God, I read that original article. Complete clickbait.
It is certainly possible that Canada has been a laggard in terms of getting the vaccines out.
However, it is worth bearing in mind:
1. The Canadian government were caught off-guard by how quickly the vaccines were available for delivery. They were expected to arrive sometime in min- to late-January, but the first stuff rolled in in December. The government were taken completely off guard.
2. Israel is a small fraction of the size of Canada with a population which is evenly distributed. Canada is an enormous country with a lot of people living remotely and not able to get the Pfizer vaccine mostly because of the refrigeration requirements. Some of the most at-risk people live in very remote areas that are only accessible by plane or boat.
3. The UK is densely populated and is tiny in comparison. Rolling out vaccines there would be trivially simple.
Articles like that just don't contain enough context to be taken seriously.
Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious diseases specialist affiliated with the University of Toronto, told CTV's Your Morning on Wednesday that, while Canada has "picked up the pace" on vaccine deployment, he would like to see a speedier rollout.
"Yes, things are definitely better, but you cannot have vaccines sitting in freezers. This is a crisis. You've got to get these into arms as quickly as possible," he said.
"It's the middle of January. We should be a well-oiled machine at this point in time."
At this pace, it would take 5,800 days to give every Canadians two doses of vaccine, meaning the final shots would be given in 2036.
In 29 days, Canada has given enough COVID-19 vaccine doses to cover 1 per cent of population | CTV News
It's not going to take anywhere near that long in practise. The logistics are still ramping up.
It is also a common misconception that you need 100% vaccine coverage to stop the disease in it's tracks. Probably 40% coverage would probably do it. It's all about decreasing the infection rate per person substantially. Once we approach that level of general coverage throughout the population, infection rates will fall of a cliff.
The media are making hay on articles about people saying that they do not want the vaccine, and about stories of people not having it because of a history of allergic reactions. It's all a bit of a storm in a teacup really. As long as a large number of people distributed throughout the population do get it, then that will suffice.
Here in Canada, we are hoping that the Moderna vaccine and the others that don't require such extreme storage cooling will help remote communities.
My wife got her jab the other day since she is a nurse. Got a bit of an achy arm the following day but nothing much else to worry about.
Thus far the USA has vaccinated 3x the number of folks compared to Canada.
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