Roundup: Delays for new doses

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The pandemic continues to trend poorly, and new modelling suggests there could be as many as two thousand deaths in the next ten days, and if the current restrictions don’t curb people’s interactions, spread could triple as our hospitals are already out of space. It’s grim. And to compound it, news came down yesterday that Pfizer’s plans to retool part of their vaccine production facility in Europe means that for the next few weeks, shipments could be reduced by as much as fifty percent – shortfalls that will likely be made up once production is up and running because they’ll be able to increase their output capacity, but it’s still disappointing. It’s also funny (in a black humour sort of way) to watch premiers struggling to deliver this message without taking shots at the federal government because they know that it’s beyond their ability to do anything about.

Part of why this is a problem that needs to be communicated is because there seems to have been a brewing sense that vaccines are here, so we’ll be able to start lifting restrictions soon, and that’s not actually the case. Even once everyone gets vaccinated, we’ll probably still have restrictions and mask-wearing for the time being because we don’t yet know if people can transmit the virus once they’re vaccinated, and it will take time for everyone’s immune response to sufficiently build even after they’ve had their second dose. And then we don’t know how long the immunity will last either, while the virus is starting to mutate. So seeing this delay to vaccinations (and it’s mostly a delay on the early phases and less likely to be so for the general public, who will still likely get their shots at the same time as was planned) as a delay for returning to the old normal is just not something that anyone should be counting on, and we should be communicating that effectively.

As for international travel, prime minister Justin Trudeau hinted that they are looking at tighter restrictions, but this comes with a host of other problems, not the least of which is the fact that mobility rights are Charter rights, and trying to define what travel is deemed “essential” is going to require some actual definition (unlike what Ontario has done with its current stay-at-home order). But with unchecked community spread already happening, and variants identified in the UK and South Africa also having been identified here, it may already be too late. The better tactic may be better enforcement of quarantine orders, but that may also be a question of resources. Nevertheless, there are no easy solutions to the problem.

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau released new and updated mandate letters to his Cabinet yesterday.
  • Trudeau also tore a strip off of Yves-François Blanchet’s “just asking questions” and use of coded language to make racist allegations of Omar Alghabra.
  • Ahmed Hussen is taking his department to task after they rejected Black community groups applying for funding, citing that they couldn’t prove they were Black-led.
  • Newfoundland and Labrador is heading for a provincial election on February 13th.
  • Here’s a look at how Nova Scotia has had success with rapid testing pop-up clinics, where most other provinces have been reluctant to try them.
  • Doug Ford booted one of his MPPs from caucus after he sent an open letter full of misinformation calling for an end to the mockdown.
  • Kevin Carmichael notes that both Annamie Paul and Stephen Poloz can agree that the biggest obstacle to the economic recovery is the balkanization of our federation.
  • Heather Scoffield walks through the myriad of challenges, some of them seemingly contradictory, in Chrystia Freeland’s new mandate letter.
  • Chantal Hébert suggests that Trump’s departure offers an opportunity for the Conservatives, if they want to do the actual work of seizing it.
  • Susan Delacourt castigates Yves-François Blanchet’s racism and inability to read the room at a time when there is a reckoning over the rhetoric of the Trump era.
  • Colby Cosh sardonically points to the pandemic travels of CBC brass, and the unspoken Canadian dream of having a second home in warmer climates.
  • My weekend column points to the fact that it’s premiers who need to step up when it comes to needed paid sick leave, as the federal government is out of levers.

Odds and ends:

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2 thoughts on “Roundup: Delays for new doses”

  1. I was this many years old when the “hardest working” Republican MP for the riding of Oklahoma—Walmart proclaimed Pfizer to be a “Liberal shill.” Well one would think that if they were so cozy with the Liberals, and Trudeau could direct his slave-labour Christmas elves at the Bill Gates/SNC inoculation workshop in the secret dungeon at Harrington Lake to speed up the conveyor belt like Lucille Ball at the chocolate factory, they’d be ramping up production to dump 100 billion vaccines in Canada by Valentine’s Day?

    I guess Parler’s fave new spokesmodel doesn’t work very hard at trying to form her arguments with facts. Neither does the rest of the Conspiracy Party of Canada.

  2. The only thing, Ms. Herbert the conservatives will “seize” going forward is a smashing defeat at the polls. And you get paid for stuff like this? You and the Cons need a facelift.

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