Re: Latest on the Corona Virus
Double-Masking Offers More Protection Against The Coronavirus, CDC Says : Coronavirus Updates : NPR
Double-Masking Offers More Protection Against The Coronavirus, CDC Says : Coronavirus Updates : NPR
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Re: Latest on the Corona Virus
Wearing more tightly fitting masks also leave less room inside the mask for CO2 in your exhaled breath to build up and be inhaled back into your lungs. This means that you are getting more oxygen to help maintain your immune system.Comment
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Re: Latest on the Corona Virus
Joe Biden is failing on vaccine for democrat led Los Angeles
Los Angeles temporarily closing Dodger Stadium and 4 other vaccination sites due to lack of supply
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced Wednesday that five of the city's COVID-19 vaccine sitesDodger Stadiumreports.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dodger-stadium-covid-vaccine-site-closed-supply-los-angeles/
Adversity temporarily visits a strong man but stays with the weak for a lifetime.Comment
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Re: Latest on the Corona Virus
The roots of Canada’s COVID-19 vaccine shortage go back decades
As of Feb. 5, Canada had administered 2.7 COVID-19 vaccination doses per 100 people compared to 61.7 for Israel and 16.2 for the United Kingdom. By contrast, Canada has signed contracts with seven different companies for a total of 234 million doses with options for tens of millions more.
What’s going on?
To understand the problem, we need to go back to the 1980s. At that time, the government-owned Connaught Labs was producing vaccines here in Canada and decision-making was in the public realm. But Connaught was partially privatized and then finally allowed to be sold to the French company Merieux (now part of Sanofi) by the Conservative government of Brian Mulroney.
IAF BioChem went through a couple of sales and ended up being owned by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).
Canada’s first attempt to ensure domestic production was a deal with the Chinese manufacturer CanSino Biologics in May 2020. Had that deal gone ahead, it would have involved trials at the Canadian Centre for Vaccinology at Dalhousie University and, if successful, subsequent domestic manufacturing. But within days of the agreement being announced, there were already troubles as the Chinese delayed sending the seed material for the vaccine and, ultimately, it never arrived.
Efforts to secure a domestically made supply then turned to $600 million from Industry Canada’s Strategic Innovation Fund earmarked for the research or development of COVID-19 vaccines and therapies.
PnuVax had been renovated in 2012 to meet Health Canada standards and according to sources cited by the Globe and Mail, the company could have been ready to produce millions of doses of a COVID-19 vaccine by the end of 2020.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau initially said the NRC facility would be up and running by November 2020 and producing 250,000 doses a month. However, in early February, Trudeau admitted that the NRC plant wouldn’t be ready until the summer of 2021, and with the need to outfit the facility for the Novavax vaccine and subsequent Health Canada inspections, there won’t be any vaccine coming from there until the end of 2021.
The failure of the CanSino deal and the delay in building the new NRC facility left Canada reliant on foreign sources of vaccine. The contracts for the vaccine were negotiated based on advice provided by the 18 member COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force set up by the NRC in June 2020.
Both the co-chairs of the task force have conflicts of interest with companies producing the vaccines and the terms of the contracts are being kept secret. Among other things, we don’t know what price Canada is paying for each vaccine, what the timeline for delivery is, whether there are penalties for delays and how the contracts are being enforced, if at all.
Complicating things even further, the contracts focused on large-scale delivery starting in April 2021 because of uncertainty back in the summer about when vaccines would be available.
Delayed deliveries
Now Canada is facing delays in vaccine delivery from both Pfizer and Moderna, the companies making the only two vaccines approved in Canada so far. The Pfizer plant in Belgium, where our vaccine comes from, is being retooled to increase production while the exact reasons for the Moderna delay are unclear. Moderna is shipping its vaccine to Canada through Belgium. (Both companies and the federal government have promised that the amounts scheduled for delivery by the end of March will be honoured.)
On top of having no domestic production and the delays, Canada is facing vaccine nationalism from other countries. U.S. President Joe Biden is sticking to an America-first position and not allowing the Pfizer plant in Michigan or the Moderna plant in New Hampshire to export any of their vaccines to Canada until all Americans have been vaccinated.
Adversity temporarily visits a strong man but stays with the weak for a lifetime.Comment
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Adversity temporarily visits a strong man but stays with the weak for a lifetime.Comment
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Re: Latest on the Corona Virus
Biden declares there will be enough vaccines for 300 million Americans by end of July
Great Job President BidenComment
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Re: Latest on the Corona Virus
Biden says Trump '''did not do his job''' on coronavirus vaccination program, urges patience | ReutersComment
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Re: Latest on the Corona Virus
We're making progress, little buddy. You and Joe Biden agree with America First.
Perhaps if we have some left over vaccine we can ship it to Canada. On second thought, Joe needs to ship any left overs to Africa or one of the poorer countries.Adversity temporarily visits a strong man but stays with the weak for a lifetime.Comment
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