an over reliance on free trade. With the US production nationalized, Canada, and truly the rest of the world, had to rely upon manufacturing in Europe. The EU at times lurched towards protectionism but never did, and Canada is in its debt.

Though in the wake of it Canada has committed to no less than four vaccine manufacturing plants, including mRNA vaccines. Lesson learned.

`"Bold” strategy? Canada had no option if they wanted to vaccinate quickly.'

Yes, it was a strategy. The manufacturers were dictating a timeline for shots that would have meant that the number of people fully vaccinated would be quicker, but the number of people partly vaccinated would be much slower. People much smarter than you or I did an analysis and decided on another approach, including mixing shots. And yes, of course it was because of a supply constraint (for reasons mentioned elsewhere, but having positively nothing to do with Canada "dragging it's heels"), otherwise such approaches wouldn't be necessary, no?

jszymborski3• 5 years ago

Speaking of nationalising the medical industry:

Fun fact, Canada was the home of Connaught labs, a publicly owned laboratory which was the first lab to produce the Salk's Polio vaccine, and went on to produce the Smallpox vaccine.

In the 1970s, however, Canada went on a privatizing spree (incidentally, the same gov't that ratified NAFTA), and Connaught was privatised and sold many time since.

More info here https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2020/03/11/the-...

ipaddr6• 5 years ago

Canada signed the most deals but are you aware that Canada had delivery dates months scheduled for months later in the contracts which is why Canada had no recourse but to wait. Just to keep face 250k dose were flown in before the year but the contracts expected some delivery by March but most by summer.

jeeeb2• 5 years ago

Not to hijack this too much but the Australian vaccine rollout has been widely panned but much of the problems come down to a choice to rely on domestically manufactured AZ vaccines.

In a different timeline if the AZ vaccine hadn’t been associated with rare blood clotting, if Pfizer/Moderna hasn’t been able to scale manufacturing as well that strategy would be looking very good.

It’s interesting to think that Canada and other nations that instead depended on international supply chains ultimately did much better though.

victorhooi• 5 years ago

I'm not sure I buy this (about Canada).

Israel was one of the first to vaccinate most of their population - and they are a tiny country with no domestic manufacturing of the vaccines.

Although Israel quite openly stated they paid a premium to get early access to vaccines. So basically, it was simply a question of commercials, and ponying up the cahs.

Singapore did likewise - basically bought out every vaccine they could on the open market, and rushed to vaccinate their population.

I live in Australia, and it does appear our nation's leaders dragged their feet on the vaccine.

Our Prime Minister even publicly stated "It's not a race", regarding vaccinating the population.

A letter leaked recently, which showed Pfizer's managing director requesting an urgent meeting with our health minister, so we could get millions of doses. Pfizer was then told that the health minister wasn't available to talk with them, it got fobbed to some underlying in his department, then the deal got adragged out for six months after that - in the meantime, the UK and US signed up:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/sep/12/in-hi...

smnrchrds• 5 years ago

Canada's speed of vaccination (in terms of doses per capita) was in line with the EU, even though it was behind the US and the UK. Canada chose to delay second doses and mix and match, most EU countries chose to stick to the manufacturer recommendations. These results show that Canada's choice was a good one.

skybrian2• 5 years ago

Delaying the second dose would have saved lives in other countries too. Many countries were in a desperate situation, including the US. People were dying everywhere.

But some countries were too inflexible to do the smart thing, so more people died.

bserge4• 5 years ago

People were dying in hospitals. Old people. Stop with the "durr, people are dying like flies" bs. Enough lives were ruined by that. The young will be paying for this crap for the foreseeable future.

abirkill• 5 years ago

Out of the three vaccines in use in both Canada and Europe, it appears that Canada entered agreements as follows:

  Moderna: August 5th, 2020 [1]
  Pfizer: August 5th, 2020 [1]
  AstraZeneca: September 25th, 2020 [2]

Europe entered agreements as follows:

  Moderna: November 25th, 2020 [3]
  Pfizer: November 11th, 2020 [4]
  AstraZeneca: August 27th, 2020 [5]

I couldn't immediately find data on the quantities ordered, but this doesn't seem to support the claim that Canada was slow in placing orders?

