Finger-pointing won’t help get vaccine in arms

Re Sting of conscience, Jan. 16

It didn’t seem to take long for fingerpointing to start.

Of course, long-term-care patients and staff should receive the vaccines as soon as possible.

We all should.

But I think we can all agree that frontline workers and elderly patients should go first.

I also consider anyone who works in a hospital to be front-line. COVID-19 doesn’t stop at the hospital door.

Let’s not worry about which hospital workers get the vaccine. Let’s just keep the rotation going and not waste our shots.

Please just cover the distribution of the vaccine and the injecting of the vaccine into arms.

We will all get our turn if we keep calm and stay home.

In the meantime, our precious hospital doctors, nurses, and workers need to be there to care for all of us.

Marilyn Herbert, Toronto

Re From symbol of hope, vaccine now reminder

of social inequality, Jan. 16

Of course (those in) long-term care homes and front-line workers should be vaccinated first, but what about the people in the hardest hit areas who live in crowded conditions, travel on crowded public transit and do hands-on work in industrial type settings? Shouldn’t they be next in line?

A lot has been said about paid sick leave, but wouldn’t it be better in they didn’t get sick in the first place?

Why not set up vaccination clinics in the areas where they live, or, better still, where they work with the buy-in of their employers?

If we don’t take care of the poorest and most likely to be exposed to the virus, how are we supposed to win this battle?

Wendy Austin, Toronto

Re Pfizer cuts promised vaccine supply for Canada, Jan. 16

It is interesting that Federal Procurement Minister Anita Anand confidently announced that the federal government will not take up the option for 16 million doses of the Moderna vaccine last week, followed by an announcement days later that the federal government will pick up more Pfizer vaccines.

Then, it is announced by Minister Anand that Pfizer will fall short on delivery.

Well, would it not have been wise to have the option on the Moderna vaccine still in place?

Branko Gasperlin, Toronto

Lacking a good memory, Doug Ford has begged for vaccines from U.S. President Joe Biden, then challenged and blamed our prime minister for the Pfizer-related delay for Ontario’s vaccine distribution.

First of all, in the short term, it is Pfizer that has temporarily short-shipped various countries this month to be able to increase numbers very rapidly during February.

Second, a bit more historically, it was Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney who, in the 1980s, privatized our publicly owned Connaught Laboratories, considered an all-star producer of medications around the world.

A company in France is the current owner.

This lack of foresight has cost us dearly.

Pull up your socks Premier Ford and sneak into the world of honourable information-sharing, rather than in falsifying matters for political gain. Dean Bodkin, Georgina