Great news from BC that is likely to end up similar in many other provinces. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...ovid-1.5931543

This is at least in part because of stretching the gap to 16 weeks between doses, which not every jurisdiction would do.

But still. Trudeau said Sept. I hoped for Sept. I think a few months ago the consensus was that if they met the Sept deadline that was a job well done. But it might be July? That's amazing.

Actually, no, that's not what he asked him - he asked why Canada has administered so few vaccines in comparison to the US. The editorializing about Canada doing a poor job is your own. I find it interesting when you keep coming back to take shots (pun intended) at the government for that, when you were saying this a few weeks ago:

Meanwhile, in related news that uke mentioned, BC rolled out more of their vaccination plan today, and have announced that every eligible adult should receive a first dose of vaccine by the end of July. This schedule has been aided by the third vaccine, and also the decision to now stretch out the time until a second dose to 16 weeks. Scientific evidence seems to be building towards a longer wait being fine, and no doubt they've weighed that against the risk of the variants increasing the spread and decided to go this route. I like it.

Any Canadian who sees this as anything but great news is listening too much to all this nonsense of people bleating on every day about how terrible things are, announcing breathlessly how low Canada is compared to other countries in terms of people vaccinated, etc. We've known from the time these vaccines were first announced that Canada would be getting a slow start since none of the vaccines are being produced here, and that might also make us subject to some delays. Yes, the US are way ahead, and while that can be a bit discouraging as we'd like to be in the same place, it's also great to see because they've been in a far worse place than us for the entire pandemic. It's also great because it has a pretty direct impact on us - no longer having one of the worst countries in terms of the pandemic as our neighbour is a positive development.

A lot of people need to get a ****ing grip.

Once we get past the incompetence of a bunch of governments hot having the capability to produce their own vaccines and the fact the vaccines are a bit late Yes we have to take the deliveries Justin has provided and wait to see if he deliveries on those dates.

It looks like he will achieve those dates and kudos to him.

Something I like about the way the vaccine is being rolled out here is it seems they've been pretty conservative - not making projections based on vaccines that aren't approved yet, for example. So here in BC, because so many on social media (worldwide) thinks they're an expert on everything, many people are now questioning the 16 weeks - but I wouldn't be surprised that *IF* all goes well (and of course that's a big "if"), that 16 weeks is reduced quite a bit when more vaccines are approved.

Is it incompetence, though? I honestly don't know, but it's easy to say after the fact that we should have had that capability here. I don't think I'm the only one who never gave our vaccine production capability a second thought before 2020. I'm sure there could have been some experts who spoke out about this previously, but there certainly hasn't been any public outcry in the past for more vaccine production capacity. Governments have to make decisions all the time about how to prioritize spending, and they're easy to second guess in hindsight.

It's also, in almost everything we can rely on having integrating supply chains with american juggernaut. A huge portion of our wealth and place in the world derives from those connection. But it isn't just Trump, Biden has confirmed that Canada can **** off and is 100% on its own when it comes to Vaccines: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/bid...xico-1.5932176

I wouldn't have thought no domestic vaccine production is a problem. Bad flu year? We get it from the US. But when it became all or nothing, it is revealed to be a mistake.

On the other hand, Canada’s chief science advisor is basically saying BC is being extremely risky, conducting a population level trial with no solid evidence. It seems likely the bc approach is correct, but let’s be completely clear, they have no proof of this.

I would say it is incompetence Dr Tam had actually done a complete paper on the risk of a virus of this magnitude.

Reality is Vaccines were delivered slow
Another government would not have done much better may have done worse
If the fact that we do not have vaccine production in Canada is a mistake it is a mistake over many years of governments
If we do not have a solid partnership vaccine production plan here in Canada that would be this governments mistake unless he calls an election in the next 60-90 days and he losses

As much as BC is taking a risk above my knowledge to know if it is wise or not. Will see if provinces follow. I saw on the news they expect anyone that wants a shot now to get one by July 1 st in BC

I don't follow? It has never seem like a particularly viable strategy to get a "vaccine production partnership" that produces in Canada in a timeline that means we are getting vaccines faster than we got them. Why is it obvious they made a mistake? It seems more like that was just the reality.

