10 ms·

Canadians fly south for shot as US demand falls

78 points by adventured 6y ago

version_five 6y ago
I'm Canadian and I have been seriously considering moving to the US for a few months now. It may just be "grass is always greener" but after some initial criticism, it seems like the US has handled this so much better than we have, people are getting back to normal there while our governments continue to add restrictions. I didn't realize we were only at 3% vaccinated, but that is an absolute embarrassment. I'd be curious to hear American or other outside perception of how we have handled it.
- abduhl 6y ago
  American viewpoints all fall pretty much along political idealogical lines with when it all went wrong but I think that most Americans agree that America is “doing terrible” and the only real debate is who is to blame. Shitting on America has become America’s past time and any kind of national pride is met with staunch criticism or “cancellation.” I think your viewpoint is somewhat a “grass is greener” viewpoint being Canadian and any particular American’s view on Canada’s response will be in line with their political party. Objectively we are probably doing the best in the world at vaccinating such a large and diverse population. You’ll never hear one of us admit it though and if you do then you can be sure to hear it followed up with a “but” denigrating ourselves in some other way. Objectively Canada is doing terribly at vaccination and it boggles the mind that your country is still having to impose strict lockdowns and go off the label with dosing timelines because of your inability to secure a supply.
  - elevenoh 6y ago
    example of your point on politicized viewpoints: Ericson2314's comment in this thread
- tobyjsullivan 6y ago
  The 3% is people who have had both doses. If you live in Canada, then you know that almost nobody has had both doses. That's not our priority - maximizing collective protection is the short-term goal. Personally, I'll measure Canada's performance throughout this pandemic by the final number of per-capita deaths. We're hardly best in the world but doing a lot better than the US so far (1,783/M vs 643/M at the moment[0]). [0] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ Edit to add: Canada could easily take the lead over US in deaths/M if US get's vaccinated faster/better. I'm not so naive to believe that's impossible. It does seem Canada has a strategy to avoid that. Otherwise, it simply seems too early to call either way.
  - elevenoh 6y ago
    >Personally, I'll measure Canada's performance throughout this pandemic by the final number of per-capita deaths. How about in relation to the cost & externalities of this per-capita death figure? Financially, socially etc. It's as though there's no adults in the room willing to speak to tradeoffs - the pernicious, long-term 2nd+ order consequences to be considered.
    - whimsicalism 6y ago
      There are plenty of adults in the room willing to discuss tradeoffs. But you need numbers, and many of the people who don't like lockdowns prefer to make nebulous references to tradeoffs rather than discussing direct harm. There's extensive evidence suggesting that many of the economic effects of the early pandemic were entirely independent of whether a choice was made to lockdown. Individual people aren't stupid and they're not going to keep going out and consuming while a deadly pandemic is raging.
      - elevenoh 6y ago
        >There's extensive evidence suggesting that many of the economic effects of the early pandemic were entirely independent of whether a choice was made to lockdown. Remove choice from business owners & watch effected industries move elsewhere (texas, flordia). >"Individual people aren't stupid and they're not going to keep going out and consuming while a deadly pandemic is raging." Covid is 'deadly' to the overweight & immunocompromised.
- elevenoh 6y ago
  Canada needs more competition in the health care industry. There's very little. Instead I see rent seeking, nepotism, resting on credentials, signalling.. Canadian health care is attracting worse & worse (in terms of competence & care) people every year.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  US did ~~everything~~ many, many things wrong, except the one thing we know to do --- throw money at medical problems --- actually works for vaccines because vaccines are such a phenomenal piece of technology. Looks like vaccine IP restriction lifting is finally going to happen. I would stay put in non-US places.
  - elevenoh 6y ago
    >US did everything wrong, except the one thing we know to do Such a political take. The US did a lot right.
    - Ericson2314 6y ago
      I scaled it back for less pathos, but tell me this: if there weren't vaccines we would not be completely screwed? We absolutely had no effective backup plan, but also weren't completely honest about relying so heavily on vaccines. (Now again vaccines are great, so that's not the worst plan, but what I'm getting it was it wasn't really the plan at all. We were screwing up by the measure of our own goals rather than intentionally waiting for the big bailout.) ---- Also East Asia is mopping the floor. There's truly very little good to say about EU let alone US in comparison.
      - Alupis 6y ago
        > if there weren't vaccines we would not be completely screwed? Probably not. The infection and death rates were plummeting even before general availability of the vaccine. States that locked down super hard, and states that barely locked down at all, have essentially the same infection/death rates as well. The US is a big country, with a lot of people. However, the average health of an individual in the US is far better than the East Asia area, and much of the world. That's before we even consider the vast young population in the US which mostly are asymptomatic infectees... The number of people who have been infected already and cannot become infected again with the same variant is likely massive in the US, making it quite possible the US would have weathered even the latest variants due to a lack of infectible people (ie. "herd immunity").
- tick_tock_tick 6y ago
  Our media (US that is) seems to pick and choose which counties are "handing it well" seemly with little regard to statistics. Canada has largely been portrayed as handling the whole situation very well and if you polled random people on the street of a US city I'd be willing to bet quite a bit they think your vaccine rates are comparable or better then the US.
  - CountDrewku 6y ago
    It depends on whether you only get your info from MSM or get info from new media. From the latter I've seen a lot of stories about the police acting gestapo like with arrests for non-masking, gatherings etc. So, my view is certainly not positive when it comes to Canada but I'm sure you're correct when it comes to the average citizen.
  - busymom0 6y ago
    Which is where the whole politicizing the pandemic comes into place. Canada's vaccine roll out has been complete garbage. Which is mostly because we didn't make our own vaccine (didn't have facilities) and are relying on other countries to give it to us. India was able to make their own vaccine and so far vaccinated 158M single and 29.1M fully. US 248M and 106M fully. Yet Canada wasn't able to make their own and so far only 14M single and 1M fully.
    - tick_tock_tick 6y ago
      They won't say it publicly but I'm guessing the real strategy at this point is keep restriction going through the summer and they have worked out a deals with the US where they (and Mexico probably) will get first dibs on all the US's extra stockpile.
  - refurb 6y ago
    Canada was handling it well (or just lucky) until this past Q4. I have friends in BC. For a population of 5 million they had around 2,000 cases in September. Now? 130,000 cases. They got complacent, people let their guards down, it exploded.
- Baeocystin 6y ago
  Honestly, in this case, think it just comes down to money. Whatever the other problems with the American handling of it (and my god was it disorganized) The US also threw 800-pound-gorilla levels of cash at the manufacturers, and since the vaccines turned out to be good, it worked out. Smaller economies just didn't have that as an option, whether the policy-makers wanted it or not.
- petertodd 6y ago
  Canada is at 3% fully vaccinated, with both doses (almost all the vaccination has been with 2 dose vaccines). However, 35% have received one dose out of two. Canada could have chosen to vaccinate about 15% of the population fully, which would have been enough for the supermajority of the >65 population that is responsible for almost all of the deaths. But we chose not to. Whether or not that is the right choice remains to be seen.
- barney54 6y ago
  I thought Canada was handling COVID well and then there was the latest round of lockdowns and restrictions which is bonkers.
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  It seems like Canada is prioritizing a "first dose first" strategy, so I think the 34% number should be compared with the 56% in the US. The US has done very well with vaccines so far, but in terms of (in my view) the real number for success (deaths per capita), the US has had 3x as many.
- sparrc 6y ago
  The vaccine rollout has been great in the US. The anti-masking and politicizing of the pandemic has been terrible. I guess the deaths per capita will be fairly high in the US but it varies a lot from place to place. Many places did very little lockdown and more-or-less carried on with life as usual.
- CountDrewku 6y ago
  Your country's response to COVID frankly terrifies me. The police showing up and arresting maskless people, shutting down businesses, raiding churches. The vaccine response seems piss poor as well. I realize the media sensationalizes a lot of this but from the outside it doesn't look good. I know the US is seen as not doing enough but I prefer that over the authoritarian responses. We certainly have our issues but for now we still hold people's personal freedoms at a high level. I live in a somewhat rural area but I haven't had to wear a mask in most places for about a month, I've been vaccinated for over a month and I've been out enjoying beers etc. like normal for the last several weeks.
  - version_five 6y ago
