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immunity

Saturday October 17, 2021

October 16, 2021 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday October 17, 2021

Ontarians can begin downloading QR code COVID-19 vaccine certificates

Ontario is making enhanced COVID-19 vaccine certificates with QR codes available for download beginning over the next three days, starting Friday morning with those born between January and April before expanding to more residents.

August 31, 2021

An update added to the Ontario Health site last night says that the initial, phased three-day rollout is intended to ensure a “smooth user experience” for those who want to download their enhanced certificate as soon as possible.

Enhanced certificates are not mandatory and Ontarians can continue using their current vaccine receipt if they wish.

At a briefing for media Friday, officials said the purpose of the QR code system is to make vaccination status screening more efficient for businesses and more secure for the public. Roughly 83 per cent of those eligible in the province have now had two doses of vaccine.

The QR codes “mean we can allow businesses the comfort to keep operating safely,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said at a news conference after the briefing. 

“They mean we can continue to get back to doing things we want without losing the gains we’ve made,” he said, noting they will help prevent any further shutdowns in the province. 

Officials said the QR codes will reveal less personal information than the current vaccine receipts do. The codes include a person’s name, date of birth and whether they have received two doses of vaccine, with their last shot at least 14 days prior.

It does not contain which brand or brands of vaccine a person received, or the specific dates of their shots. That information is included on the broader enhanced certificate itself, but is not transmitted through the QR codes, officials said. (CBC) 

 

Posted in: Canada Tagged: 2021-34, cliff, immunity, Ontario, pandemic, Pandemic Times, QR, QR codes, Quick response, vaccination

Wednesday July 21, 2021

July 28, 2021 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday July 21, 2021

Ford outright rejects vaccine passports on eve of Step 3 of COVID-19 reopening

Ontario Premier Doug Ford firmly rejected the possibility of implementing vaccine passports on Thursday.

June 4, 2021

Ford spoke at a news conference announcing a new long-term care home in Toronto, the Runnymede Long-Term Care Home, expected to open in the summer of 2023. The centre is expected to provide 200 new long-term care spaces.

“No, we aren’t doing it,” he said. “We’re not going to have a split society.”

As for whether it will be mandatory for health-care workers to get a vaccine, Ford said while they’re encouraged to do so, no one should be forced to be immunized.

“I’m not in favour of a mandatory certification and neither, by the way, is the chief medical officer,” said Ford. “Folks, just please go get vaccinated.”

Fords comments follow similar ones by Solicitor General Sylvia Jones a day before, who shut down the possibility of any sort of proof-of-vaccination system being introduced in the province.

April 8, 2021

If needed, Jones said, Ontarians  who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 can rely on the receipt printed or emailed to them after their second shot.

Some businesses in the province have said that when Ontario enters Step 3 of its reopening plan, patrons will need to show proof of vaccination upon arrival. 

Toronto Mayor John Tory has called on the provincial government to create a voluntary system that would help individual businesses or organizations determine the vaccination status of patrons, employees and members. The Toronto Region Board of Trade has also endorsed such an initiative.

Ford said Thursday he will be addressing the question of a federal vaccination card with the prime minister later in the day.

Ontario reported 143 new cases of COVID-19 and 10 more deaths linked to the illness on Thursday, while total vaccinations fell by more than 100,000 from the same day last week.

Public health units collectively administered another 166,201 doses of COVID-19 vaccines yesterday, of which roughly 88 per cent were second shots. Last Wednesday saw more than 268,000 shots given out provincewide.

More than 57 per cent of Ontarians aged 12 and older have now had two doses of vaccines. (CBC) 

 

Posted in: Ontario Tagged: 2021-26, anti-vaxx, blanket, Charter of Rights, Constitution, Doug Ford, immunity, immunocompromised, Ontario, pandemic, Vaccine, vaccine passports

Wednesday June 23, 2021

June 30, 2021 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday June 23, 2021

The retreat of North Americanism: Canadians and Americans keep moving further apart

Back in the day, when Canada signed the landmark free trade agreement with the United States, there was a good deal of fear and loathing.

February 6, 2001

The Progressive Conservatives led the way on reciprocity and the Jean Chrétien Liberals, as former foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy recalled in a phone call this week, reluctantly climbed aboard. Like many, he worried the border would weaken, that continentalism had won out.

Then, deus ex machina, beginning with 9/11, expectations were overturned. The response to the terrorist horror – with many Americans believing the hijackers had come through Canada – was to fortify the world’s longest undefended border. Passports became necessary.