[1] https://www.canada.ca/en/innovation-science-economic-develop...

[2] https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releases/2020/09/25/new-agreem...

[3] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_...

[4] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_...

[5] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_...

ChemSpider• 5 years ago

Yeah, what they did not expect is the US blocking all exports. All vaccines had to be flown in from Europe, even so the same vaccine was produced just a few miles across the border.

azernik3• 5 years ago

Yeah, not slow in placing orders; the problem was that they didn't prioritize guaranteed delivery dates in contracts like the EU and US and Israel

sandworm1014• 5 years ago

> Canada dragged its heels on pre-ordering vaccines.

No. Canada made some bad bets on where they would be getting vaccine. Canada assumed that a particular person would still be in the white house and that early US vaccines would not be available for export. So Canada threw in largely with European suppliers. That gamble was wrong. The certain person lost and US vaccination rates were lower then expected. US vaccines were available for export earlier than predicted. Canada had not pre-ordered sufficient US vaccines. A mistake? Yes, but still a reasonable judgement call given the US political situation at the time.

defaultname3• 5 years ago

Canada's two biggest suppliers by far have been Pfizer and Moderna. Canada doesn't dictate where they supply the product from.

The US nationalized production in that government decree made it illegal to ship to anyone else unless US contracts had been satisfied in full (NOTE: I am not judging this at all. The merits of it are arguable, but it does point out a weakness in a reliance on free trade). The change of government didn't change this an iota.

The defense production act dictated that 100% of production was for the US until the government said otherwise. Moderna and Pfizer were both forced to supply Canada from the European factories as a result, even long after US vaccine manufacturing far exceeded consumption.

jeromegv2• 5 years ago

You are revisioning history. Contracts were with companies. Not governments. Canada didn’t order US vaccines. It ordered Pfizer, Moderna, Etc. They were free to ship from wherever they wanted as long as national governments allowed it. Yes once Biden authorized it it accelerated shipment. But there was no gamble, Canada never ordered from US government.

makomk• 5 years ago

The US was no more willing to export vaccines under Biden than Trump, the media were just less interested in criticising the new president. Same with border restrictions: Biden attacked Trump's as counterproductive in his campaign, then got into office and immediately insisted on reimposing them unchanged and keeping them way beyond the point they made any kind of sense, but the media lost interest in criticising those as well.

jltsiren• 5 years ago

As far as I understand, the choice was an informed guess based on theoretical understanding of how vaccines work.

For most vaccines, the time between doses is measured in months, not weeks. Those vaccines were tested slowly over years, and the tests focused on finding the most effective timing between doses. Covid-19 vaccines were developed in a hurry, and the priority was getting them approved as quickly as reasonably possible. Testing therefore focused on the shortest time between doses that was expected to produce good enough results. Even if longer spacing was expected to be more effective, testing it would have delayed the approval by months.

Mixing vaccines also makes theoretical sense. Exposing the immune system to a more diverse range of threats may provide a more robust response when the virus mutates. Testing mixed vaccines is just more difficult in practice, because each company develops and tests its vaccines independently.

bakuninsbart• 5 years ago

I got cross-vaccinated here in Germany due to being young and getting Astra Zenica as a first dosis. I still had the choice between a second dose of Biontech and AZ, so I read quite a bit about it at the time, and for example one of the leading Virologists in Germany basically said he wouldn't know why it shouldn't work. Basically, the data suggests that there isn't a suprising mechanism that does lead to less protection.

Causality12• 5 years ago

Why is it luck? They all result in exposing the body to the exact same spike protein. We would have to be dangerously wrong about what the vaccines do for them to not work fine together.

refurb8• 5 years ago

It’s not the exact same spike protein.

mseidl• 5 years ago

In Germany I have a mixed vaccine. I think they found mixed vaccines were better at fighting delta.

mthoms18• 5 years ago

Unlike the US and Europe, Canada dragged its heels on pre-ordering vaccines.

The truth is the exact opposite. But don't let that get in the way of a good jab, eh?

Headline from Dec 7, 2020: "Canada has reserved more vaccine doses per person than anywhere". https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/canada-has-reserved-more-vaccine...

tomohawk3• 5 years ago

Given what is generally known about vaccination, it was not bold. It was judicious.