    Funny how people don't like your comment. It terrifies me too. I assumed I was in a free country, and it had all gone so bad so quickly. Thus wanting to get into a different country that hopefully has stronger notions of personal freedom..
    - CountDrewku 6y ago
      They don't like it because they think I'm sharing fake news because our MSM will not report this. If you look at the other comments here they believe the Canadian response is one of the best. Obviously, I don't live there so I'm open to changing my mind. I've just read some stories that don't sit well with me coming out of Canada and even if they're in the minority they should still be addressed.
  - DeathRay2K 6y ago
    I thought you were talking about the US in the first paragraph. In truth, there haven't been strong enough enforcement measures in Canada, that's why we're having such a bad third wave right now. In Alberta, which has the highest case rates in Canada, there have been less than 2 tickets issued per day for violating the restrictions. Until yesterday at least, if you went out you would see people all over the place without masks, hanging out with their friends on patios, having parties, etc. You say you've been vaccinated for over a month, but we haven't had that privilege. So instead, we have to rely on safety measures like avoiding big gatherings and unsafe behaviour.
- obrake 6y ago
  The 3% statistic is fairly misleading. Canada has adopted the one-dose first regiment just like the UK. Which means that there is a 4 month difference between 1st and 2nd shot. The rationale was that it would overall save more lives as 1 dose is ~80% effective at preventing hospitalizations/deaths compared to ~95% for two doses. So you vaccinate double the number of people with one dose rather than half the amount with both doses and you save more lives. This was a strategic decision as Canada does not have the vaccination production, unlike the US which has prevented exporting of vaccines. In Ontario we have 42.5% of all adults with 1 dose. In Ontario we expect ~80% of the population to have 1 dose by June 20th[1]. Which I believe is a really promising statistic, and based on current vaccination trajectory we will meet that date. The 4 month dose stretch is expected to be shrunk to a lot lower once supply has increased sufficiently and most people have 1 dose. The increasing restrictions was unfortunate but very necessary. In Ontario at least hospitalizations and ICU capacity was getting out of hand at a faster pace than Ontario has seen throughout the pandemic. These numbers spiked in part because the lack of vaccine supply in the early days of vaccinations. Our importing of vaccines was incredibly slow at the beginning of the pandemic, mostly because we had to import from other nations which are already scrounging for vaccines. Now the pace has stepped up dramatically, based on our current jabs in arms per capita we are ~42 days behind USA[2]. Which is not that bad considering Canada has no vaccine production capacity. Excluding micronations we are ranked ~16th in the world. [1] https://globalnews.ca/news/7679338/ontario-coronavirus-phase-2-vaccine-rollout/ https://globalnews.ca/news/7679338/ontario-coronavirus-phase... [2] https://www.howfarbehindiscanada.com/ https://www.howfarbehindiscanada.com/
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  - lhorie 6y ago
    > Canada has adopted the one-dose first regiment Huh, interesting, TIL. I was not feeling very confident in the vaccination response seeing that 3% number, but this changes my perception quite a bit. I do still have questions about the overall handling of pandemic risks though. I recall reading last year that several million masks went to waste because they expired in warehouses, and not having vaccine production facilities despite being aware of the potential risks after SARS seem... suboptimal.
- busymom0 6y ago
  Another Canadian here, planning on moving to Florida or Texas in the future. Severely disappointed and the "police can stop and question at random" by Doug Ford along with the curfew in Quebec is what's breaking the camel's back for me. Main problem here is that instead of building temporary hospitals to boost the hospital capacity like US did last year, we have simply kept locking down which is equivalent to throwing the problem under a rug. It's been a year and even though they were talking about it last year, only as of couple weeks ago, they are planning on using temporary field hospital in the coming weeks. Why wasn't it used for a year to boost the capacity? Also the 2 temporary hospitals in Ontario have only 73 and 84 beds. That's tiny. https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-says-a-covid-19-field-hospital-is-expected-to-take-patients-this-month-1.5388395 https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-says-a-covid-19-field-hos... Then the whole nursing home debacle where the military audit showed reprehensible conditions and caused vast majority of the nursing home deaths: https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/gut-wrenching-military-report-sheds-light-on-grim-conditions-in-ontario-nursing-homes-1.4954710 https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/gut-wrenching-military-report-she...
- autokad 6y ago
  As an American, here are my thoughts. From as early as February or March 2020, I had always felt they told us what we needed to know - about 600k people would die of covid-19 in the US. I thought maybe if we did some things we could get that number down, but we failed in that respect. We pretty much had as many deaths as we would have doing nothing. on a per capita basis, canada did a lot better (600 deaths / mil vs 1800, 32k cases / mil pop vs 94k). +2 Canada, although there are some circumstances that I will get to later. our deaths per case is about the same, although NYC and NJ skews our numbers. call it a tie. vaccines, US is a clear winner. +1 US Freedom wise, its a mixed bag. States like NYC and California did all sorts of lockdown shenanigan's that all failed, where as states like Florida stayed mostly open and did better than the national average case/death wise. I can't really speak to what Canada has done, I'll let you fill this one in. So in the end, Canda 2: US: 1 + 1 ? going to who wins on freedom. However, the US did have some circumstances that canada did not have. Latin and South America have been ravaged by cv19, and approximately 1-2 million walk across the border / year illegally. I really don't care if that is 'wrong vs right'. Its important to consider when thinking how the virus is going to play out, and its no surprise that areas with high immigration from those areas did the worst. Its also why relying on herd immunity here will also never work. Unless we vaccinate Latin and South America (I'm in favor of that), we are going to have plenty of exposure to the virus.
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    The range was from 500k to 1.2 million if elimination failed, at least in the early estimates I saw. Early in the pandemic, we were woefully underprepared with care - you can see how the death proportion has changed with time. If we had let the pandemic spread in normal course early on, I suspect we would have seen many more deaths. I think it is way too easy to look back and say that we had as many deaths as we would have had doing nothing.
  - yazaddaruvala 6y ago
    > We pretty much had as many deaths as we would have doing nothing. In the US, 1.8% of cases have resulted in deaths, with 10% of Americans getting sick and tested[0]. The majority of these deaths happening 6 months into the pandemic, i.e. a lot of knowledge had been gained and resources stockpiled. Doing nothing early in the pandemic would likely have increased the death rate to roughly 3% because of a lack of medial resources (including doctors and nurses), and resulting in 66% of Americans getting sick. Excluding children (i.e. 300 MM US adults) the expected death count would have been 6 MM people. That said, I feel you, I would have personally hoped that for the effort we did put into "whatever we did", it would have reduced deaths by 100x (i.e. less than 0.06 MM deaths) but sadly we didn't work as a team and people died for it. However, while it shouldn't even have been 0.6 MM, "whatever we did" roughly decreased the deaths by 10x and thats a worth calling out. [0] As of May 5th 2021, 32,513,303 cases and 578,500 deaths. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/09/01/816707182/map-tracking-the-spread-of-the-coronavirus-in-the-u-s https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/09/01/8167071...
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- samtho 6y ago
  The quality of the response has greatly varied state by state. Each has/had their own set of restrictions and reopening phase timelines. California based their lockdown level on ICU capacity per region of the state dictating which businesses could remain open. There was a lot of (warranted) criticism on the specifics because officials seemed to based the list off of necessity rather than potential for harm, which potentially led to the unnecessary killing of many small, locally owned businesses. It didn’t help that we had a few elected officials skirting lockdown regulations by dining out with a large group and going to a high end salon when these things were not allowed at the time. The first half of the vaccine rollout was rocky. When the first group (medical professionals and 75+ only) had their turn, There were clinics with vaccine that needed to be used because appointments slowed down quickly. It took them weeks to move onto the next group which included people with high risk medical conditions, front line workers, and 65+. The list of qualifying medical conditions was laughably incomplete, e.g. you didn't technically qualify if you just had severe asthma in many counties. Many clinics stopped asking for proof of a qualifying medical condition and let people “self certify.” I probably only see the bad having to live with consequences of others’ hasty decisions in California but we may have redeemed ourselves, in a small way, in the second half of this vaccine rollout by being able to provide vaccines to anyone over 16 earlier than the goal set by the Biden administration. From the onset of the pandemic, I don’t think it was massively unreasonable to let states make their own rules but the federal government utterly failed to adequately support people and small businesses. To qualify for the stimulus check, you had to made under the limit according to your 2019 (or 2018 if you did not file yet) tax return. Last time I checked, the pandemic hit us in March of 2020 - so why was this determined by earnings a year earlier? There is a certain set of people in power that will fight to the nail to make sure that nobody receives a benefit if there is even the smallest sliver of a chance that they may not be deserve it, which is an absurdly nonsensical and short-sighted approach to take in the wake of a global pandemic.
