COVAX

Friday December 3, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday December 3, 2021

Boosters or global vaccine sharing? Canada can do both amid Omicron: experts

May 11, 2021

The discovery of the new Omicron COVID-19 variant has reignited the issue of global vaccine inequality as richer nations debate whether to accelerate third doses of vaccines.

But as Canadian officials figure out how to protect their populations, they must also not lose focus on vaccinating other parts of the world to stop new variants from emerging, experts say.

“There has been a lack of appreciation and foresight into how important and directly impactful it is to ensure that we vaccinate the entire world,” said Dr. Matthew Miller, associate professor of biochemistry and biomedical sciences at McMaster University.

“We need to be thinking really carefully and deliberately about how we ensure that nations and regions that have not had good vaccine availability get access to those vaccines.”

August 21, 2021

Following the revelation of Omicron last week, which the WHO warns poses a “very high” risk, wealthy nations around the world have taken steps to try and protect their populations.

Among those measures are travel bans. mainly on nations in Africa, where the variant was discovered, but also on accelerating expanding third dose rollouts.

The United Kingdom has decided to open booster shots for all adults, and the head of the European Commission said Wednesday the European Union needs daily reviews of its travel restrictions and rapid deployment of boosters to protect from Omicron. It is unclear right now if the variant is more deadly, or if it can evade current vaccines.

May 20, 2021

The Canadian government has requested the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) to quickly provide the latest directives on booster use in light of the Omicron variant, Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said Tuesday.

Canada’s vaccination rate vastly differs from other countries in the world. Right now, 86 per cent of eligible Canadians are fully vaccinated whereas the world’s population overall is 43.58 per cent fully vaccinated, Johns Hopkins University indicates.

However, Johns Hopkins’ data shows large portions of Africa remain unvaccinated. In Nigeria, the continent’s most populous country, only 1.74 per cent of eligible Nigerians are fully vaccinated. In Ethiopia, 1.28 per cent of its eligible population is fully inoculated.

Many African nations have had challenges with their vaccine rollouts, and have wasted doses that have been given with short notices and short shelf lives. Some countries have also run into vaccine hesitancy, which has impacted uptake.

Those challenges show that global vaccine equity is more than just supplying shots, Barrett said, adding wealthy countries like Canada need to help with rollouts even as they boost their populations.

January 28, 2021

“Vaccine rollouts have been so ineffective in some places that they’ve been throwing vaccines out because it expires over the last number of months,” she said.

“How do we start to support other countries in a real way to get their vaccine rollout in a more effective space and place, so they’re not throwing out expired vaccine doses?”

To date, Canada has donated more than 8.3 million surplus vaccine doses through COVAX, and has also shared 762,080 AstraZeneca doses through direct, bilateral arrangements with countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The government has also pledged to donate at least 200 million doses to the COVAX by the end of 2022. (Global News) 

 

Thursday May 20, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday May 20, 2021

Vaccination Patriotism

Ten thousand shots was the hope. The result was 10,470. That’s how many doses of COVID-19 vaccine were administered at an immunization clinic at the Thorncliffe Park Community Hub in Toronto on Sunday. Until well after dark, long lines snaked through the parking lot, where people were entertained by DJs before entering the cavernous site. By the end of the day, the clinic, run by more than 50 local community and health care organizations, set a record for the most shots administered at one location on a single day. That record-breaking day in Toronto is a reason why Canada is about to surpass the United States—likely on Thursday—when it comes to the percentage of population with first doses. Right now, Canada has given first doses to 44.7 per cent of its population. In the United States, it’s 47.3 per cent. 

March 31, 2021

First doses is an important metric, for not only do first doses slow the spread of COVID-19 within communities but they are “a sign of people’s willingness to get vaccinated,” says Trevor Tombe, an associate professor of economics at the University of Calgary who provides daily updates on Canada’s vaccine progress on his Twitter feed as well as his GitHub page. “You can’t get your second shot unless you’ve got your first. And so measuring how many people are willing to get their first shot tells us the state of demand for vaccines in Canada.” 

This week alone, Canada will receive 4.5 million doses of Pfizer and Moderna vaccine (Pfizer moved up next week’s delivery because of the Victoria Day long weekend). And that has allowed provinces to open the vaccine appointment spigot even wider: As of May 18, everyone aged 18 and older in Ontario can book a time to get their shot on the provincial system. 

March 4, 2021

This ramp-up in Canada’s vaccine rollout has been a long time coming. On March 1, vaccine deliveries were so small that Canada wasn’t on pace to reach 75 per cent of its population having first doses until Nov. 24, 2022. Then, vaccine supply accelerated in April and May. Now, at our current pace, Tombe’s model suggests that Canada should reach 75 per cent by June 19. In addition, 75 per cent of all eligible Canadians 12 and up could have second doses by the second week in August. 

Any comparison with the United States interests Canadians. On April 9, when Canada’s per capita rate of new cases surpassed that of the United States for the first time, there were rumblings about what went wrong—Canada’s third wave was intensifying while the United States was seeing a long-term drop in cases as its vaccination effort was yielding results. While Canada’s rate of new cases has improved from the 205 per million population on April 9, the U.S. has dropped even faster. As of May 16, Canada posted a seven-day average of 160 per million while the U.S. is at 100. 

March 13, 2021

But the United States is struggling with the concerning issue of vaccine hesitancy. A late-April poll showed that around a quarter of adults in the U.S. don’t want to get a shot. In Canada, only nine per cent say they won’t get the vaccine compared to 88 per cent who either will or have received a dose, according to a new Angus Reid poll, which bodes well for Canada achieving herd immunity. (Maclean’s)  

Meanwhile, The world has reached a situation of “vaccine apartheid”, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Monday, and was no longer just at risk of that status. “The big problem is a lack of sharing. So the solution is more sharing,” he told a virtual Paris Peace Forum event. (Reuters) 

April 28, 2021

Also, An international humanitarian group is calling on the Canadian government to commit to sharing its COVID-19 vaccine supply, at a time when other low- and middle-income countries are falling behind on inoculation.

May 11, 2021

The medical non-profit group Doctors Without Borders is asking Ottawa to stop accepting vaccine supply from COVAX, the global pool procurement mechanism for COVID-19 vaccines. It recently announced that it’s short at least 140 million doses, in part because of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis in India. The World Health Organization, UNICEF and other international agencies have called on G7 countries to donate excess vaccine supplies. While countries like the United States and France have announced plans to donate millions of doses, Canada has yet to make such an announcement. In the meantime, it’s continuing to receive COVID-19 doses from COVAX, with 600,000 doses of AstraZeneca that arrived last week, and more expected by the end of June. (Yahoo News)