However, given the hysteria of what passes for news outlets and social media, it was quite bold. People were convinced that the 2 week interval initially specified for Pfizer vax was bedrock truth. Any departing from that ONE TRUE WAY could only be bad. In such a political climate, actually following the known science was difficult.

Giving 1 shot to everyone and spreading out the shots to a more normal interval allowed a lot more people to get immunity. Gettin the 2nd shot at a longer interval allowed those people to get a better long term immunity.

Tbis is not an earth shaking discovery. If it worked differently than this, people would be asking why is this vax different?

roenxi7• 5 years ago

We might look at these stats and think that they demonstrate a safe and effective vaccine. But there is still a very real risk that won't stop the government of Canada implementing a full China-style surveillance system tracking system that monitor where every citizen is, when and sets up all the necessary infrastructure to block someone's ability to travel.

AlexandrB• 5 years ago

This is a bizarre comment. What does the efficacy of Canada's improvised mixed vaccination "plan" have to do with implementing a dictatorship? And have you noticed how big and poorly connected rural Canada is? It's pretty easy to get out of range of cell towers and effectively not be trackable. How is the Canadian government going to cover the country with enough infrastructure to monitor where every citizen is in a realistic time frame?

roenxi7• 5 years ago

1. They aren't implementing a dictatorship - Canada is a parliamentary democracy, they have regular elections.

2. The justification for the tracking system will be that the vaccine isn't good enough to protect people without mandatory vaccinations.

3. Why would there need to be tracking in remote parts of rural Canada? There is basically nobody there. It is rural. How many people do you even know who live outside the range of cell phone towers?

chroem-4• 5 years ago

I'm not clear on what GP's connection to vaccinations is, but for what it's worth, Australia has recently implemented some very authoritarian covid policies despite it being sparsely populated. People are only allowed to leave their homes for two hours a day and everyone is required to take pictures of themselves inside their homes at regular intervals to prove their location to the police. Violators are being shot with rubber bullets, and yet despite the severity of these measures, the total number of deaths in each state can be counted on your fingers.

ipaddr6• 5 years ago

The tracking is through vaccine checkins via vaccine passports. Boarding any travel method in Canada now requires a vaccine checkin.

These passports will remain a long time.

_3u10• 5 years ago

I live in a town of 10,000. I have fiber optic internet from my ISP. Less than 500m from my house is a city run fiber network.

I checked the places I've lived for the last 10 years in Vancouver, none of them are eligible for fiber optic.

Rural Canada is much better connected than major cities.

It's not easy to not be trackable in Canada, every highway of any significance has a highway cam. If you really want to live off grid in a tent I suppose you could evade tracking.

For 99% of people, they are easily tracked. Tracking isn't about 100% compliance its about 99% compliance.

bregma• 5 years ago

Why do you think the vaccines contain so many 5G microchips? The hurry to get everyone double-vaxxed even caused a global silicon chip shortage.

klyrs2• 5 years ago

...full China-style surveillance system tracking system that monitor where every citizen is...

Got any sources indicating that this is in the works?

roenxi7• 5 years ago

They're setting up restrictions on public (and private) transport [0]. Work is being done to support using OHS as a lever to push vaccination [1] which is going to require centralised databases integrated into business processes. Toronto is setting up systems to verify that everyone is vaccinated at gatherings of 1,000+ people [2].

This is setting the infrastructure to implement a social credit system. It is a small step from here to to full thing. The intent is the same and the tools are similar.

[0] https://www.canada.ca/en/transport-canada/news/2021/10/manda...

[1] https://www.ohscanada.com/opinions/mandatory-vaccination-pol...

[2] https://www.hrreporter.com/opinion/canadian-hr-law/the-movem...

GaryTang• 5 years ago

In related news, did anyone see the turnout tonight at the Texas A&M and Alabama game? Second biggest turnout on record — 106k people

umanwizard• 5 years ago

Cool, good to know people are having fun.

yelnatz• 5 years ago

I have mixed vaccinations since I'm in BC. Hopefully I get a third booster shot so I can be considered fully vaccinated in the states.

Proven• 5 years ago

For now. Six months from now you'll need another booster.

bserge4• 5 years ago

It's gonna be an yearly thing, isn't it. Now with a digital pass so you need to get a paid vaccination or be restricted.