- Hammershaft 6y ago
  Why are so many comments being downvoted for expressing opinions and countering data? Are HN readers beginning to aggressively use the downvote button?
  - bourgwaletariat 6y ago
    It's a metaproblem that HN doesn't want to address. It creates an echo chamber that isolates dissent. There's a framework in any society, including those online that serves to isolate the higher man. Group think is required. The particular opinion here is that everyone should get vaccinated. Any other opinion is down voted. Solution: Downvotes should require an accompanying comment as to why. Downvoting without explanation does nothing to change minds or behavior. It just alienates people. Ironically, if one gets a downvote without explanation, it only serves to reinforce the opinion of the downvoted commenter. HN, like every community, and every person has blind spots and this is one of theirs.
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dominojab 6y ago
top notch propaganda
908B64B197 6y ago
During the pandemic we kept hearing that collectivist cultures and socialized medicine would have the upper-hand. Yet Canada's vaccination rate is abysmal (32% vs 2.55% are completely covered with the required two doses [0]) when compared to the United States. What's the explanation here? [0] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccina...
- anonuser123456 6y ago
  >What's the explanation here? Incentives matter?
- CaveTech 6y ago
  Canada does not have any production facilities and has been unable to give vaccinations as a result. Our daily vaccinations per capita are nearing or exceeding the US at this time and we are accelerating as we receive more doses. 2nd doses have been delayed to ensure maximum efficiency of the supply we have.
- ThrustVectoring 6y ago
  The US government threw its weight around to ensure that it would have manufacturing capability and doses. If Canada physically had more doses, they'd have more shots in arms.
  - tick_tock_tick 6y ago
    That is a good point at-least for western powers the more socialist the country the less "weight" it possesses.
  - 908B64B197 6y ago
    That's smart. Pharma production is a strategic asset. Would be unthinkable to have the US aerospace industry outsourced to foreign countries for instance. Is there a different perception in Canada?
    - 6y ago
IG_Semmelweiss 6y ago
It would be great to get perspective from Canadians on the case. Why is Canada, a country with wealth, in the current situation? national health agency failure in planning? supply chain constraints? Import constraints (even though there are plenty across the border?)? Something else?
- kuschku 6y ago
  The US doesn't export any COVID vaccines. Neither does the UK. Pretty much the entire rest of the world is supplied by Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. (Russia and China are exceptions in that they have their own, separate vaccines).
  - __s 6y ago
    Russia's exporting theirs: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1123927/sputnik-v-exports-from-russia-by-country https://www.statista.com/statistics/1123927/sputnik-v-export... China's also exporting their sinovac vaccine
    - kuschku 6y ago
      That's correct, but Russia's vaccine isn't approved in most countries as every batch so far has had very unreliable QC with significantly different results. As I said, those are exceptions, the vast majority has no option other than to wait for the US to slowly start exporting, or use the european sources.
  - CubsFan1060 6y ago
    This article indicates the US is exporting vaccines: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/pfizer-export-us-made-covid-19-shots-canada-starting-next-week-2021-04-30/ https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/...
    - kuschku 6y ago
      We discussed this already in our other comment chain in this thread :)
lucb1e 6y ago
Isn't it a lot more efficient to ship the doses north than the Canadians south?
- kuschku 6y ago
  It would be, but the US has an export ban on covid vaccines, just like the UK does.
  - CubsFan1060 6y ago
    https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/pfizer-export-us-made-covid-19-shots-canada-starting-next-week-2021-04-30/ https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/... Already shipping to Mexico, about to start shipping to Canada.
    - kuschku 6y ago
      Pretty much half a year later than originally agreed. Considering this 6 month delay in vaccine availability, it's incredible how well most countries held up.
    - bawolff 6y ago
      They're taking over what belgium was shipping us, but not increasing the amount. So its not exactly team usa here to save the day.
  - 317070 6y ago
    Afaik, the UK does not have an export ban [0] I would be interested for a source if that has changed. [0] https://www.politico.eu/article/why-the-uk-doesnt-need-a-coronavirus-vaccine-export-ban/ https://www.politico.eu/article/why-the-uk-doesnt-need-a-cor...
    - kuschku 6y ago
      The UK doesn't have a technical export ban, just a contractual requirement that all UK manufacturers have to first supply all UK contracts before supplying any export contracts. Even though the UK contracts were signed after other contracts. Whether that's an "export ban" or not is semantics, the result is the same: nothing is exported.
lhorie 6y ago
<s>I'm extremely unimpressed with the vaccination rate in Canada. I feel like they really dropped the ball.</s> Edit: it was clarified upthread that the 3% number is misleading and Canada is actually doing much better than that number suggests. > The trick was to fly because land crossing has been closed to non-essential traffic since March of 2020. Is this right? It doesn't jive with my experience. I was able to cross the land border - both ways - around August.
- timbit42 6y ago
  Well, Canada doesn't prohibit you from leaving and when you come back, if you have Canadian citizenship, Canada won't block you from coming into your own country. What they are blocking is non-Canadians.
arecurrence 6y ago
With America pumping out 4 million doses a day... Canada can be inoculated in a single week. Expect to see that gap crumble over the next two months and with lower vaccine hesitancy... Canada will likely cross the finish line before America.
- bitwize 6y ago
  The USA is never crossing the finish line. Americans have a huge "denier politics" problem that other Western nations just don't have.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Based on hesitancy data [1], you’re right, but the damage is going to be constrained to those who won’t get the vaccine and a smaller group of those who would’ve avoided harm from herd immunity. The problem is the finish line (here immunity to protect the vulnerable and to act as a firebreak) doesn’t matter to those who have a lower risk and opt to not get the vaccine. At least our extra doses will go to those who want it in countries we export to. Make the best of goodwill and soft power I suppose. [1] https://data.cdc.gov/stories/s/Vaccine-Hesitancy-for-COVID-19/cnd2-a6zw/ https://data.cdc.gov/stories/s/Vaccine-Hesitancy-for-COVID-1...
    - ryandrake 6y ago
      Starting to think Vaccine Hesitancy is too soft a phrase. I thought most of the hesitant group are in the "definitely not" and "probably not" survey buckets, and fewer are actually "unsure". Probably more accurate to call them vaccine deniers at this point.
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  - neither_color 6y ago
    Which finish line? We don't need 100% of people vaccinated(No I'm not anti-vax I'm team pfizer, I simply respect people's choice not to partake at their own risk) and we don't need to stop all respiratory illnesses forever, we just need enough done to keep the healthcare system under capacity for life to go on. I consider measures taken in Australia, Canada and the UK to be overkill and would never wish that here. People in general made good faith efforts to obey mandates but the "finish line" or goalpost keeps moving.
cperciva 6y ago
For reference: https://howfarbehindiscanada.com/ https://howfarbehindiscanada.com/ Canada was hovering around 35-40th in the world for doses administered per capita until the USA "loaned" us 1.5M doses of AZ; now we're steady around 15th place, but well behind countries like the USA and UK.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  Fifth out of 37 OECD member countries in terms of the percentage of the population vaccinated to date. [1, 2] I don't think either of these metrics is perfect, the ideal metric is what percentage of the old, sick, etc - the vulnerable folks - have been vaccinated. Point of interest, one thing 4 of the 5 OECD member states above Canada have in common is that they manufacture the vaccine at home. Considering Canada does not manufacture ([edit] COVID) vaccines, I'd say that Canada is doing very well - top quintile of the OECD pack. Could be better, could be worse. [edit] I'm actually surprised how close Canada's vaccination rate is to the US - 35% vs 45%. Given all the critical press, I'd assume the discrepancy was much larger. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations [2] https://imgur.com/a/XlL2J12 https://imgur.com/a/XlL2J12
  - 908B64B197 6y ago
    > Point of interest, one thing 4 of the 5 OECD member states above Canada have in common is that they manufacture the vaccine at home. That's smart. Why did the current administration decide not to do it in Canada?
    - arcticbull 6y ago
