COVID-19 Manitoba

[OTA in Winnipeg]

Originally Posted by rrskylar

From the Washington Post: enlightening


By now, there has been ample documentation as to why this is, and the roads lead back to specific and flawed decisions made by the Trudeau government at critical moments. An ambitious early deal with Chinese vaccine producer CanSino fell through when the Chinese government vetoed the shipment, likely for political reasons that were hardly impossible to anticipate given the gloomy state of Canada-China relations. The government likewise negotiated slowly and poorly with Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, accepting an excessively pessimistic premise that large quantities of vaccine would neither be ready nor deliverable before April, leaving Ottawa startled when injection season wound up kicking off in December. In what seems destined to be yet another iconic Trudeau moment of halo-slipping, his government has been blasted for dipping into a vaccine stockpile intended for the developing world to supplement the deficient supply it obtained on its own.
Some of the reactions to all of this have been classically Canadian. There has long been a fantasy that Canada could be some sort of self-sustaining autarky if only its leaders were more patriotic. Recent rhetoric has accordingly claimed the country’s embarrassing vaccine rollout just proves Canada needs its own domestic vaccine industry, in the way previous generations were told Canada needs its own airplane or car industry, or should spend more time building oil refineries and lumberyards. Trudeau himself has partially conceded to this crowd, approving a deal earlier this month that will see the Novavax vaccine produced at a yet-to-be-built facility in Montreal (though it’s possibly too late to matter).
But looking around the world, there’s really no indication that impressive vaccination rates correlate with this sort of muscular economic nationalism. Places like Chile and Israel simply seem to have inked earlier, better deals with the international pharma giants than Canada, with national governments that prioritized gaining access to adequate quantities of vaccines sooner, rather than gigantic amounts later. Many smaller nations of the European Union, similarly, are clearly benefiting from a supranational vaccine regime in which they have less sovereignty, rather than more — overall challenges notwithstanding.

So they were eventually sold, Montreal's Frappier lab to British multinational GlaxoSmithKline and Connaught, through a series of mergers, to French multinational Sanofi Pasteur​ after Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government's program of privatization​. The labs now have a “tighter production line and not so much capacity,” said Brown.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/corona...city-1.5204040

[VANRIDERFAN]

My mom is in a Care Home in Brandon and will be getting her first shot next week. So good news for her!

[Festivus]

Originally Posted by rrskylar

There is no guarantee of any of this, anyone can read the Liberal playbook and post it here!

the old saying is;

'The Proof Is in the Pudding'

And seriously, does anyone actually believe anything JT has to say, he mostly over promises and under delivers, and has since day one!

The numbers provided by Pfizer? Starting in 1-2 weeks the scheduled shipments are rising to over 450,000 per week. Moderna is around 150,000-250,00 per week, I believe.

[cheswick]

Originally Posted by Festivus

The numbers provided by Pfizer? Starting in 1-2 weeks the scheduled shipments are rising to over 450,000 per week. Moderna is around 150,000-250,00 per week, I believe.

Even at those numbers we're not vaccinating everyone by September. Given Canada's adult population, and taking into account the amount of vaccines delivered, at those rates (700k vaccines a week, which I don't know where you pulled the moderna number from, they only have commitments for 168k in the next delivery and only deliver every 3 weeks) it would take 86 weeks to vaccinate all adults, 60 weeks to vaccinate 70% of adults.

[TimeFadesAway]

Originally Posted by Jammon

COVID has really brought out the incompetence of government at all levels. The only provinces that truly got it right were the Atlantic provinces. Keep it within their own territories, restrict access to everywhere else and the second cases started rising, they shut down all the borders- even within their bubble.

Everyone talks about the incompetence of government, but what about the incompetence of private industry? That's what is driving this temporary shortage in Canada.

Pfizer waited to retool their production plant until January, instead of doing it in September or October when their trial results were in and clearly positive. They were not ready to go when they got their approvals like they should have been. It's not governments that screwed this up, it's private industry.

[ywgwalk]

Originally Posted by rrskylar

From the Washington Post: enlightening

When you come across a J.J. McCullough column in WaPo you're supposed to just shake your head and close the tab. But, if it spins the same way you want to I guess it might actually be a good read.

[Festivus]

Originally Posted by cheswick

Even at those numbers we're not vaccinating everyone by September. Given Canada's adult population, and taking into account the amount of vaccines delivered, at those rates (700k vaccines a week, which I don't know where you pulled the moderna number from, they only have commitments for 168k in the next delivery and only deliver every 3 weeks) it would take 86 weeks to vaccinate all adults, 60 weeks to vaccinate 70% of adults.