Bet my life that's what's gonna happen.

hnbad2• 5 years ago

The German regulatory body (and I'm sure similar things are happening in other countries) has only been holding off on boosters out of concerns over the supply for first and second shots but is now rolling out boosters for people aged 70+ or vaccinated with the one-shot J&J vaccine, so I'm not sure why this is getting downvoted.

ipaddr6• 5 years ago

By that point you will need three same dose vaccinations to be fully vacced.

didibus2• 5 years ago

I'm in the states, and they consider 2 dose to be "fully vaccinated". This is relevant for all laws that mention the requirement is to be "fully vaccinated", and that's 2 dose for Pfizer or Moderna and one for J&J.

Majromax2• 5 years ago

The problem is that the United States is relying on FDA approval for its recognized vaccines. As a result, AZ shots are not recognized for US-travel purposes, so a Canadian who received a first AZ shot and a second Pfizer shot has only one dose as far as the US is concerned.

Canada has approved the J&J vaccine, but it has not distributed any such shots. The first shipment it received came from the troubled production facility that operated off-spec, and the shipment was ultimately rejected (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/12/world/canada-jj-vaccine.h...). Canada has only distributed AZ, Pfizer, and Moderna shots.

tetraodonpuffer• 5 years ago

If you have been vaccinated in Canada with AstraZeneca you are not considered vaccinated at all in the US (not approved) and you might or might not be considered vaccinated in Europe depending on the manufacturer/lot of your shots (UK, vaxzevria, yes, India, covishield, no, USA, just called AstraZeneca, cannot find any information about it) and the European country in question (not all countries accept all AZ manufacturers as valid).

It is a fairly ridiculous situation and if you need to travel it's definitely an issue given a lot of countries are moving towards "green pass" type actions where unless you are "fully vaccinated" (with the approved vaccine) life will be very difficult for you.

There really should be a better solution about at least the most common vaccines being cross recognized everywhere and not used to artificially block people from moving (why should AZ manufactured in the UK be treated any differently from AZ manufactured in India)

jikbd• 5 years ago

Three will be considered enough by now. Gotta line up some pockets.

Wolfenstein98k• 5 years ago

Tyler and Alex (of Marginal Revolution) have been right about every major piece of advice they gave, and often many weeks before anyone else said it.

Vindicated in their "first doses first" advice yet again.

rubyist5eva9• 5 years ago

Paid off in what exactly? Many of our provincial governments have implemented totalitarian measures despite an insanely high vaccination rate and low death rate - creating a medically segregated society.

In one province, the government has given itself vast power to perform warrantless search, confiscate property and conscript any person to the cause of "managing the emergency". Our courts uphold the measures because of the 'unprecedence' of a global pandemic of a disease with a median survival rate of 99.8% where the VAST majority of deaths are in people over 60 and in many places we have vaccination rates higher than 95% in that demographic.

The federal government is about to implement a no-fly or rail policy for unvaccinated people - whether you are a citizen or not. If you're a foreign national from overseas you better get out while you still can - the Berlin Wall is going up.

CBC is the state funded broadcaster, take everything they write with a grain of salt, like you would with RT for example.

ipaddr6• 5 years ago

The government's actions I can understand. The courts decisions based on 'unprecedence' events is troublesome. It creates a low barrier for the removal of any rights. An event will happen like this again.

roenxi7• 5 years ago

Not to mention, these events are precdented. This is a 1:40 to 1:100 year pandemic; depending on how much of it has to do with modern airlines.

xiphias2• 5 years ago

Removal of rights is one thing that is debatable. Not giving them back when the emergency has been gone and in developed countries everybody who wanted to get vaccinated got it is clearly an overstep.

rubyist5eva9• 5 years ago

Canadian citizens have freedom of movement in our constitution, it should not be contingent on getting an invasive medical procedure using a product from a foreign profit seeking pharmaceutical corporation.

switch0076• 5 years ago

Hear hear. I knew someone would call out Canada's totalitarianism and get down-voted for it.

The criticism in response to the article is not out of place. The article gushes about how wonderful a job the vaccine has done. Well, it hasn't done a wonderful job for freedom or rights has it?

rubyist5eva9• 5 years ago

In my province in particular, mandatory vaccines were implemented in a small subset of regulated industries - but then the rest of the private sector moved in lockstep to require proof of vaccination for service and employment.