A bitter split with the George W. Bush administration ensued over Canada’s refusal to take part in the invasion of Iraq. Later, under the Republicans, came the populist explosion on the right. Donald Trump treated Canada more like an adversary than an ally. His medieval empire, his attack on truth, democracy and decency, soured the opinion of Canadians on America like never before.

April 30, 2021

Maybe the bigger the border, Canadians reasoned, the better.

Then, taking the boundary divide to the max, came the shock of the coronavirus pandemic, which had the effect of cocooning Canada, shutting down the border to all but essential traffic. The closure has endured more than a year and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in no hurry to end it. He’s been hearing from his public: Keep the Americans out.

It doesn’t make sense, Maryscott Greenwood, the North Carolinian who is head of the Canadian American Business Council, said in an interview. “You’re saying vaccines don’t matter.” Canadians shouldn’t underestimate the opposition and frustration this has provoked in Washington. She’s hearing from top officials, she said, that the U.S. is considering opening its side of the border fully on June 21. If Mr. Trudeau and company don’t respond in kind, so be it. To heck with them.

October 10, 2020

All said, there’s been quite a turn since the heady days of free trade. Instead of continental cohesion, much division. Instead of a border thinner than ever, one thicker than ever. Instead of a new North Americanism, a retreat to a more fragmented mindset.

“The heyday of the Canada-U.S. relationship has come and gone,” said Christopher Kirkey, director of the Center for the Study of Canada at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh. “The trend is toward more divergence than convergence.”

In addition to the advent of Mr. Trump, the calamities of 9/11 and the coronavirus, there were other factors. Free trade, as Mr. Kirkey observed, coincided with the end of the Cold War. That termination meant Canada needed the U.S. less and the U.S. needed Canada less. The special relationship between the two countries that was built in the period 1945 to 1990 became too difficult to sustain and it isn’t, in his view, about to be restored by Joe Biden’s protectionist Democrats. “I can tell you Canada is hardly on the radar screen in Washington. Let’s be blunt about that.”

 

July 14, 2020

Michael Adams, the head of the Environics Institute who has been surveying Canadian attitudes toward Americans for decades, concurs that the North Americanism envisaged with free trade is pretty much kaput. In the post-Second World War years, Canadians used to look up to the U.S. in so many ways, he said. “It used to be like the utopia.” Now, given the hold Mr. Trump’s populist authoritarianism has on such a large swath of the population, “it’s more like the dystopia.”

 
Of course, as was rightly noted by Goldy Hyder, chief executive officer of the Business Council of Canada, economic dependence on the American market is here to stay, despite any other decoupling tendencies. The Trudeau government better be careful, he warned. With companies reviewing their supply chains in the wake of the pandemic, more investments will remain in the U.S. if the Canadian border poses too much of a barrier.

March 13, 2021

If the Liberals were following the science, they’d quickly open the border, he added, but instead they’ve been following the politics (their polling). He said Mr. Biden told Mr. Trudeau in Europe that he promised freedom for Americans by July 4 and that opening the Canadian border is part of the deal.

The Prime Minister will take his sweet time in reciprocating. Continental consolidation isn’t as big a priority as it was before the century turned. Since that time, it’s become increasingly clear how different Canadians are. Rather than welded to an American block, they much prefer their own. (Globe & Mail) 

 

Posted in: Canada, USA Tagged: 2021-23, Border, Canada, covid-19, customs, Delta, diplomacy, Donald Trump, hesitancy, immunity, pandemic, Planet of the Apes, Post Trump, shopping, travel, USA, variant

Wednesday May 12, 2021

May 19, 2021 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday May 12, 2021

What happens when people get two different COVID-19 vaccines?

As some experts continue to warn of very rare side effects associated with the AstraZeneca vaccine, Canadian health officials are now reviewing the research on mixing various COVID-19 shots.

May 6, 2020

A study of a “mismatched” vaccine regimen is underway in the U.K. — but some scientists say there’s reason to believe that administering two doses of different products could boost a person’s immune response beyond what can be achieved by giving the same shot twice.

The National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) caused some confusion earlier this month when it said the viral vector shot from AstraZeneca is not the “preferred” product given its associated risk of vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT) — a condition that causes blood clots. That warning came out after hundreds of thousands of Canadians had received the AstraZeneca vaccine already.

According to the Ontario Science Table, estimates of the frequency of VITT in individuals who have received the AstraZeneca vaccine now range from 1 case in 26,000 to 1 case in 127,000 doses administered.

