Coronavirus All-Purpose Thread: The Second Wave

[Roughneck]

Originally Posted by opendoor

12 months, lol. The facility the UK is producing the majority of their doses in was started in 2018 and was just producing doses in any kind of quantity at the end of 2020, so they took almost 2.5 years to get there.

Australia has had vaccine production ready to go for months but is only looking to get 2 million doses by the end of March (w/ a million per week after that, ramping up to 2M/week) which is pretty much the schedule Canada is on, and that's with only the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines which we couldn't produce if we had the facilities anyway.



So even with vaccine production there's no guarantee we'd be any further ahead than we are right now.

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

To me its as simple as Canada is a G7 country. We should be (at least) top 7 in vaccinations per capita right now while simultaneously helping with the logistics of vaccinating the third world.

It aint that simple. Simply sorting a vaccines per 100 and counting the number of countries tells you next to nothing. If the Yukon was a country, it would be 3rd, the NWT would be 2nd.

Of the 40 most populous countries, Canada is 10th. Of the 9 countries ahead of Canada, 8 of them have approved vaccines we have not.

Of G20 countries, Canada is 8th. Of the 6 countries and the EU ahead of Canada, 6 of them have approved vaccines we have not.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Nancy

Norway and Iceland are also not part of the EU. Nor is Israel, obviously. From that list, only Denmark is an EU state.

No, but Norway and Iceland are part of the EU's vaccine contracts via agreement with Sweden (Sweden gets extra allocations to supply those 2 countries). Israel is in the same boat (via Germany), but they ended up not needing the EU's doses as they came to their own agreement for accelerated deliveries in return for running a free Phase 4 study for Pfizer.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by opendoor

No, but Norway and Iceland are part of the EU's vaccine contracts via agreement with Sweden (Sweden gets extra allocations to supply those 2 countries). Israel is in the same boat (via Germany), but they ended up not needing the EU's doses as they came to their own agreement for accelerated deliveries in return for running a free Phase 4 study for Pfizer.

Israel really deserves credit for convincing Pfizer to given them vaccines as fast as they could inject to run the phase 4 trial for them. Whoever came up with an implemented that strategy is brilliant.

[Scroopy Noopers]

Originally Posted by GGG

Israel really deserves credit for convincing Pfizer to given them vaccines as fast as they could inject to run the phase 4 trial for them. Whoever came up with an implemented that strategy is brilliant.

Probably god.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by GGG

Israel really deserves credit for convincing Pfizer to given them vaccines as fast as they could inject to run the phase 4 trial for them. Whoever came up with an implemented that strategy is brilliant.

Israel is the only country in the world that could pull that off. Canada, initially, couldn't even distribute the few vaccines they did have, with many just sitting around waiting for distribution.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Ironhorse

Can anyone explain the logic of living in one country and working in another every day? Or is it a case of double dipping and "having your cake and eating it too"?

Typically comes down to bucks. With the exchange rate Canadians can make more money in the USA. There are certain positions that just pay more in Canada or the USA. There can also be better housing options on either side. In the Vancouver area, a lot of American citizens come up to Vancouver to work, as they can afford a much cheaper residence right across the border. Multiacre property outside of Bellingham for $300k vs tiny old studio apartment in the Vancouver area.

[Roughneck]

Originally Posted by blankall

Israel is the only country in the world that could pull that off. Canada, initially, couldn't even distribute the few vaccines they did have, with many just sitting around waiting for distribution.

Overcoming the distribution would be the easy part. Getting ten provinces and ten health agencies to agree on the handing over people's medical data to a private company would be the real kicker.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Roughneck

Overcoming the distribution would be the easy part. Getting ten provinces and ten health agencies to agree on the handing over people's medical data to a private company would be the real kicker.

Not to mention Pfizer would never do that kind of agreement with a large country. In order to supply enough doses for Israel to do the trial they only had to allocate about 10% of their European production for Q1. To do the same for Canada would've required about 45% of their production, which would have put them in violation of their EU agreement.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Roughneck

Overcoming the distribution would be the easy part. Getting ten provinces and ten health agencies to agree on the handing over people's medical data to a private company would be the real kicker.

You would assume that would be the easy part, but, as stated, Canada had unused vaccines sitting around.

Also, Israel didn't share individual data:

Under the agreement, the MoH will only provide Pfizer with aggregate epidemiological data that cannot reasonably identify an individual as per the Israeli Privacy Protection Law and the Israeli Patient's Rights Law. If identifiable data is accidentally disclosed to Pfizer, Pfizer is committed to return and delete such data. Pfizer also commits to using the data only for public health purposes and to not use the data in a discriminatory way.

https://www.mondaq.com/reporting-and...ed-health-data

I do think OpenDoor's point about population size is pretty poignant though. Pfizer needed a country of roughly 10 million to get proper data. There are probably other factors too. For example, they needed a country where the virus hadn't run totally rampant yet either, so places like Sweden and Switzerland would be excluded.

[Knut]

Plus the threat of Pfizer head office being blown up Jewish Space Lasers.

[OldDutch]

Originally Posted by Slava

Who says we need to blame anyone though? I feel like the vaccine procurement has been about as good as we can expect. Canada was never going to get more/faster than the global powers so, once you accept that, we’re doing fine.

And sure, we should have domestic production. We don’t. The point is to get vaccines here regardless though, and that’s happening.

This feels like the most Canadian post I have ever read.

A sea of mediocre is a ok as long as no ones feelings are hurt by being blamed.

We need to demand more, or we will continue where we are with the government we have.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by OldDutch

This feels like the most Canadian post I have ever read.