Here's an update today on the schedule of deliveries. Canada will receive 84 million total doses from Pfizer and Moderna by the end of September. The AZ and J&J vaccine will be on top of these.

https://www.thestar.com/politics/fed...deau-says.html

the head of Pfizer and has confirmed Canada will receive all four million doses promised from that company by the end of March, then 10.8 million doses of its vaccine between April and June, before the full order of 40 million Pfizer shots arrives before the end of September.

[blueandgoldguy]

Pallister publicly complains about the slow rollout of the vaccines vowing to secure his own...meanwhile Manitoba has not actually used all the vaccines that it has already received

Manitoba has only administered 74% of its available doses, by far the worst in Western Canada. This is nothing more than a deflection of responsibility by Pallister to distract from his government's poor management of the epidemic and vaccine rollout.

[Danny D Oh]

Originally Posted by blueandgoldguy

Pallister publicly complains about the slow rollout of the vaccines vowing to secure his own...meanwhile Manitoba has not actually used all the vaccines that it has already received

Manitoba has only administered 74% of its available doses, by far the worst in Western Canada. This is nothing more than a deflection of responsibility by Pallister to distract from his government's poor management of the epidemic and vaccine rollout.

Had a labour management meeting today where this was discussed. The uptake of eligible workers in my bargaining unit (health) who have taken the vaccine is just over 40%....yet government refuses to make any changes to the 'plan' of having everyone cram into Downtown Winnipeg on their own time (meaning if you are booked for a shot during a scheduled workday or shift you have to get approved for time off and use some form of leave time to miss work). We don't even have the workers to cover for people to get vaccinated, and they won't adjust the plan! This is going to be a disaster and worse and worse as more vaccines come in and more people are eligible. Pallister is playing politics but isn't even ready to get vaccines out...

[cheswick]

Originally Posted by blueandgoldguy

Pallister publicly complains about the slow rollout of the vaccines vowing to secure his own...meanwhile Manitoba has not actually used all the vaccines that it has already received

Manitoba has only administered 74% of its available doses, by far the worst in Western Canada. This is nothing more than a deflection of responsibility by Pallister to distract from his government's poor management of the epidemic and vaccine rollout.

Yeah Saskatchewan has administered over 100% of its vaccines received. Nothing wrong with the data there. Manitoba holds back doses to ensure it has proper dosage for second vaccinations. Which was a Godsend for the recent vaccine hold ups as they were able to administer all second doses within manufacturers timelines. Quebec isn’t even giving second doses. Plenty to criticize with the government, cherry picking a single day and a single stat of vaccination roll out is not one of them and is nonsensical. Manitoba is second in second dose vaccination per capita and second in province in all vaccinations per capita. Manitoba’s vaccination roll out has been fine.

[Danny D Oh]

Originally Posted by blueandgoldguy

The Ford government should be criticized for their handling of the COVID crisis. They waited too long to institute greater restrictions when it was apparent long ago what they had instituted was not working. Waiting until after Christmas to enforce stricter measures was laughable.

As for the Pallister government, criticism extends beyond the vaccination rates. They had all summer to get their house in order, but still testing rates remained among the lowest of the provinces which really affected their abilities to effectively trace sources of infection. They waited too long to enforce stricter restrictions back in October when cases skyrocketed to 200+cases per day. I guess Pallister thought telling people to "smarten up" would do the trick.

Instead he waited over a month, until mid-November to enforce further restrictions in Winnipeg, when cases were pushing over 500 per day and hospitals and ICU units were inexorably heading towards severe cases beyond their capabilities without further intervention. Over two months later and we still have the same restrictions probably causing irrevocable damage to many small businesses in the province.

By taking initiative back in October with further restrictions instead of sticking his head in the stand, we would have experienced a much shorter period of business closures as we would have peaked at a much lower level and taken a significantly smaller period of time to bring hospitalizations and ICU cases down to manageable levels. We didn't do that and it's a damn shame as it has caused this province dozens (or hundreds?) of additional deaths and likely resulted in the deaths of more businesses.

There is a reason Pallister is last or second-last among premiers in approval ratings and it's primarily because of his inept handling of the pandemic.

Pallister's complete lack of business and economic savvy as detailed in this vaccine deal is shocking and terrifying at the same time.

