Covid Vaccines in Canada

The Quarantine Zone
181

Come on Rick, you live here, don’t be disingenuous.

Unless you have an old red and white card you have to renew it at least every 5 years and provide contact info. Will some people be out of date, of course. But the vast majority will not be. If I’m a senior and have moved to LTC, they know where I am. They know who my GP is and they almost definitely have my mailing address. If I update my driver’s license, the system is updated. This is one of the benefits of a single payor system.

My wife has signed up for so fewer than 2 dozen waiting lists. Once she gets the first appointment, the next 23 notifications will just bog the whole system down as they give her time to book when her slot comes up. Walmart, Costco, Rexall, Shoppers, Loblaws, the independents each have a separate waitlist for each location.

Does this seem sensible to you?

182

I honestly do not recall giving them my phone number. Inasmuch as I’ve never in my life been contacted by the Ministry of Health, it’s not a thing they seem to use. It was an honest question. Why are you aggressive about this?

183

Although for many, many years the old health care cards were acceptable and meant you could avoid updating the version code, I believe in Ontario they are no longer valid from July 2020 due to risks of fraud.

184

I don’t know that’s an appropriate comparator, given the significantly higher vaccine supplies in the US.

185

THat’s how it’s been done in Saskatchewan. You can use your health card to book online as your age group becomes eligible, or in the larger centres, just drive to the drive-through clinics and get it done there. It’s all been provided through the public health system.

It’s only as the eligible age group has been lowered, which means larger cohorts, that they’re starting to use pharmacies, I think.

186

My apologies if that was not how it was intended, it seemed like JAQing.

The bottom line is that the province is not leveraging the systems they have. If they’d put the guy that was stealing all of the money from the funding for school kids in charge of this and given him $1 per person, he’d have the system in place in no time.

187

Really? EVERY single time I go to any doctor I am asked to confirm the address and phone number on file are still correct. Even at emerg, it’s ALWAYS checked.

I’m really surprised that’s not happening for you.

188

That’s not the same system. Of course my doctor has my phone number (they don’t ask EVERY time I go but I know they have it.) But they have their own database, it’s not the Ministry of Health.

189

Got a vaccine appointment for May 1 in Regina, so I’ll be happy to finally get it done.

190

Saw some good news for Ontario:

The page is paywalled, so here’s the important point:

191

New Brunswick just opened up booking for vaccines for 50 and up today. I made my appointment this afternoon and get jabbed with Pfizer tomorrow.

192

Way to go! :+1:t2::clap:t3: :tada::confetti_ball:

193

So, New Brunswick is sitting at about 38% of eligible people with one shot. I’m kind of questioning the decision to prioritize the first shot a bit. I think with our numbers we could have followed the recommended dosing procedure and been OK. Then again, look what happened to Nova Scotia. A few bad actors and a bit of bad luck and they go from next to no cases to 120 a day.

194

Getting the first dose of vaccine in itself is not yet reason to stop the social distancing practices that are effective.

Though the vaccines will vary, it is tough to draw conclusions on their efficacy given that variant exposure differed. All are surprisingly effective. There is no real reason for “compilers remorse” if you were offered the AZ vaccine. It is still a reasonable choice.

195

Sure, that’s what I got. I just hope they get more. I want the second shot, preferably sooner than… August.

196

What the hell is wrong with Alberta?

New announcements by Kenney yesterday - because the numbers are now (per capita) the highest in North America.

And the whack-a-doodles are out in full force, spreading anti-vax bullshit, mask-hole bullshit, and all the rest. Apparently Kenney and the UCP and not right-wing enough for them. They want the FREEDOM to infect and kill others, apparently because they are too stupid to understand basic, basic science or human biology.

Oh, and plenty of “Blame Trudeau” bullshit too. Because that’s apparently a panacea for anything that Albertans don’t like.

I wash my hands of them. The sane ones can emigrate to normal provinces.

197

Is there any evidence that Albertans are refusing the lockdowns or refusing vaccinations at a greater rate than any other province?

Look, this Pandemic is very hard to figure out. Explain to me why Texas and Florida continue to have extremely low case counts, while many more locked-down states are seeing increases?. Why some countries were almost unscathed in the first two waves and are now getting clobbered? There’s much we don’t understand.

For that matter, can you explain why Quebec, with roughly twice our population, has had five times as many deaths? Or why they’ve had more deaths than Ontario? Are Quebecers idiots?

