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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

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 5y 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 5y ago
  > What does the socialist healthcare system have to do with government-planned vaccine rollout? Maybe you should re-read that sentence
- busymom0 5y 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...
- CountDrewku 5y ago
  > If you had a capitalist healthcare system like the US, that would not give you a better vaccine rollout. Actually, it would and that's what happened in the US. We had the private facilities and the drug tech to make it happen and that's due in part to not having an entirely socialized medical system. Like it or not money incentivizes drug research. I don't know how you could claim that if Canada had the ability to mass produce the vaccine like the US did that they wouldn't be ahead in their rollout. Canada had the extra step of trying to figure where they were going to get their vaccines and when since they didn't have the ability to create it in country. That's a massive disadvantage.
  - naturalauction 5y ago
    On the other hand, here in the UK - the socialized healthcare system is making it much easier to ensure doses get to people who need them. Something like 95% of over 50s have gotten their first dose. While I may not like it, the vaccine rollout is slowly going down the age ranges (40+ and vulnerable people are eligible now), and your doctor will let you know when you can book an appointment. I think that this helps ensure that there is less inequality in vaccine access. The AZ vaccine was also researched in the UK, with lots of production here too. That especially surprising considering very little vaccine production happened here before COVID. What is probably hurting Canada is their small population, making researching and producing their own vaccine much more difficult.
    - TMWNN 5y ago
      >On the other hand, here in the UK - the socialized healthcare system is making it much easier to ensure doses get to people who need them. Something like 95% of over 50s have gotten their first dose. While I may not like it, the vaccine rollout is slowly going down the age ranges (40+ and vulnerable people are eligible now) Vaccines are available for all Americans 16 and older. I'm not sure when this occurred nationwide, but California made vaccines avaiable to everyone 16 and older since April 15, and other states did so before then. >The AZ vaccine was also researched in the UK, with lots of production here too. That especially surprising considering very little vaccine production happened here before COVID. The UK invested a lot of money to build plants during the past year. >What is probably hurting Canada is their small population, making researching and producing their own vaccine much more difficult. Canada produces a lot of vaccines; just not the types appropriate to convert to COVID19 shots.
acchow 5y ago
The UK has a "socialist" healthcare system similar to Canada's yet its vaccine rollout is doing better the the US. I don't think the problem is your "socialist" healthcare system.
- CountDrewku 5y ago
  >yet its vaccine rollout is doing better the the US. The UK only has higher percentage with 1 vaccine dose. US has a higher percentage of people totally vaccinated. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccina...
  - horsburgh 5y ago
    That does not contradict the parent. The UK has a better vaccine roll out strategy than the US since the figure of merit is not the number of people with two doses. The big gains are from the first dose so the UK has prioritized getting those into as many arms as possible. So, while the number of doses given per capita is almost exactly the same in the US and the UK, the UK has a significantly better level of protection. In addition the UK has very strongly prioritized the most vulnerable. The net result is that I expect the UK to have an entire day without Covid deaths within the next two weeks, something which would have been unimaginable during the peak in mid-January. In more or less every other respect the UK government has done a terrible job of managing the pandemic but the vaccine rollout has been very well thought out and implemented.
Spooky23 5y ago
Don’t feel bad. End to end, most US vaccination is “socialist” mass vaccination by the government.
beej71 5y ago
No system is perfect. In the US, even if you buy our very expensive insurance, you might find yourself on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars in hospital bills. You might get treated by an out-of-network surgeon without knowing about it, so your insurer passes the full cost on to you. You might get picked up by a rescue chopper and have the insurance company later deem it "not medically necessary" and leave you with the bill. You might have gall bladder surgery and after the fact have your insurer say they're not paying because it was "elective". Two-thirds of bankruptcies in the US are tied to medical issues. Personally, I'd always considered the financial security Canada's healthcare system provides to be worth the drawbacks... but then again, I live in the US.

babelfish 5y 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 5y ago
> What does the socialist healthcare system have to do with government-planned vaccine rollout? Maybe you should re-read that sentence
busymom0 5y 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...
CountDrewku 5y ago
> If you had a capitalist healthcare system like the US, that would not give you a better vaccine rollout. Actually, it would and that's what happened in the US. We had the private facilities and the drug tech to make it happen and that's due in part to not having an entirely socialized medical system. Like it or not money incentivizes drug research. I don't know how you could claim that if Canada had the ability to mass produce the vaccine like the US did that they wouldn't be ahead in their rollout. Canada had the extra step of trying to figure where they were going to get their vaccines and when since they didn't have the ability to create it in country. That's a massive disadvantage.
- naturalauction 5y ago
  On the other hand, here in the UK - the socialized healthcare system is making it much easier to ensure doses get to people who need them. Something like 95% of over 50s have gotten their first dose. While I may not like it, the vaccine rollout is slowly going down the age ranges (40+ and vulnerable people are eligible now), and your doctor will let you know when you can book an appointment. I think that this helps ensure that there is less inequality in vaccine access. The AZ vaccine was also researched in the UK, with lots of production here too. That especially surprising considering very little vaccine production happened here before COVID. What is probably hurting Canada is their small population, making researching and producing their own vaccine much more difficult.
  - TMWNN 5y ago
    >On the other hand, here in the UK - the socialized healthcare system is making it much easier to ensure doses get to people who need them. Something like 95% of over 50s have gotten their first dose. While I may not like it, the vaccine rollout is slowly going down the age ranges (40+ and vulnerable people are eligible now) Vaccines are available for all Americans 16 and older. I'm not sure when this occurred nationwide, but California made vaccines avaiable to everyone 16 and older since April 15, and other states did so before then. >The AZ vaccine was also researched in the UK, with lots of production here too. That especially surprising considering very little vaccine production happened here before COVID. The UK invested a lot of money to build plants during the past year. >What is probably hurting Canada is their small population, making researching and producing their own vaccine much more difficult. Canada produces a lot of vaccines; just not the types appropriate to convert to COVID19 shots.

acchow 5y ago

The UK has a "socialist" healthcare system similar to Canada's yet its vaccine rollout is doing better the the US. I don't think the problem is your "socialist" healthcare system.

CountDrewku 5y ago
>yet its vaccine rollout is doing better the the US. The UK only has higher percentage with 1 vaccine dose. US has a higher percentage of people totally vaccinated. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccina...
- horsburgh 5y ago
  That does not contradict the parent. The UK has a better vaccine roll out strategy than the US since the figure of merit is not the number of people with two doses. The big gains are from the first dose so the UK has prioritized getting those into as many arms as possible. So, while the number of doses given per capita is almost exactly the same in the US and the UK, the UK has a significantly better level of protection. In addition the UK has very strongly prioritized the most vulnerable. The net result is that I expect the UK to have an entire day without Covid deaths within the next two weeks, something which would have been unimaginable during the peak in mid-January. In more or less every other respect the UK government has done a terrible job of managing the pandemic but the vaccine rollout has been very well thought out and implemented.

Spooky23 5y ago

Don’t feel bad. End to end, most US vaccination is “socialist” mass vaccination by the government.

beej71 5y ago

No system is perfect. In the US, even if you buy our very expensive insurance, you might find yourself on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars in hospital bills. You might get treated by an out-of-network surgeon without knowing about it, so your insurer passes the full cost on to you. You might get picked up by a rescue chopper and have the insurance company later deem it "not medically necessary" and leave you with the bill. You might have gall bladder surgery and after the fact have your insurer say they're not paying because it was "elective". Two-thirds of bankruptcies in the US are tied to medical issues. Personally, I'd always considered the financial security Canada's healthcare system provides to be worth the drawbacks... but then again, I live in the US.