$3,400 bill for one night at a quarantine hotel (3 people). Took a cab to the hotel when their shuttle didn't arrive, so right off the bat they were exposing themselves to others. The system is air tight! And well worth the extortion fees.

These sun seekers deserve all that's coming to them, oh wait, she went to her dad's funeral. This hotel scam is another level of gross.
https://www.cp24.com/mobile/news/ont...eral-1.5329558

The reaction is pretty interesting. It actually seems a little irresponsible to be speaking out like that in her role - what is she hoping for here? BC has made the decision, is she thinking that public pressure will cause Dr. Henry to change her mind? It seems much more likely that it does nothing but undermine public confidence. Maybe she's concerned other provinces will follow suit.

At the same time, it could be argued this is part of her role...

The Chief Science Advisor's key functions are as follows:

• Provide advice on the development and implementation of guidelines to ensure that government science is fully available to the public and that federal scientists are able to speak freely about their work
• Provide advice on creating and implementing processes to ensure that scientific analyses are considered when the Government makes decisions
• Assess and recommend ways to improve the existing science advisory function within the federal government
• Assess and recommend ways for the Government to better support quality scientific research within the federal system

https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/063.nsf/eng/h_97646.html

I'm of two minds on this. But in the end I think a better response would have been either to provide this same feedback directly to health officials rather than basically publicly calling them out, or at the very least tempering her language a little bit. Saying "it amounts right now to a basically population level experiment" isn't all that helpful.

I think they have a growing body of evidence, but I'd agree there's no proof yet. What's interesting is that Dr. Nemer seems especially concerned about this because of the variants, but I suspect the variants are a big part of the reason we're doing it - trying to get as many people vaccinated as possible before the variants get a foothold. I also believe that if things go well with vaccines, and especially if we get more approved nationally, that we'll be able to roll that 16 weeks back to something more like the 12 weeks the UK has been doing since the beginning. I think it's a good call, but WTF do I know?

Agreed.

I'm not really sure what you're saying here. First off, I don't think there's an "if" - there is no vaccines production plan here, is there? But I don't know why that would be any different than your previous point - a possible mistake over many years. And I really don't know how an election changes that. I'm missing something here.

End of July, but yes, it's a risk that time will tell whether or not it was a good one. I like it, but I'm working safely at home with minimal Covid impact on my life, compared with many people, so it's easy for me to be part of this "experiment".

From what I have seen on the news we use to produce vaccines here in Canada through partnerships between the government and the drug companies. The money from governments stopped flowing and the companies bailed. We should re-establish those partnerships.
Reality is we should be partnering with the USA and Mexico to manufacture all PPE's and pharmaceuticals here and not rely on countries such as China to provide


Bottom line we need to get everyone over 65 vaccinated as quickly as possible.

My mother was vaccinated on Sunday. I thought the process went fairly smoothly all in all. Yes, they were behind schedule by about 20min, but they had a large sign outside that said which time block was being seen that was regularly updated, so no one had to wait outside in the cold for very long. You could just sit in the car until your time was shown, then head to the door. Once inside it was about 40 min to get through the screening to see the nurse, then after the dose was administered she had to wait 15 min on site to ensure no allergic reaction, then we were good to go. All in all it took about an hour, which isn't too bad considering about everyone in the world wants the shot.

For me the best part was that at no point was she treated like a faceless number or statistic. The nurse was patient and explained how the vaccine worked, all the possible side effects, and what the efficacy rates were and when they would start providing protection, answered all her questions, and then got clear consent before proceeding. So overall a good experience, 8/10 would pandemic again.

The government took so long to set this up and just blew it out of the gate. I think the best route would have been the airport testing and quarantine at home . Heck why not throw ankle bracelets on the folks to make sure they stay at home.

Oh, I see. Well, too late now IMO. As an example, apparently there will be an announcement today that Merck will dedicate two plants to producing the J&J vaccine, and it will take them 2-3 months to retool for that. I can only imagine how long it would take to do the same in a cross-border arrangement with companies that likely don't have anywhere near the resources of a Merck. Maybe had such a deal been made in December or January, it might have been useful. But was such a thing feasible? It's taken this long to strike such a deal within the US, where the government might have some direct influence. In a cross-border deal, the government would have little ability to force anyone's hand.