For my demographic, the moderna vaccine is no longer recommended - we are told to get Pfizer instead even though the vaccines are basically the same (including the risks moderna is being advised against for). The Astra Zeneca vaccine was suspended because of blood clotting risks and Jansen is not available yet.

I do not believe that your freedom and civil rights should be contingent on getting an invasive medical procedure using a product from a profit seeking corporation trying to sell as much of its product as possible. Especially one as corrupt as Pfizer.

My doctor has advised me to wait on vaccination because I already had Covid. I trust my doctor more than I trust the government telling me what medical interventions to get, coercion or not.

I also do not believe any random person should be allowed to coerce medical information from you that would typically fall under doctor patient confidentiality.

mthoms18• 5 years ago

In one province, the government has given itself vast power to perform warrantless search, confiscate property and conscript any person to the cause of "managing the emergency"

I've not heard of that. Which province?

rubyist5eva9• 5 years ago

Saskatchewan. Recent developments are that they are pulling retired police officers out of retirement in order to enforce mandatory isolation at “secure isolation sites”.

https://sun-nurses.sk.ca/pub/docs/member-resources/COVID19/M...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/saskatchewan-covid-...

kcartlidge• 5 years ago

Canadian data now provides real world evidence that vaccinated people produce more antibodies if their second shot is delayed

This was decided in March 2021 but the UK introduced a three month delay between vaccine shots in January 2021. What was it about the UK data (btw I'm British) that meant it didn't count as "real world" despite being months ahead of Canada?

Don't get me wrong, the UK was laughed at for doing that so it genuinely was bold for Canada to do the same (as they added a fourth month onto the three the UK was already doing). It just seems a little dismissive of the UK who took the decision months earlier and had all the international flak (including from the manufacturers) for doing so.

harry82• 5 years ago

It's very difficult to take Boris Johnson seriously on any level for a great many people. Even if he was expertly advised and followed the advice many would want to see strong evidence that this occurred before assuming it was just another random whim divorced from reality in support of a particular pose that is difficult for outsiders to understand.

I'm not saying that's a fair analysis and it probably isn't but it is a very widely held one. I know the UK is pretending the herd immunity strategy of encouraging everyone to go to football games because they only infect 5 people actually never happened and was never policy despite the press conferences etc. It seems pretty unlikely to me that people from across the political ideology spectrum got that idea because of a unified Johnson smear.

--------

Aside it is possible it's a unified smear, of course. We've seen unified smears (nobly or ignobly motivated) of Sanders, Trump and Corbyn to name just 3. (And do you like /any/ of those politicians? A smear is still a smear when you dislike them with vigor.) It's harder to see it here. Johnson's charm works about as well outside of the UK as Trump's in the big coastal cities and Europe.

[1] I have a strong visceral dislike for Trump. The man makes my blood boil and reason hard to cling to. Yet the Russian bounties story in Afghanistan is one place I can look at a man I utterly loathe and note there was a unified smear taking place in the media. I'd be interested if someone has a similar case concerning Johnson. There don't seem to be many consequences for reporting, publishing and repeating utter falsehoods which makes sensible, reasoned, policy analysis by those of us who merely want to vote in a sensible manner increasingly challenging.

hnbad2• 5 years ago

When I got my first shot of AstraZeneca/Oxford in Germany the doctor at the vaccination center told me that there was no downside to delaying the second shot because a longer delay would likely produce a greater immunity. The official recommendation was eight weeks.

When the regulating body permitted cross-vaccinations with mRNA vaccines for people already vaccinated with Astra the recommendation for cross-vaccinations was only four weeks and I ended up waiting a little over five instead of eight.

The German government is also shutting down the free testing centers (which means unvaccinated people will have to pay upwards of €25 out of pocket or get a PCR test which costs upward of €80 and can take 24-48 hours for a result. Additionally politicians have been talking about excluding unvaccinated (or not fully vaccinated) people from benefits like paid sick leave during quarantine.

