How is the vaccine roll out in your country?

Up here in Canada we have vaccinated a grand total of 171,751 people as of Jan.6 a.m. 2021. This is out of a population of 36,000,000. To date we have begun to vaccinate seniors in long term care homes, and natives on native reserves.
The plan is to hit these groups first as they are the most impacted. After that we are going to get to our health care providers, then the over 80 crowd. Following these we are going to go in 5 year increments, that is to say 75-79 then 70-74, then 65-69, after that we hit the general population.

Canada is vowing to have everyone who wants the Covid-19 vaccine vaccinated by June. So far the Pfifer and the Moderna vaccine are being used. We expect the Astra-Zeneca vaccine to be approved this week, with the Johnsons & Johnsons vaccine approved next month.

So how is the vaccine roll out progressing where you are? Israel is now leading the world with 17% of it's population immunized, quite impressive.

 

In the UK we are up to 1.3 million that have had the first dose, with the second dose in 12 weeks time, Boris says there would be a ramping up to get more people immunised - up to 2 million a week....we shall see.

 

The approval rating for Boris here in Canada is quite high, he is well liked over here. How do you view his response to the pandemic overall? And what about the Brexit deal, do you feel he handled that well?

With this new strain of the virus that you have over there, it's good that you guys have vowed to get up to 2 million a week, hope that you can get to that.

 

I am not to sure this vaccine its secure .I dont want to vaccinate myself but who knows maybe in the future they will force us to vaccinate all the globe

 

There may be a time when vaccination cards will need to be produced. You may not be able to get a good job or be able to go into public places, unless you can prove that you have been immunized against the vaccine. They are talking about this here in Canada, it could happen. In Poland everyone has to be vaccinated, it's the law there.

 

I think he's done as well as anyone else could, this situation is new to all of us and nobody really knows the right way to deal with it. I'm all for the full lockdown that we have at the moment, the tier system nonsense wasn't working as is evident by the increased infection rates.

Best we don't get into that here, it'll just attract the political nutjobs and this will end up in P&R..and nobody wants that.

 

Amen to that!

 

I think the same way. I am apprehensive about the vaccine. Of course these pharma will indeed say it is safe but in reality how sure are we that it is truly safe? The vaccine was made less than a year which is far from standard. Do they have measures if the vaccine would have adverse effects? Hmmmm, just my thoughts.

 

Then again, are you safe if you don't take the vaccine?

 

You and me both.

 

Any thoughts on Sinovac vaccine?

 

Early on about 8 months ago Canada and China agreed to share research and developed this vaccine bilaterally, with Canada investing $40 million. Now that it's been developed Sinovac Biotech is claiming the rights as it's own and is attempting to leave Canada out in the cold. (no pun intended)

Having written that the vaccine does appear safe in clinical trials. On an unrelated note, Canada has now vaccinated 356,249 people as of yesterday. (close to 1% of it's population)

 

There was a headline and article in a Boston daily newspaper that said vaccination centers were throwing out vaccine bottles that had been opened and not used by the end of the day. Apparently, an opened vaccine vials can not last until the next day and the healthcare workers were reluctant to face the potential wrath of the state if they gave these extra vaccines to anyone that is not currently on the Phase 1 list. The newspaper was unable to provide an actual place where it had occurred and several of the major Boston centers denied wasting any vaccines, so it may be an unfounded rumor. If there is further news about this, I will post it here.

 

I think more co ordination needs to be implemented. There simply cannot be a shortage of people wanting the vaccine. Line them up, put it into their arms.
Here in Canada the issue is that we can't get enough vaccine dosages for the need. We have no pharmaceutical factories that produce vaccines and all have to be imported from Belgium, Germany, the U.K. and the U.S.

 

Down here, I suspect that some states are running vaccine coordination/distribution okay. Since we are a federal system, it is the states that handle their own emergency (and Covid) responses. As is the case in about everything in the state and local government, some will develop okay policies and procedures and some will do things horribly, with most somewhere in the middle "meh" range. As Reagan opined many decades ago, the scariest words anyone can hear are "I'm from the government and I am here to help." If they got out of the way of industry, things would undoubtedly be more efficient and fast. But, that is not to be because a politician can never let a crisis go to waste.

 

Don't want to make this thread too political otherwise it will get dumped into P&R, which means that I will no longer be able to comment. But...up here the government works fairly well apart from too much red tape. And believe it or not, a majority of Canadians actually trust the government.

Americans regularly come to Canada to shop for drugs that are half price what they are in the U.S. We can and do produce small quantities in the 100,000- 1,000,000 range, but as I wrote before, when it comes to producing tens or hundreds of millions of vials of Covid-19 vaccines, we are forced to rely on other countries and this is the reason our vaccine roll out is so slow.

Bottom line is that Canadians are giving the government a pass on this one, as they are blameless.

 

You have a supply problem, not a distribution problem.

 

Come to think of it...you are quite right. *I would certainly have come up with that same conclusion in time

 

I just checked out the W.H.O.'s vaccine tracker, and here are the stats:
Canada has now vaccinated 1% of it's population. The U.S.A. 3%, the U.K. 4.5%. At the lead is Israel with an amazing 23% of it's citizens all vaccinated. Maybe they really are the "chosen people"?