A sea of mediocre is a ok as long as no ones feelings are hurt by being blamed.

We need to demand more, or we will continue where we are with the government we have.

I don't disagree but can't help but feeling no gov't of the past 20-50 years really has made the nest decisions, hell I might just be jaded.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by OldDutch

This feels like the most Canadian post I have ever read.

A sea of mediocre is a ok as long as no ones feelings are hurt by being blamed.

We need to demand more, or we will continue where we are with the government we have.

On the other side of the coin, if your expectations exceed what is realistic or are born out of ignorance, then you'll simply be unhappy for no reason, which is pointless. And that could just as well lead to you looking to change something that does not need changing, and making it worse.

See: swapping the NDP, which wasn't great, for the UCP, which has been worse.

Having realistic demands is more important than having more of them.
Understanding is more important than reacting.

Yes, we all wish Canada was first and was a global superpower in charge of the whole thing. We all wish we were vaccinated in full months ago. We all wish production, distribution, all that was in our control. But most of us also live in the reality that Canada is where it is in the pecking order, and that while that might change one day, there is no way to change it yesterday, and no way to make the vaccine rollout significantly better other than going back in time years before the pandemic and predicting it. Unless you have a time machine, you have to live in reality.

The path we're on was built years before this government ever came to power. Blaming is completely pointless. Urging the government to learn from this and setting a better path for next time is all that matters.

[comrade]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

On the other side of the coin, if your expectations exceed what is realistic or are born out of ignorance, then you'll simply be unhappy for no reason, which is pointless. And that could just as well lead to you looking to change something that does not need changing, and making it worse.

See: swapping the NDP, which wasn't great, for the UCP, which has been worse.

Having realistic demands is more important than having more of them.
Understanding is more important than reacting.

Yes, we all wish Canada was first and was a global superpower in charge of the whole thing. We all wish we were vaccinated in full months ago. We all wish production, distribution, all that was in our control. But most of us also live in the reality that Canada is where it is in the pecking order, and that while that might change one day, there is no way to change it yesterday, and no way to make the vaccine rollout significantly better other than going back in time years before the pandemic and predicting it. Unless you have a time machine, you have to live in reality.

The path we're on was built years before this government ever came to power. Blaming is completely pointless. Urging the government to learn from this and setting a better path for next time is all that matters.

Certainly many people (like a bunch of my inlaws) see this as just another opportunity to dump on Trudeau, even after I get them to acknowledge that the only way to guarantee (as much as possible) is through domestic capability. One inlaw even instigated it by sharing an article from the National Post under the guise of "something to consider":

All of these problems, and many more, get blamed on whatever political party you don’t usually vote for. But the real issue is complacency and a fundamentally cheap streak to the national psyche. Our enviable geographic (and geopolitical) situation, for generations, has imposed almost no cost on politicians for failures.

But just imagine the fate of a politician — any politician, from any party — who’d proposed two years ago that we should construct, or pay to have constructed, a vaccine facility. It would look a lot like what the reaction is whenever a politician proposes making some necessary investment in the armed forces. Millions of Canadians look at you funny and ask, gee, who are you planning on going to war with?

And then still immediately dumped the entire thing on Trudeau.

[corporatejay]

Pointless.

[peter12]

The Canadian response has been criticized by many as being slow, cautious, and committee-based. Somehow on this board, it's being seen as reasonable, prudent, and "good enough." It's a little sad to see, honestly.

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by Barnes

It aint that simple. Simply sorting a vaccines per 100 and counting the number of countries tells you next to nothing. If the Yukon was a country, it would be 3rd, the NWT would be 2nd.

Of the 40 most populous countries, Canada is 10th. Of the 9 countries ahead of Canada, 8 of them have approved vaccines we have not.

Of G20 countries, Canada is 8th. Of the 6 countries and the EU ahead of Canada, 6 of them have approved vaccines we have not.

All I would have liked to hear was that they lobbied hard to join the US as a 10% partner in operation warp speed.
Unless I read the response wrong, what they said (in the Q&A article posted a dozen pages ago) was that the former administration was led by a megalomanic lunatic so they never bothered.
While they characterized the administration correctly they still might have tried. Canada might be several million doses ahead had they somehow managed to become a partner. That they never bothered to try because Trump is a terrible response. In my opinion.

[Scroopy Noopers]

Nobody can honestly convince me that before vaccines were tested they weren’t hoping for slow, cautious, and committee based review and testing.

If you’re saying you wanted to fast lane vaccines, I don’t believe you. If not, honestly explain to me how this could have been avoided. I haven’t seen an alternate timeline proposed that would have resulted in us being one of the highest vaccinated populations in February.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

All I would have liked to hear was that they lobbied hard to join the US as a 10% partner in operation warp speed.
Unless I read the response wrong, what they said (in the Q&A article posted a dozen pages ago) was that the former administration was led by a megalomanic lunatic so they never bothered.
While they characterized the administration correctly they still might have tried. Canada might be several million doses ahead had they somehow managed to become a partner. That they never bothered to try because Trump is a terrible response. In my opinion.

Why would the US willingly slow their rollout by 10%? To save a bit of cash? That doesn't seem like a realistic possibility with any President, and a complete impossibility with Trump.

And there's also the question of whether it would have been wise to rely on Trump's word to secure our vaccine supply. There's a reason Germany paid CureVac a bunch of money to prevent Trump from trying to poach them and the UK government wouldn't allow Oxford University to partner with Merck, an American-based company; no one trusted the US. And even if the US government was amendable to slowing down their own rollout to help Canada, all it would take is one Executive Order banning exports and our supply would've disappeared overnight with no back up.