      Current administration? Developing a vaccine supply chain takes a very long time, it's not like firing up a tire factory. Trudeau's Liberals have held office for 5 years, with Harper's Conservatives holding office from 2006-2015. I think without pointing fingers, the COVID situation has shown the world just how fragile global supply chains are in times of stress. The US learned this lesson with PPE, if you remember that debacle. Hopefully Canada invests in such capacity moving forward.
smuckers 6y ago
As a Canadian, I always liked our socialist heath-care system but after living through COVID my opinion has completely changed. I live in Toronto and we've been under a lockdown since March 2020! The lockdown was only slightly relaxed in the summer of 2020 for a couple months. Other than that, it's been a continuous lockdown. The health-care system has been lagging way behind the US and it's not close. I personally know people from Toronto who are in Florida right now waiting out the 3 weeks between their 1st and 2nd vaccine dose. Here only people 40+ are eligible for their 1st dose now and can't get their 2nd until August!
- babelfish 6y ago
  What does the socialist healthcare system have to do with government-planned vaccine rollout? If you had a capitalist healthcare system like the US, that would not give you a better vaccine rollout.
  - smuckers 6y ago
    > What does the socialist healthcare system have to do with government-planned vaccine rollout? Maybe you should re-read that sentence
  - busymom0 6y ago
    US: 248M doses, 106M fully vaccinated, 32.3% fully vaccinated. Canada: 14.3M doses, 1.16M fully vaccinated, 3.1% fully vaccinated. Vaccine companies refused to manufacture vaccines in Canada due to lack of facilities. This is a fact. So Canada is waiting on getting them from other countries. Despite all the flaws of the US system, US is doing much better than Canada for vaccine roll outs as well as lockdown measures. When USA built temporary hospitals and 2 hospital ships, Canada has yet not done it and it's been a year. Main problem here is that instead of building temporary hospitals to boost the hospital capacity like US did last year, we have simply kept locking down which is equivalent to throwing the problem under a rug. It's been a year and even though they were talking about it last year, only as of couple weeks ago, they are planning on using temporary field hospital in the coming weeks. Why wasn't it used for a year to boost the capacity? Also the 2 temporary hospitals in Ontario have only 73 and 84 beds. That's tiny. https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-says-a-covid-19-field-hospital-is-expected-to-take-patients-this-month-1.5388395 https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-says-a-covid-19-field-hos...
omaranto 6y ago
Not just Canadians, I know several Mexicans who have gone to the US to be vaccinated too. Obviously the trip is prohibitively expensive for most Mexicans, but middle class Mexicans can probably afford it. (I'm patiently waiting my turn here in Mexico City, though.)
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  Upper class Mexicans*
  - omaranto 6y ago
    Well, I doubt the ones I know that went to the us for vaccines consider themselves upper class. I guess it depends on how you define the term. The distribution of wealth is absolutely terrible here in Mexico. I'm a junior professor at a large public university, I have a wife and son and am our family's only source of income. According to the government's statistics my income of approximately 25K USD a year puts our family above the income of 90% percent of all families of 3. I guess that 90% figure might justify you calling me "upper class", but I think the lifestyle afforded to us by my university professor's salary is much more in line with what is considered "middle class" than what people think of as "upper class". From what I can see of my American colleagues, a junior university professor in the US has a pretty comparable lifestyle, and they don't consider themselves upper class either, I believe. I won't do it, but I could certainly afford to fly with my wife and son to the US to get vaccinated (and, as many middle class Mexicans, all 3 of us already have American tourist visas). It would maybe cut into our savings a little more than I'd like, but we could do it. I think the people I personally know that went to the US to get vaccinated are in a roughly similar boat to our family, maybe a little better off, but I don't think of them as upper class either.
    - whimsicalism 6y ago
      I think your class is inherently related to your wealth/income relative to your peers in your country. The 50th percentile Mexicans are not the ones going to the US to get vaxxed.
classichasclass 6y ago
My wife, in Australia (I'm in the USA; we saw each other over Christmas but we've been otherwise involuntarily separated since January 2020), could get the shot here on our medical coverage ... if only Australia would actually let her leave the country.
- neonate 6y ago
  She's not free to leave the country? That's surprising.
  - TMWNN 6y ago
    Correct. There is a mandatory quarantine on arrival, but Australia is very unusual in nonetheless not allowing Australians to leave the country under normal circumstances. You have to (for example) be able to prove that you will be away for more than three months.
    - neonate 6y ago
      Just saw this reply. Wow, that's amazing. I've never heard of anything like that in a Western country.
OldHand2018 6y ago
The US government paid about $27 per dose and is also willing to pay $40 to the person that puts the shot in your arm if your insurance doesn’t cover it fully. Two shots costs about $130. If you fly to the US and spend any reasonable amount of money, the government has come out ahead with all the taxes you’ve paid on your spending, especially since you need to stay a full month to get both shots. This isn’t a scandal, and people shouldn’t feel bad about it.
- saganus 6y ago
  Do you really need to stay a full month? I thought people would fly, get the shot, then fly back home until it's time to get the second one. Otherwise it seems like it would be very expensive, might need to go back to work, etc.
  - OldHand2018 6y ago
    I’m not sure exactly how that would work. Aren’t there required quarantine periods on both sides? There are a lot of taxes built into the price of the flights, so it would probably still be “profitable” to the US if that is all you did. You’ll need transportation to and from the airport, you’ll probably need to eat a meal or two, etc. And if half the people stay for a month and make a vacation out of it, that more than covers the other half that fly in and out. The cynic in me says that government officials did the math and figure that it is a great economic boost to allow people to fly in and get a “free” vaccination. I mean, seriously, the government bought something like 2 billion doses for a population of 350 million. Around me, the Pfizer shot seems to be most common, and wherever you go will schedule your second dose for three weeks later. If you get a Moderna shot, they schedule you for four weeks out.
reggieband 6y ago
I see people saying this getting downvoted but I have to add to the voices: I'm disappointed in Canada. I recall the subtle pride Canadians showed early on in the pandemic when our rates were comparatively low and when we secured massive orders of vaccines. I even remember some subtle Facebook teasing about how the US could learn a thing or two from us. Nearly all of my US colleagues have received both doses of vaccine. Yet, hardly anyone I know in my age group in Canada has even received a single dose (only those in front-line positions). The current debate is that there will likely be up to a 4 months wait to get the second dose for those lucky enough to have gotten the first. I registered once my age group was made available on April 20th and I have yet to receive the notice that I am able to book an appointment. It is frustrating as even now they are announcing stricter lockdown measures including checkpoints on highways between provincial regions. Part of my disappointment is I feel Canada was taken advantage of and our government let it happen. Other countries are willing to take our orders for vaccines and our money, but they don't worry too much about just delaying shipment. The Canadian government has been unable to do anything about that. Maybe our international reputation as being "nice" plays into it. I can't say that I am angry, more disappointed and frustrated.
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  > It is frustrating as even now they are announcing stricter lockdown measures including checkpoints on highways between provincial regions. Is that serious? It has to be satire. I would expect that from places like Cuba, not a western democracy.
  - reggieband 6y ago
    Video for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8esnpGdkyY0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8esnpGdkyY0
  - TMWNN 6y ago
    What reggieband mentions began very early in the lockdown process: See the Atlantic bubble (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Bubble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Bubble). Individual Australian states did the same thing. There such a thing is effective because only a handful of highway connections exist between states, and there is effectively no way for people to cross the desert outside the border crossings. It's not nearly as effective in Canada and, aside from constitutional issues, would be completely ineffective anywhere in the 48 contiguous states; even the most rural states have hundreds of interstate road connections, and it's possible to cross on your own almost anywhere else.
bawolff 6y ago
As a canadian, i feel like there is whiplash here. Half the world is criticizing the canadian gov for not procuring enough vaccines fast enough, the other half is saying we're hogging all the vacines preventing equitable distribution with poor countries.
wryroybatty 6y ago
I created historical Canada global rank viz for data for following metrics from Our World in Data: Total doses per 100 people Daily doses per 100 people People vaccinated per 100 people Includes filters by OECD, G20 and >5m, > 15m and > 30m They all nicely show the effect of Jan/Feb vaccine supply constraints. https://sitrucp.github.io/covid_global_vaccinations/ https://sitrucp.github.io/covid_global_vaccinations/