Awesome - congrats!

Biden now says US will have enough vaccine for every adult by the end of May

This can only be good news for Canada. First of all, pretty much every American being able to get a dose by early summer hopefully (they will have enough doses by the end of May, not have everyone vaccinated by then) is good for us in lowering risk from our neighbour. But it also has to help with the supply chain as well.

And it goes without saying, great news for the US, who needs it far more than we do.

Lozen, can I assign you homework? Please read this: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/pan...taly-1.5928099

It will legit save us a LOT of typing over the next year or so.

Funny my brother sent me the same thing yesterday. Lets be honest anyone can make Canada look like the darling of Covid when the countries you compare it to are the USA, Italy and England. If I sent you a chart saying Canada did a horrible job and used countries like Australia, NZ and Taiwan you would cry fowl.

We all have opinions on how Canada has done and the performance of the government. Bottom line I give it a C or D as I still believe many things should be federally mandated and were not. If I look at provinces and territories I think BC and Yukon led the way with Quebec being the worst and Alberta 2nd or 3rd .

Do you think Taiwan is a more reasonable comparison to Canada than the other 5 western G7 countries?

There is another debate that I find really interesting. So as we know, Canada had one of the biggest and fastest rollout of economic supports. A lot of money went out the door really quickly, and of course we have added a tonne to the debt as a result. There has been a little bit of conservative sniping on the sidelines about whether some people who didn't quite "deserve" the money got it too freely, but from a macroeconomic perspective I think this is largely just noise and something for the CRA to worry about.

The bigger question to me at least is the medium term economic effects. A LOT of Canadians have been saving. In fact, the gap between rich and poor savings rates has shrunk which is quite amazing. So the liberals are basically saying that economic stimulus is preloaded because the vast savings of canadians are going to be spent as we open up.

This is generally supported by economic theory as I understand it. I believe it is LESS effective at job creation than more targeted things like infrastructure, but giving out lots of money particularly to poorer and unemployed and students etc, these are people that put it right back into the economy.

And then the question is whether there is a chance it overheats as people splurge. But I think not. I think people go back to getting haircuts, but it isn't like they go and get two haircuts a month instead of one. So growth, but hopefully not inflationary growth.

The good news just keeps rolling in! I don't even know what all the fuss is about

My point is the article picks out some of the worst countries to make Canada look good. No I do not think Taiwan is a good comparison . I have used Australia because they have mandated federal policies while having 6 provinces and 4 territories. Of course they have no one bordering them also. So based on Canada's large land mass and small population it is near impossible to find a good comparison


Sadly this is a tough topic as well. Were mistakes made? NO Question. Were there programs like CERB and CEBA that idealistically were great. Though giving 3/4 billion dollars to teenagers might not been the smartest decision made.

As for more folks saving this may be a bit out of caution plus its harder to spend get a haircut, go to a gym , go to a restaurant, go to a movie.

I have multiple friends that have lost their businesses even with all the programs out there.

I guess only time will tell.

Interesting Interview from an ex Liberal MP Celina Caesar-Chavannes

https://youtu.be/RFBDhTvLT5s

Dr. Henry (BC PHO) has been getting a lot of questions/criticism about the decision to extend the time between vaccine doses to 16 weeks. Yesterday during their press briefing, she answered a number of questions about it, and in her responses she mentioned the National Advisory Committee on Immunization would be coming out with their own findings "imminently". She didn't say what those findings would be, but the obvious implication was that they would be supportive. Well, they came out today, and not only are they supportive, but they're recommending the approach:

Provinces, territories can wait 4 months to administer 2nd COVID-19 shot, NACI says

And on that note about the end of June - Dr. Henry had previously said the end of July for BC, but yesterday she seemed to be hinting the third vaccine approval and the potential for a fourth (J&J) could mean mid-July or even end of June.

So with the testimony from the Military Ombudsman that he tried to bring the accusations to the defense minister but refused to look at them is it now time for him to resign. He is clearly part of the overall problem. Though this does tend to clear Trudeau of him knowing

https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/politi...2018-1.5332286

General Question: if the Privy Council Office is aware of a situation, does it then follow that the Prime Minister is aware of a situation?