All in all these measures seem to be designed to rush the population through vaccination even if it means having to do boosters (which have already been greenlit for people aged 70+ or vaccinated with the single-dose J&J vaccine) and punishing the unvaccinated to force them into compliance.

Delaying your second shot by up to four months would not only have been unthinkable in Germany, it would have been framed as carelessness, laziness and negligence. The government really doubled down on framing COVID as a personal responsibility issue and overpromised "freedom" through vaccination ("restoring civil liberties") while indiscriminately punishing the unwilling.

julianlam• 5 years ago

Which is perfectly fine when you have ample vaccine supply. Canada did not, at the time.

newsclues2• 5 years ago

Canadian government funded media outlet defends the government’s actions.

There was a reason people complained about the government’s funding of media.

earlyriser• 5 years ago

Some people, but I see more people happy of having public medias.

newsclues2• 5 years ago

I don’t need a state media and public funding for private media.

CBC used to be good, it’s pretty bad nowadays.

bshipp• 5 years ago

Just the people in Alberta. No one anywhere else really notices or cares about the CBC. I've always appreciated having a national news source, personally. I think it's fairly high quality and reasonably unbiased compared to some of the alternatives.

mthoms18• 5 years ago

Sigh. This article is based on scientific evidence. Please leave your politics out of it.

Anyways, the vast majority seem perfectly happy with the CBC.

Fewer than 1 in 5 Canadians want CBC funding decreased: poll https://ipolitics.ca/2019/05/13/nearly-80-of-canadians-want-...

dgudkov• 5 years ago

This poll was done in 2019. Things were a bit different back then. The majority is probably still happy with CBC, but the proportion could change.

jollybean2• 5 years ago

Sigh. The CBC is well known to support this government, and that reporting is biased, that's not 'political' it's just reality.

While that part of the strategy 'panned out', the government was ineffective in securing vaccines despite early 'deals', all the while the CBC was not particularly hostile to this fact.

That fewer that 1 in 5 Canadians want CBC funding decreased is a populist issue.

tomohawk3• 5 years ago

Driving through Canada, the bias of the CBC was quite obvious, and there was very little if any competition from any other outlet.

That said, the information being provided here is in accord with known science of vaccination, and is based on voluminous data. If you have a legit complaint about what they're saying, you'll need to provide some legit data that backs you up.

tomohawk3• 5 years ago

Interesting note: any Canadians wanting to work in the US or go to school in the US would be forced by policies here to get vaccinated YET AGAIN, because US policy is not about safety or immunity, but about compliance with a partisan position.

querulous2• 5 years ago

this isn't true at all. only canadians who received az as one of their doses (less than 10% of the population) are not recognized as vaccinated in the usa

johnisgood2• 5 years ago

Eh, I think his point stands. Similarly to the story I told in my other comment:

1. Hey, you need the vaccine to go in there to visit your relative!

2. OK. Woman walks to the other part of the hospital to get vaccinated.

3. Woman returns 10 minutes later and is able to visit the relative.

Why? I thought the vaccine takes time to work. Plus, I thought asymptomatic people have a next to none chance of transmitting, vaccinated or not. So, is it about health & safety?

dirtyid• 5 years ago

Well we followed UK's gamble, procured and had access to more variety of vaccines. Got supplies from US sooner than expected despite their export ban because due to low uptake from antivaxxers. It was equal parts good planning and good fortune. Like how gov found billions of lost N95 masks from storage during PPE shortage. Also helps the major cities like Toronto and BC has sensible people with fairly high vax rate even globally.

sleepysysadmin• 5 years ago

The yellow journalism from the CBC is at it again. You can't trust anything they say.

The actual thing that happened? Canada(mainly federal) completely screwed up. Trudeau was busy trying to get a manufacturing plant built to produce. That is to say, Trudeau was spending big $ on his own riding in montreal. https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/vaccines-will-be-produced-in-mon...

And because of that... we were really far behind for a long time. you might also notice... we never actually produced any novavax vaccines. We are pfizer and moderna. So where'd the money go? Oh right... Trudeau and corruption... basically the same thing.

https://nationalpost.com/news/u-s-vaccine-rollout-vastly-out...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2021/04/04/live-c...

Very clear that the CBC article is basically propaganda.

Canada's 'gamble' on delaying, mixing and matching Covid-19 vaccines paid off

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