78 points by adventured 6y ago

I'm Canadian and I have been seriously considering moving to the US for a few months now. It may just be "grass is always greener" but after some initial criticism, it seems like the US has handled this so much better than we have, people are getting back to normal there while our governments continue to add restrictions. I didn't realize we were only at 3% vaccinated, but that is an absolute embarrassment. I'd be curious to hear American or other outside perception of how we have handled it.

abduhl 6y ago
American viewpoints all fall pretty much along political idealogical lines with when it all went wrong but I think that most Americans agree that America is “doing terrible” and the only real debate is who is to blame. Shitting on America has become America’s past time and any kind of national pride is met with staunch criticism or “cancellation.” I think your viewpoint is somewhat a “grass is greener” viewpoint being Canadian and any particular American’s view on Canada’s response will be in line with their political party. Objectively we are probably doing the best in the world at vaccinating such a large and diverse population. You’ll never hear one of us admit it though and if you do then you can be sure to hear it followed up with a “but” denigrating ourselves in some other way. Objectively Canada is doing terribly at vaccination and it boggles the mind that your country is still having to impose strict lockdowns and go off the label with dosing timelines because of your inability to secure a supply.
- elevenoh 6y ago
  example of your point on politicized viewpoints: Ericson2314's comment in this thread
tobyjsullivan 6y ago
The 3% is people who have had both doses. If you live in Canada, then you know that almost nobody has had both doses. That's not our priority - maximizing collective protection is the short-term goal. Personally, I'll measure Canada's performance throughout this pandemic by the final number of per-capita deaths. We're hardly best in the world but doing a lot better than the US so far (1,783/M vs 643/M at the moment[0]). [0] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ Edit to add: Canada could easily take the lead over US in deaths/M if US get's vaccinated faster/better. I'm not so naive to believe that's impossible. It does seem Canada has a strategy to avoid that. Otherwise, it simply seems too early to call either way.
- elevenoh 6y ago
  >Personally, I'll measure Canada's performance throughout this pandemic by the final number of per-capita deaths. How about in relation to the cost & externalities of this per-capita death figure? Financially, socially etc. It's as though there's no adults in the room willing to speak to tradeoffs - the pernicious, long-term 2nd+ order consequences to be considered.
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    There are plenty of adults in the room willing to discuss tradeoffs. But you need numbers, and many of the people who don't like lockdowns prefer to make nebulous references to tradeoffs rather than discussing direct harm. There's extensive evidence suggesting that many of the economic effects of the early pandemic were entirely independent of whether a choice was made to lockdown. Individual people aren't stupid and they're not going to keep going out and consuming while a deadly pandemic is raging.
    - elevenoh 6y ago
      >There's extensive evidence suggesting that many of the economic effects of the early pandemic were entirely independent of whether a choice was made to lockdown. Remove choice from business owners & watch effected industries move elsewhere (texas, flordia). >"Individual people aren't stupid and they're not going to keep going out and consuming while a deadly pandemic is raging." Covid is 'deadly' to the overweight & immunocompromised.
elevenoh 6y ago
Canada needs more competition in the health care industry. There's very little. Instead I see rent seeking, nepotism, resting on credentials, signalling.. Canadian health care is attracting worse & worse (in terms of competence & care) people every year.
Ericson2314 6y ago
US did ~~everything~~ many, many things wrong, except the one thing we know to do --- throw money at medical problems --- actually works for vaccines because vaccines are such a phenomenal piece of technology. Looks like vaccine IP restriction lifting is finally going to happen. I would stay put in non-US places.
- elevenoh 6y ago
  >US did everything wrong, except the one thing we know to do Such a political take. The US did a lot right.
  - Ericson2314 6y ago
    I scaled it back for less pathos, but tell me this: if there weren't vaccines we would not be completely screwed? We absolutely had no effective backup plan, but also weren't completely honest about relying so heavily on vaccines. (Now again vaccines are great, so that's not the worst plan, but what I'm getting it was it wasn't really the plan at all. We were screwing up by the measure of our own goals rather than intentionally waiting for the big bailout.) ---- Also East Asia is mopping the floor. There's truly very little good to say about EU let alone US in comparison.
    - Alupis 6y ago
      > if there weren't vaccines we would not be completely screwed? Probably not. The infection and death rates were plummeting even before general availability of the vaccine. States that locked down super hard, and states that barely locked down at all, have essentially the same infection/death rates as well. The US is a big country, with a lot of people. However, the average health of an individual in the US is far better than the East Asia area, and much of the world. That's before we even consider the vast young population in the US which mostly are asymptomatic infectees... The number of people who have been infected already and cannot become infected again with the same variant is likely massive in the US, making it quite possible the US would have weathered even the latest variants due to a lack of infectible people (ie. "herd immunity").
tick_tock_tick 6y ago
Our media (US that is) seems to pick and choose which counties are "handing it well" seemly with little regard to statistics. Canada has largely been portrayed as handling the whole situation very well and if you polled random people on the street of a US city I'd be willing to bet quite a bit they think your vaccine rates are comparable or better then the US.
- CountDrewku 6y ago
  It depends on whether you only get your info from MSM or get info from new media. From the latter I've seen a lot of stories about the police acting gestapo like with arrests for non-masking, gatherings etc. So, my view is certainly not positive when it comes to Canada but I'm sure you're correct when it comes to the average citizen.
- busymom0 6y ago
  Which is where the whole politicizing the pandemic comes into place. Canada's vaccine roll out has been complete garbage. Which is mostly because we didn't make our own vaccine (didn't have facilities) and are relying on other countries to give it to us. India was able to make their own vaccine and so far vaccinated 158M single and 29.1M fully. US 248M and 106M fully. Yet Canada wasn't able to make their own and so far only 14M single and 1M fully.
  - tick_tock_tick 6y ago
    They won't say it publicly but I'm guessing the real strategy at this point is keep restriction going through the summer and they have worked out a deals with the US where they (and Mexico probably) will get first dibs on all the US's extra stockpile.
- refurb 6y ago
  Canada was handling it well (or just lucky) until this past Q4. I have friends in BC. For a population of 5 million they had around 2,000 cases in September. Now? 130,000 cases. They got complacent, people let their guards down, it exploded.
Baeocystin 6y ago
Honestly, in this case, think it just comes down to money. Whatever the other problems with the American handling of it (and my god was it disorganized) The US also threw 800-pound-gorilla levels of cash at the manufacturers, and since the vaccines turned out to be good, it worked out. Smaller economies just didn't have that as an option, whether the policy-makers wanted it or not.
petertodd 6y ago
Canada is at 3% fully vaccinated, with both doses (almost all the vaccination has been with 2 dose vaccines). However, 35% have received one dose out of two. Canada could have chosen to vaccinate about 15% of the population fully, which would have been enough for the supermajority of the >65 population that is responsible for almost all of the deaths. But we chose not to. Whether or not that is the right choice remains to be seen.
barney54 6y ago
I thought Canada was handling COVID well and then there was the latest round of lockdowns and restrictions which is bonkers.
whimsicalism 6y ago
It seems like Canada is prioritizing a "first dose first" strategy, so I think the 34% number should be compared with the 56% in the US. The US has done very well with vaccines so far, but in terms of (in my view) the real number for success (deaths per capita), the US has had 3x as many.
sparrc 6y ago
The vaccine rollout has been great in the US. The anti-masking and politicizing of the pandemic has been terrible. I guess the deaths per capita will be fairly high in the US but it varies a lot from place to place. Many places did very little lockdown and more-or-less carried on with life as usual.
CountDrewku 6y ago
Your country's response to COVID frankly terrifies me. The police showing up and arresting maskless people, shutting down businesses, raiding churches. The vaccine response seems piss poor as well. I realize the media sensationalizes a lot of this but from the outside it doesn't look good. I know the US is seen as not doing enough but I prefer that over the authoritarian responses. We certainly have our issues but for now we still hold people's personal freedoms at a high level. I live in a somewhat rural area but I haven't had to wear a mask in most places for about a month, I've been vaccinated for over a month and I've been out enjoying beers etc. like normal for the last several weeks.
- version_five 6y ago
  Funny how people don't like your comment. It terrifies me too. I assumed I was in a free country, and it had all gone so bad so quickly. Thus wanting to get into a different country that hopefully has stronger notions of personal freedom..
  - CountDrewku 6y ago
    They don't like it because they think I'm sharing fake news because our MSM will not report this. If you look at the other comments here they believe the Canadian response is one of the best. Obviously, I don't live there so I'm open to changing my mind. I've just read some stories that don't sit well with me coming out of Canada and even if they're in the minority they should still be addressed.
- DeathRay2K 6y ago