This company is badgering governments for seed money and orders because they don't even have cash flow to run clinical trials. Pallister just handed them 20% of whatever the total value of this contract is with no reasonable expectation of ever seeing anything delivered. Unless you can get all provinces or at least most of the larger ones onside, there's an absurdly minuscule chance of this contract ever producing anything.

Let's say this deal is for $35 million, other vaccines are said to cost about $19.50 per dose. Pallister has just handed $7 million to some fly by night company in Calgary while at the same time the largest school division in the province has a $5 million budget shortfall that he has directly caused by legislating the ability for them to tax their jurisdiction away.

And we wonder why our economy is shit...our government literally burns money while crushing services that benefit our economy.

[ywgwalk]

Originally Posted by cheswick

Yeah Saskatchewan has administered over 100% of its vaccines received. Nothing wrong with the data there.

You can do over 100% because many of the vials from the first shipments have extra doses in them.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/hea...izer-1.5906879

While some provinces — notably Saskatchewan and Quebec — have succeeded in extracting more from each vial, Health Canada had been saying up to now that the vials are only good for five doses.

[Festivus]

Originally Posted by cheswick

Yeah Saskatchewan has administered over 100% of its vaccines received. Nothing wrong with the data there. Manitoba holds back doses to ensure it has proper dosage for second vaccinations. Which was a Godsend for the recent vaccine hold ups as they were able to administer all second doses within manufacturers timelines. Quebec isn’t even giving second doses. Plenty to criticize with the government, cherry picking a single day and a single stat of vaccination roll out is not one of them and is nonsensical. Manitoba is second in second dose vaccination per capita and second in province in all vaccinations per capita. Manitoba’s vaccination roll out has been fine.

1. There is good evidence that giving everyone a first dose (and waiting months for the second dose) will provide better outcomes. This is because:
2. One dose provides around 50% immunity, while two provides around 95%. But the one dose also prevents serious illness, meaning more will be saved by a single dose than waiting for the second.
3. The vials that were shipped contained 6 doses but were labelled as 5. This allows for greater than 100% usage. Future vials are being correctly labelled as 6-dose, and we will be paying more for them.

[cllew]

Originally Posted by Festivus

1. There is good evidence that giving everyone a first dose (and waiting months for the second dose) will provide better outcomes. This is because:
2. One dose provides around 50% immunity, while two provides around 95%. But the one dose also prevents serious illness, meaning more will be saved by a single dose than waiting for the second.
3. The vials that were shipped contained 6 doses but were labelled as 5. This allows for greater than 100% usage. Future vials are being correctly labelled as 6-dose, and we will be paying more for them.

I was under the impression that the cost was the same but Manitoba would receive a lesser number of vials as the initial number of vials to be shipped here were projected on the 5 dose count and not the 6 dose count.

[cheswick]

Originally Posted by cllew

I was under the impression that the cost was the same but Manitoba would receive a lesser number of vials as the initial number of vials to be shipped here were projected on the 5 dose count and not the 6 dose count.

Not sure about cost but for planning purposes Dr Friesen had stated that upto the month of March they had been planning based on number of trays to be received, and they had been consistently extracting 6 doses per vial. So they had to adjust down the number of doses. But for April onwards the planning was based on doses and that isn’t affected by the labelling change.

[bomberjet]

Isn't the 6th dose thing a factor of which needles they have? Japan for example could not procure the needles needed to get every drop from the vials. Canada has said needles. I think it was only for the Pfizer vaccine.

[DirtWednesday]

Originally Posted by cllew

I was under the impression that the cost was the same but Manitoba would receive a lesser number of vials as the initial number of vials to be shipped here were projected on the 5 dose count and not the 6 dose count.

Language is whacky ain't it? If you kept the same number of vials shipped as before, the cost per dose would mean the new overall cost would be higher.

simplified math example:
5 doses x 10 vials x $10 dose = $500
6 doses x 8 vials x $10 dose = $480

or same number of vials
6 doses x 10 vials x $10 dose = $600

[cheswick]

Week over week average up almost 50%. Things could be exploding here shortly.

[Jammon]

Originally Posted by cheswick

Week over week average up almost 50%. Things could be exploding here shortly.

We meet regularly with government on this issue. Third lockdown on the horizon if numbers don't come down over the next week or so. I didn't hear an exact timeline, but they are watching closely and what's happening obviously in the other provinces. There is a lot of concern about the variants as you can imagine.

[esquire]

Looking at it differently, could this just be the expected result of loosened restrictions? We knew that cases would likely rise a bit once things started to reopen gradually as they did recently. We're up by fewer than 100 cases a day from the most recent low point a little over a month ago...