The risk of developing this side effect, combined with an uncertain delivery schedule for future supply, has prompted some provinces to consider pausing AstraZeneca vaccinations altogether.

Researchers at Oxford University in the U.K. launched a study in early February to explore the possible benefits of alternating different COVID-19 vaccines. According to the lead scientists, the study is “looking for clues as to how to increase the breadth of protection against new virus strains.”

March 31, 2021

The study — otherwise known as the COVID-19 Heterologous Prime Boost study, or “Com-COV” — is collecting data to determine whether receiving two different types of vaccine generates an immune response at least equal to the response that follows receiving the same product twice. (A “heterologous” vaccination regimen is one that uses more than one product.)

Dr. Helen Fletcher is a professor of immunology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the U.K. She said a “mismatched” vaccine program would deliver some practical benefits — vaccine delivery logistics would be greatly simplified — but there could be another good reason to pursue a mixed-dose regimen.

“I’m excited about the study because I think it’s likely that the immune response will be even better if you mix and match vaccines,” Fletcher said in an interview with CBC News.

Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, said last week the current guidance is for AstraZeneca recipients to get a second dose of the same product, but NACI is now reviewing the Oxford research on mixing AstraZeneca with an mRNA shot.

“There will be further advice forthcoming on that second dose based on the evolving science. We should watch this space,” Tam said. 

Will Canada shorten the time between shots? Possibly. NACI said in early March that, given the limited vaccine supply, provinces and territories may want to wait up to 16 weeks between first and second doses to give more people at least some level of protection.

The provinces have since followed this guidance, with a few exceptions. For example, many long-term care home residents have been fully vaccinated on the timeline recommended by the vaccine makers. Pfizer calls for a second dose 21 days after the first, while Moderna stipulates the second shot should come 28 days later. (CBC) 

 

 

Posted in: Canada Tagged: 2021-17, AstraZeneca, Canada, cocktail, cover-19, covid-19, developed, Europe, immunity, inequity, International, Justin Trudeau, map, mixology, Moderna, North America, pandemic, Pfizer, poor, recipe, rich, spirits, tiki, Vaccine, world, world map

Tuesday May 11, 2021

May 18, 2021 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday May 11, 2021

Poorer countries might not get vaccinated until 2023

High-income countries have purchased more than half of the Covid-19 vaccine supply to date, and low-income countries, just 9 percent, according to Duke University’s Global Health Innovation Center. This is why a country like the US is close to vaccinating half its population with one dose while the rate in a place like Guinea is less than 1 percent and not budging.

April 27, 2021

“That’s not just unconscionable, but it also is very much against the interests of high-income countries,” Georgetown global health law professor Lawrence Gostin told Vox in January. With the virus continuing to circulate, and variants picking up pace around the globe, outbreaks in the poorest countries will pose a threat to the world. 

It’s not an accident that many of the world’s first-approved Covid-19 vaccines — from companies like Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Moderna — were developed and rolled out in high-income countries. As the pandemic took hold last year, wealthier nations — including the US, UK, and EU block — began making deals with the pharmaceutical companies that were developing Covid-19 vaccines, which also happened to be headquartered within their borders.

January 28, 2021

These bilateral deals involved governments essentially giving the companies billions of dollars to speed up research and development in exchange for priority access to vaccines, should they prove to be effective. But the deals also pushed poorer countries, which didn’t have the resources to pre-purchase millions of doses of vaccines that might not even get approved for market, further down the access line.

Rich countries could donate more doses to poorer countries — a move global health groups have been calling for for months and one that’s starting to happen in response to the crisis in India. 

Rich countries could also simply start investing more in helping poorer countries respond to the crisis. They could answer Covax’s call for more donor funds, for example. Or Omer called for something akin to PEPFAR, America’s global health program to combat AIDS around the world. Launched under George W. Bush in 2003, to date, it’s provided $90 billion toward fighting AIDS. (Vox) 

 

Posted in: International Tagged: 2021-17, cover-19, developed, Europe, immunity, inequity, International, map, North America, pandemic, Pandemic Times, poor, rich, Vaccine, world, world map
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This website contains satirical commentaries of current events going back several decades. Some readers may not share this sense of humour nor the opinions expressed by the artist. To understand editorial cartoons it is important to understand their effectiveness as a counterweight to power. It is presumed readers approach satire with a broad minded foundation and healthy knowledge of objective facts of the subjects depicted.

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