  I thought you were talking about the US in the first paragraph. In truth, there haven't been strong enough enforcement measures in Canada, that's why we're having such a bad third wave right now. In Alberta, which has the highest case rates in Canada, there have been less than 2 tickets issued per day for violating the restrictions. Until yesterday at least, if you went out you would see people all over the place without masks, hanging out with their friends on patios, having parties, etc. You say you've been vaccinated for over a month, but we haven't had that privilege. So instead, we have to rely on safety measures like avoiding big gatherings and unsafe behaviour.
obrake 6y ago
The 3% statistic is fairly misleading. Canada has adopted the one-dose first regiment just like the UK. Which means that there is a 4 month difference between 1st and 2nd shot. The rationale was that it would overall save more lives as 1 dose is ~80% effective at preventing hospitalizations/deaths compared to ~95% for two doses. So you vaccinate double the number of people with one dose rather than half the amount with both doses and you save more lives. This was a strategic decision as Canada does not have the vaccination production, unlike the US which has prevented exporting of vaccines. In Ontario we have 42.5% of all adults with 1 dose. In Ontario we expect ~80% of the population to have 1 dose by June 20th[1]. Which I believe is a really promising statistic, and based on current vaccination trajectory we will meet that date. The 4 month dose stretch is expected to be shrunk to a lot lower once supply has increased sufficiently and most people have 1 dose. The increasing restrictions was unfortunate but very necessary. In Ontario at least hospitalizations and ICU capacity was getting out of hand at a faster pace than Ontario has seen throughout the pandemic. These numbers spiked in part because the lack of vaccine supply in the early days of vaccinations. Our importing of vaccines was incredibly slow at the beginning of the pandemic, mostly because we had to import from other nations which are already scrounging for vaccines. Now the pace has stepped up dramatically, based on our current jabs in arms per capita we are ~42 days behind USA[2]. Which is not that bad considering Canada has no vaccine production capacity. Excluding micronations we are ranked ~16th in the world. [1] https://globalnews.ca/news/7679338/ontario-coronavirus-phase-2-vaccine-rollout/ https://globalnews.ca/news/7679338/ontario-coronavirus-phase... [2] https://www.howfarbehindiscanada.com/ https://www.howfarbehindiscanada.com/
- deleted 6y ago
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- lhorie 6y ago
  > Canada has adopted the one-dose first regiment Huh, interesting, TIL. I was not feeling very confident in the vaccination response seeing that 3% number, but this changes my perception quite a bit. I do still have questions about the overall handling of pandemic risks though. I recall reading last year that several million masks went to waste because they expired in warehouses, and not having vaccine production facilities despite being aware of the potential risks after SARS seem... suboptimal.
busymom0 6y ago
Another Canadian here, planning on moving to Florida or Texas in the future. Severely disappointed and the "police can stop and question at random" by Doug Ford along with the curfew in Quebec is what's breaking the camel's back for me. Main problem here is that instead of building temporary hospitals to boost the hospital capacity like US did last year, we have simply kept locking down which is equivalent to throwing the problem under a rug. It's been a year and even though they were talking about it last year, only as of couple weeks ago, they are planning on using temporary field hospital in the coming weeks. Why wasn't it used for a year to boost the capacity? Also the 2 temporary hospitals in Ontario have only 73 and 84 beds. That's tiny. https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-says-a-covid-19-field-hospital-is-expected-to-take-patients-this-month-1.5388395 https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-says-a-covid-19-field-hos... Then the whole nursing home debacle where the military audit showed reprehensible conditions and caused vast majority of the nursing home deaths: https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/gut-wrenching-military-report-sheds-light-on-grim-conditions-in-ontario-nursing-homes-1.4954710 https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/gut-wrenching-military-report-she...
autokad 6y ago
As an American, here are my thoughts. From as early as February or March 2020, I had always felt they told us what we needed to know - about 600k people would die of covid-19 in the US. I thought maybe if we did some things we could get that number down, but we failed in that respect. We pretty much had as many deaths as we would have doing nothing. on a per capita basis, canada did a lot better (600 deaths / mil vs 1800, 32k cases / mil pop vs 94k). +2 Canada, although there are some circumstances that I will get to later. our deaths per case is about the same, although NYC and NJ skews our numbers. call it a tie. vaccines, US is a clear winner. +1 US Freedom wise, its a mixed bag. States like NYC and California did all sorts of lockdown shenanigan's that all failed, where as states like Florida stayed mostly open and did better than the national average case/death wise. I can't really speak to what Canada has done, I'll let you fill this one in. So in the end, Canda 2: US: 1 + 1 ? going to who wins on freedom. However, the US did have some circumstances that canada did not have. Latin and South America have been ravaged by cv19, and approximately 1-2 million walk across the border / year illegally. I really don't care if that is 'wrong vs right'. Its important to consider when thinking how the virus is going to play out, and its no surprise that areas with high immigration from those areas did the worst. Its also why relying on herd immunity here will also never work. Unless we vaccinate Latin and South America (I'm in favor of that), we are going to have plenty of exposure to the virus.
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  The range was from 500k to 1.2 million if elimination failed, at least in the early estimates I saw. Early in the pandemic, we were woefully underprepared with care - you can see how the death proportion has changed with time. If we had let the pandemic spread in normal course early on, I suspect we would have seen many more deaths. I think it is way too easy to look back and say that we had as many deaths as we would have had doing nothing.
- yazaddaruvala 6y ago
  > We pretty much had as many deaths as we would have doing nothing. In the US, 1.8% of cases have resulted in deaths, with 10% of Americans getting sick and tested[0]. The majority of these deaths happening 6 months into the pandemic, i.e. a lot of knowledge had been gained and resources stockpiled. Doing nothing early in the pandemic would likely have increased the death rate to roughly 3% because of a lack of medial resources (including doctors and nurses), and resulting in 66% of Americans getting sick. Excluding children (i.e. 300 MM US adults) the expected death count would have been 6 MM people. That said, I feel you, I would have personally hoped that for the effort we did put into "whatever we did", it would have reduced deaths by 100x (i.e. less than 0.06 MM deaths) but sadly we didn't work as a team and people died for it. However, while it shouldn't even have been 0.6 MM, "whatever we did" roughly decreased the deaths by 10x and thats a worth calling out. [0] As of May 5th 2021, 32,513,303 cases and 578,500 deaths. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/09/01/816707182/map-tracking-the-spread-of-the-coronavirus-in-the-u-s https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/09/01/8167071...
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samtho 6y ago
The quality of the response has greatly varied state by state. Each has/had their own set of restrictions and reopening phase timelines. California based their lockdown level on ICU capacity per region of the state dictating which businesses could remain open. There was a lot of (warranted) criticism on the specifics because officials seemed to based the list off of necessity rather than potential for harm, which potentially led to the unnecessary killing of many small, locally owned businesses. It didn’t help that we had a few elected officials skirting lockdown regulations by dining out with a large group and going to a high end salon when these things were not allowed at the time. The first half of the vaccine rollout was rocky. When the first group (medical professionals and 75+ only) had their turn, There were clinics with vaccine that needed to be used because appointments slowed down quickly. It took them weeks to move onto the next group which included people with high risk medical conditions, front line workers, and 65+. The list of qualifying medical conditions was laughably incomplete, e.g. you didn't technically qualify if you just had severe asthma in many counties. Many clinics stopped asking for proof of a qualifying medical condition and let people “self certify.” I probably only see the bad having to live with consequences of others’ hasty decisions in California but we may have redeemed ourselves, in a small way, in the second half of this vaccine rollout by being able to provide vaccines to anyone over 16 earlier than the goal set by the Biden administration. From the onset of the pandemic, I don’t think it was massively unreasonable to let states make their own rules but the federal government utterly failed to adequately support people and small businesses. To qualify for the stimulus check, you had to made under the limit according to your 2019 (or 2018 if you did not file yet) tax return. Last time I checked, the pandemic hit us in March of 2020 - so why was this determined by earnings a year earlier? There is a certain set of people in power that will fight to the nail to make sure that nobody receives a benefit if there is even the smallest sliver of a chance that they may not be deserve it, which is an absurdly nonsensical and short-sighted approach to take in the wake of a global pandemic.
Hammershaft 6y ago
Why are so many comments being downvoted for expressing opinions and countering data? Are HN readers beginning to aggressively use the downvote button?
- bourgwaletariat 6y ago
  It's a metaproblem that HN doesn't want to address. It creates an echo chamber that isolates dissent. There's a framework in any society, including those online that serves to isolate the higher man. Group think is required. The particular opinion here is that everyone should get vaccinated. Any other opinion is down voted. Solution: Downvotes should require an accompanying comment as to why. Downvoting without explanation does nothing to change minds or behavior. It just alienates people. Ironically, if one gets a downvote without explanation, it only serves to reinforce the opinion of the downvoted commenter. HN, like every community, and every person has blind spots and this is one of theirs.

