Canada, which was initially a shining example of how to manage a pandemic during the early stages of the COVID-19 crisis, and which stood in stark contrast to the U.S. has ironically had somewhat of a twist of fate in recent months. With the new Brazilian variant taking hold in the country which is thought to be more deadly and more transmissible and vaccination numbers that lag behind almost every other developed country this is no laughing matter. There are many lessons here on how we can help better manage future pandemics. There are a variety of reasons that stand out to me as to why this is the case.
Canada’s current failure seems a lot to do with vaccine nationalism taking root in basically every country around the world, and especially the countries which have a manufacturing capacity to produce these vaccines. However, while this is true, the country does share some of the blame. Firstly there should have been a greater effort to establish vaccine manufacturing capacity throughout the past couple decades. This is something that was warned about but ignored by basically every political leader since. Secondly, although the country ordered the highest number of vaccines per capita, it failed to give specific delivery targets to these companies and instead gave a general target of Q1 2021. Virtually every company took advantage of this and aimed to deliver vaccines to Canada at the end of this target period, further delaying the overall vaccination timeline for the country as a whole.
Furthermore it’s not just getting the vaccines that’s been a problem, its getting them into peoples arms. It’s not that Canadians are more vaccine hesitant than other nations, but rather that due to the heavy focus the federal government placed on equity and orderliness it hasn’t been able to get vaccines in peoples arms as fast as the U.S. In the U.S., while some states did have an emphasis on getting them into elderly communities, and then communities in which the spread is rampant, these were often treated more like guidelines than strict rules. Also, the emphasis on getting them into ONLY vulnerable communities first, which might seem intuitive, may also be why the spread is picking up dramatically amongst everyone else. People, and especially young people, are tired of being in lockdown, and its effects on mental health have been largely negative which is why young people have been secretly hosting parties, and having secret get togethers which go largely unreported. There is a reasonable argument to be made here that a checkerboard approach to vaccinations would have been better for the purposes of reducing transmission as a whole, rather than leaving giant groups, just because they are “not vulnerable” completely exposed.
Overall, there are many things that the country needs to improve on, and there are lessons here for future pandemics and health crises that all countries can gather from.