Of course there are idiots in Alberta. There are idiots everywhere. Some of them decided to have a rodeo last weekend in the midst of a growing wave of cases. Ridiculous. But that kind of crap happens everywhere.

And trust me, I’m hearing the anti-vax bullshit. But I’m hearing it from people across Canada and the US.

Instead of a right-left split, you might look at rural vs urban people. Lockdowns make less sense for rural people, and they are likely more individualistic in the first place. Most of the crazies screaming about 5G vaccine chips and Bill Gates conspiracies are rural types who don’t play well with government in the first place and don’t like being told what to do. But you’ll find them everywhere.

As for blaming Trudeau - why not? He has fucked up at almost every point in this pandemic, starting with his refusal to re-open available vaccine facilities in favor of building a new one in Montreal which won’t be ready until the end of the year, leaving us at the mercy of other governments. We’re now being told by his government that it’s totally OK to wait four months between Pfizer shots - a claim Pfizer itself came out to say had no basis in science. More likely they just worked back from when they think they can deliver the next shot, and decided to call it science.

As of today, we have fully vaccinated a whopping 3.1% of the population, and only 39% have received one shot, and won’t get the second until well past the interval we have any data for. The provinces have been doing their bit, with high distribution rates for the vaccine they got. So who exactly would you blame for this situation? Try pretending that our leader was Donald Trump, if that helps.

198

So basically maybe it all boils down to bad luck? Or just serendipity?

Of course there are idiots in Alberta. There are idiots everywhere. Some of them decided to have a rodeo last weekend in the midst of a growing wave of cases. Ridiculous. But that kind of crap happens everywhere.

Certainly there are idiots everywhere. However, I’m sure hearing more idiot stories coming out of Alberta. A freakin’ rodeo? Maybe I’m just not finding the other stories though.

Instead of a right-left split, you might look at rural vs urban people.

In Alberta, you’ve pretty much just defined a right-left split using different words. And while you’ll find far right-wingers everywhere, I have found them to be in larger numbers in larger proportions in Alberta than elsewhere. These are the problem people and there are MORE of them per capita in Alberta IMO.

As for blaming Trudeau - why not? He has fucked up at almost every point in this pandemic,

Yep, this is the kind of rhetoric that is preventing these exact folks from figuring out why Alberta is doing so badly. Must be Trudeau’s fault. I’m not sure how they (or you) explain why it’s Trudeau’s fault that ALBERTA is singularly screwing up, but I guess we can go back to the first paragraph - just bad luck or factors we don’t understand. But we sure understand it’s Trudeau’s fault, right? Sure he screwed things up. Lots of decisions that I disagreed with at the time. Closing air travel and the borders faster would have helped. But do you seriously think that re-opening vaccine facilities would have meant that Canada would have had home-grown vaccines faster than the ones we are getting now? It’s this kind of fantasy imaginative thinking that is fuellng the Alberta “blame others” game. It’s frankly bullshit.

Try pretending that our leader was Donald Trump, if that helps.

I honestly have no idea what this even means.

199

This is complete bullshit that seems to be motivated by nothing more than your personal animosity towards Trudeau. The extended dose interval recommendation came from the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI), a body of experts providing independent evidence-based guidance on immunization policy. NACI has been providing impartial immunization guidance to the federal government for more than 50 years, and is one of the longest standing National Immunization Technical Advisory Groups in the world recognized by WHO.

The evidence for this particular guidance is documented at the above link. While it’s driven by a lesser vaccine supply than would be ideal, it’s based on sound science that indicates that a broad population coverage of at least the first dose coupled with an extended interval between doses provides the optimum mutual benefit for all concerned without any substantial increase in risk for those waiting the longer period. Indeed, there is some evidence that the longer wait may even provide a more robust response to the second dose. Ideally we’d be sticking to a shorter interval between doses, but this strategy is based on providing the best overall outcome. It’s entirely possible that wait times may be reduced due to increasing vaccine supplies, particularly of Pfizer and Moderna.

There’s also this:

200

I just booked an appointment for a vaccine through the City of Toronto. My first shot is scheduled for June 7 and the second shot is scheduled for Sept 27. I’m also booked in Shoppers Drug Mart but have no idea when that could be.

I’ll take the SDM shot (AZ) if it comes up before the city date. Otherwise it is likely Pfizer in a month.

And yeah, the whole process in Ontario has been less than ideal.