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dominojab 6y ago

top notch propaganda

908B64B197 6y ago

During the pandemic we kept hearing that collectivist cultures and socialized medicine would have the upper-hand. Yet Canada's vaccination rate is abysmal (32% vs 2.55% are completely covered with the required two doses [0]) when compared to the United States. What's the explanation here? [0] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccina...

anonuser123456 6y ago
>What's the explanation here? Incentives matter?
CaveTech 6y ago
Canada does not have any production facilities and has been unable to give vaccinations as a result. Our daily vaccinations per capita are nearing or exceeding the US at this time and we are accelerating as we receive more doses. 2nd doses have been delayed to ensure maximum efficiency of the supply we have.
ThrustVectoring 6y ago
The US government threw its weight around to ensure that it would have manufacturing capability and doses. If Canada physically had more doses, they'd have more shots in arms.
- tick_tock_tick 6y ago
  That is a good point at-least for western powers the more socialist the country the less "weight" it possesses.
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  That's smart. Pharma production is a strategic asset. Would be unthinkable to have the US aerospace industry outsourced to foreign countries for instance. Is there a different perception in Canada?
  - 6y ago

IG_Semmelweiss 6y ago

It would be great to get perspective from Canadians on the case. Why is Canada, a country with wealth, in the current situation? national health agency failure in planning? supply chain constraints? Import constraints (even though there are plenty across the border?)? Something else?

kuschku 6y ago
The US doesn't export any COVID vaccines. Neither does the UK. Pretty much the entire rest of the world is supplied by Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. (Russia and China are exceptions in that they have their own, separate vaccines).
- __s 6y ago
  Russia's exporting theirs: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1123927/sputnik-v-exports-from-russia-by-country https://www.statista.com/statistics/1123927/sputnik-v-export... China's also exporting their sinovac vaccine
  - kuschku 6y ago
    That's correct, but Russia's vaccine isn't approved in most countries as every batch so far has had very unreliable QC with significantly different results. As I said, those are exceptions, the vast majority has no option other than to wait for the US to slowly start exporting, or use the european sources.
- CubsFan1060 6y ago
  This article indicates the US is exporting vaccines: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/pfizer-export-us-made-covid-19-shots-canada-starting-next-week-2021-04-30/ https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/...
  - kuschku 6y ago
    We discussed this already in our other comment chain in this thread :)

lucb1e 6y ago

Isn't it a lot more efficient to ship the doses north than the Canadians south?

kuschku 6y ago
It would be, but the US has an export ban on covid vaccines, just like the UK does.
- CubsFan1060 6y ago
  https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/pfizer-export-us-made-covid-19-shots-canada-starting-next-week-2021-04-30/ https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/... Already shipping to Mexico, about to start shipping to Canada.
  - kuschku 6y ago
    Pretty much half a year later than originally agreed. Considering this 6 month delay in vaccine availability, it's incredible how well most countries held up.
  - bawolff 6y ago
    They're taking over what belgium was shipping us, but not increasing the amount. So its not exactly team usa here to save the day.
- 317070 6y ago
  Afaik, the UK does not have an export ban [0] I would be interested for a source if that has changed. [0] https://www.politico.eu/article/why-the-uk-doesnt-need-a-coronavirus-vaccine-export-ban/ https://www.politico.eu/article/why-the-uk-doesnt-need-a-cor...
  - kuschku 6y ago
    The UK doesn't have a technical export ban, just a contractual requirement that all UK manufacturers have to first supply all UK contracts before supplying any export contracts. Even though the UK contracts were signed after other contracts. Whether that's an "export ban" or not is semantics, the result is the same: nothing is exported.

lhorie 6y ago

<s>I'm extremely unimpressed with the vaccination rate in Canada. I feel like they really dropped the ball.</s> Edit: it was clarified upthread that the 3% number is misleading and Canada is actually doing much better than that number suggests. > The trick was to fly because land crossing has been closed to non-essential traffic since March of 2020. Is this right? It doesn't jive with my experience. I was able to cross the land border - both ways - around August.

timbit42 6y ago
Well, Canada doesn't prohibit you from leaving and when you come back, if you have Canadian citizenship, Canada won't block you from coming into your own country. What they are blocking is non-Canadians.

arecurrence 6y ago

With America pumping out 4 million doses a day... Canada can be inoculated in a single week. Expect to see that gap crumble over the next two months and with lower vaccine hesitancy... Canada will likely cross the finish line before America.

bitwize 6y ago
The USA is never crossing the finish line. Americans have a huge "denier politics" problem that other Western nations just don't have.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Based on hesitancy data [1], you’re right, but the damage is going to be constrained to those who won’t get the vaccine and a smaller group of those who would’ve avoided harm from herd immunity. The problem is the finish line (here immunity to protect the vulnerable and to act as a firebreak) doesn’t matter to those who have a lower risk and opt to not get the vaccine. At least our extra doses will go to those who want it in countries we export to. Make the best of goodwill and soft power I suppose. [1] https://data.cdc.gov/stories/s/Vaccine-Hesitancy-for-COVID-19/cnd2-a6zw/ https://data.cdc.gov/stories/s/Vaccine-Hesitancy-for-COVID-1...
  - ryandrake 6y ago
    Starting to think Vaccine Hesitancy is too soft a phrase. I thought most of the hesitant group are in the "definitely not" and "probably not" survey buckets, and fewer are actually "unsure". Probably more accurate to call them vaccine deniers at this point.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- neither_color 6y ago
  Which finish line? We don't need 100% of people vaccinated(No I'm not anti-vax I'm team pfizer, I simply respect people's choice not to partake at their own risk) and we don't need to stop all respiratory illnesses forever, we just need enough done to keep the healthcare system under capacity for life to go on. I consider measures taken in Australia, Canada and the UK to be overkill and would never wish that here. People in general made good faith efforts to obey mandates but the "finish line" or goalpost keeps moving.

cperciva 6y ago

For reference: https://howfarbehindiscanada.com/ https://howfarbehindiscanada.com/ Canada was hovering around 35-40th in the world for doses administered per capita until the USA "loaned" us 1.5M doses of AZ; now we're steady around 15th place, but well behind countries like the USA and UK.

arcticbull 6y ago
Fifth out of 37 OECD member countries in terms of the percentage of the population vaccinated to date. [1, 2] I don't think either of these metrics is perfect, the ideal metric is what percentage of the old, sick, etc - the vulnerable folks - have been vaccinated. Point of interest, one thing 4 of the 5 OECD member states above Canada have in common is that they manufacture the vaccine at home. Considering Canada does not manufacture ([edit] COVID) vaccines, I'd say that Canada is doing very well - top quintile of the OECD pack. Could be better, could be worse. [edit] I'm actually surprised how close Canada's vaccination rate is to the US - 35% vs 45%. Given all the critical press, I'd assume the discrepancy was much larger. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations [2] https://imgur.com/a/XlL2J12 https://imgur.com/a/XlL2J12
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  > Point of interest, one thing 4 of the 5 OECD member states above Canada have in common is that they manufacture the vaccine at home. That's smart. Why did the current administration decide not to do it in Canada?
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    Current administration? Developing a vaccine supply chain takes a very long time, it's not like firing up a tire factory. Trudeau's Liberals have held office for 5 years, with Harper's Conservatives holding office from 2006-2015. I think without pointing fingers, the COVID situation has shown the world just how fragile global supply chains are in times of stress. The US learned this lesson with PPE, if you remember that debacle. Hopefully Canada invests in such capacity moving forward.

smuckers 6y ago

As a Canadian, I always liked our socialist heath-care system but after living through COVID my opinion has completely changed. I live in Toronto and we've been under a lockdown since March 2020! The lockdown was only slightly relaxed in the summer of 2020 for a couple months. Other than that, it's been a continuous lockdown. The health-care system has been lagging way behind the US and it's not close. I personally know people from Toronto who are in Florida right now waiting out the 3 weeks between their 1st and 2nd vaccine dose. Here only people 40+ are eligible for their 1st dose now and can't get their 2nd until August!

babelfish 6y ago
What does the socialist healthcare system have to do with government-planned vaccine rollout? If you had a capitalist healthcare system like the US, that would not give you a better vaccine rollout.
- smuckers 6y ago
  > What does the socialist healthcare system have to do with government-planned vaccine rollout? Maybe you should re-read that sentence
- busymom0 6y ago
  US: 248M doses, 106M fully vaccinated, 32.3% fully vaccinated. Canada: 14.3M doses, 1.16M fully vaccinated, 3.1% fully vaccinated. Vaccine companies refused to manufacture vaccines in Canada due to lack of facilities. This is a fact. So Canada is waiting on getting them from other countries. Despite all the flaws of the US system, US is doing much better than Canada for vaccine roll outs as well as lockdown measures. When USA built temporary hospitals and 2 hospital ships, Canada has yet not done it and it's been a year. Main problem here is that instead of building temporary hospitals to boost the hospital capacity like US did last year, we have simply kept locking down which is equivalent to throwing the problem under a rug. It's been a year and even though they were talking about it last year, only as of couple weeks ago, they are planning on using temporary field hospital in the coming weeks. Why wasn't it used for a year to boost the capacity? Also the 2 temporary hospitals in Ontario have only 73 and 84 beds. That's tiny. https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-says-a-covid-19-field-hospital-is-expected-to-take-patients-this-month-1.5388395 https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-says-a-covid-19-field-hos...

omaranto 6y ago

Not just Canadians, I know several Mexicans who have gone to the US to be vaccinated too. Obviously the trip is prohibitively expensive for most Mexicans, but middle class Mexicans can probably afford it. (I'm patiently waiting my turn here in Mexico City, though.)

whimsicalism 6y ago
Upper class Mexicans*
- omaranto 6y ago
  Well, I doubt the ones I know that went to the us for vaccines consider themselves upper class. I guess it depends on how you define the term. The distribution of wealth is absolutely terrible here in Mexico. I'm a junior professor at a large public university, I have a wife and son and am our family's only source of income. According to the government's statistics my income of approximately 25K USD a year puts our family above the income of 90% percent of all families of 3. I guess that 90% figure might justify you calling me "upper class", but I think the lifestyle afforded to us by my university professor's salary is much more in line with what is considered "middle class" than what people think of as "upper class". From what I can see of my American colleagues, a junior university professor in the US has a pretty comparable lifestyle, and they don't consider themselves upper class either, I believe. I won't do it, but I could certainly afford to fly with my wife and son to the US to get vaccinated (and, as many middle class Mexicans, all 3 of us already have American tourist visas). It would maybe cut into our savings a little more than I'd like, but we could do it. I think the people I personally know that went to the US to get vaccinated are in a roughly similar boat to our family, maybe a little better off, but I don't think of them as upper class either.
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    I think your class is inherently related to your wealth/income relative to your peers in your country. The 50th percentile Mexicans are not the ones going to the US to get vaxxed.

classichasclass 6y ago

My wife, in Australia (I'm in the USA; we saw each other over Christmas but we've been otherwise involuntarily separated since January 2020), could get the shot here on our medical coverage ... if only Australia would actually let her leave the country.

neonate 6y ago
She's not free to leave the country? That's surprising.
- TMWNN 6y ago
  Correct. There is a mandatory quarantine on arrival, but Australia is very unusual in nonetheless not allowing Australians to leave the country under normal circumstances. You have to (for example) be able to prove that you will be away for more than three months.
  - neonate 6y ago
    Just saw this reply. Wow, that's amazing. I've never heard of anything like that in a Western country.

OldHand2018 6y ago

The US government paid about $27 per dose and is also willing to pay $40 to the person that puts the shot in your arm if your insurance doesn’t cover it fully. Two shots costs about $130. If you fly to the US and spend any reasonable amount of money, the government has come out ahead with all the taxes you’ve paid on your spending, especially since you need to stay a full month to get both shots. This isn’t a scandal, and people shouldn’t feel bad about it.

saganus 6y ago
Do you really need to stay a full month? I thought people would fly, get the shot, then fly back home until it's time to get the second one. Otherwise it seems like it would be very expensive, might need to go back to work, etc.
- OldHand2018 6y ago
  I’m not sure exactly how that would work. Aren’t there required quarantine periods on both sides? There are a lot of taxes built into the price of the flights, so it would probably still be “profitable” to the US if that is all you did. You’ll need transportation to and from the airport, you’ll probably need to eat a meal or two, etc. And if half the people stay for a month and make a vacation out of it, that more than covers the other half that fly in and out. The cynic in me says that government officials did the math and figure that it is a great economic boost to allow people to fly in and get a “free” vaccination. I mean, seriously, the government bought something like 2 billion doses for a population of 350 million. Around me, the Pfizer shot seems to be most common, and wherever you go will schedule your second dose for three weeks later. If you get a Moderna shot, they schedule you for four weeks out.

reggieband 6y ago

I see people saying this getting downvoted but I have to add to the voices: I'm disappointed in Canada. I recall the subtle pride Canadians showed early on in the pandemic when our rates were comparatively low and when we secured massive orders of vaccines. I even remember some subtle Facebook teasing about how the US could learn a thing or two from us. Nearly all of my US colleagues have received both doses of vaccine. Yet, hardly anyone I know in my age group in Canada has even received a single dose (only those in front-line positions). The current debate is that there will likely be up to a 4 months wait to get the second dose for those lucky enough to have gotten the first. I registered once my age group was made available on April 20th and I have yet to receive the notice that I am able to book an appointment. It is frustrating as even now they are announcing stricter lockdown measures including checkpoints on highways between provincial regions. Part of my disappointment is I feel Canada was taken advantage of and our government let it happen. Other countries are willing to take our orders for vaccines and our money, but they don't worry too much about just delaying shipment. The Canadian government has been unable to do anything about that. Maybe our international reputation as being "nice" plays into it. I can't say that I am angry, more disappointed and frustrated.

908B64B197 6y ago
> It is frustrating as even now they are announcing stricter lockdown measures including checkpoints on highways between provincial regions. Is that serious? It has to be satire. I would expect that from places like Cuba, not a western democracy.
- reggieband 6y ago
  Video for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8esnpGdkyY0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8esnpGdkyY0
- TMWNN 6y ago
  What reggieband mentions began very early in the lockdown process: See the Atlantic bubble (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Bubble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Bubble). Individual Australian states did the same thing. There such a thing is effective because only a handful of highway connections exist between states, and there is effectively no way for people to cross the desert outside the border crossings. It's not nearly as effective in Canada and, aside from constitutional issues, would be completely ineffective anywhere in the 48 contiguous states; even the most rural states have hundreds of interstate road connections, and it's possible to cross on your own almost anywhere else.

bawolff 6y ago

As a canadian, i feel like there is whiplash here. Half the world is criticizing the canadian gov for not procuring enough vaccines fast enough, the other half is saying we're hogging all the vacines preventing equitable distribution with poor countries.

wryroybatty 6y ago

I created historical Canada global rank viz for data for following metrics from Our World in Data: Total doses per 100 people Daily doses per 100 people People vaccinated per 100 people Includes filters by OECD, G20 and >5m, > 15m and > 30m They all nicely show the effect of Jan/Feb vaccine supply constraints. https://sitrucp.github.io/covid_global_vaccinations/ https://sitrucp.github.io/covid_global_vaccinations/