Israel will likely be back to something like normal, at least in terms of COVID, months before Canada. We needn’t fear rocket fire from our neighbours, but we’ll be barred from restaurants and family reunions a lot longer than our Israeli friends.
— MATT GURNEY ON ISRAEL’S COVID VACCINATION EFFORT.
The Americans called their vaccine production program Operation Warp Speed. For you poor, misguided non- Trekkies out there, that’s a Star Trek reference — “warp speed” refers to the space- bending propulsion method that allow starships to travel ( much) faster than light, making the entire Star Trek universe possible.
But if you want to see a country cruising toward a post- COVID future at a steady warp 9.6, look to Israel. They’re really flying.
Israel, at time of writing, is about to have 10 per cent of its population vaccinated against COVID- 19. ( At least in terms of the first shot, with a second to follow.) By the time you may be reading this, it will have likely passed that milestone, having vaccinated 150,000 people a day each day so far this week. It expects to have a quarter of its entire population vaccinated by the end of January. If it can procure enough vaccine, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is confident that it can, Israel is hoping to vaccinate roughly two per cent of its population per day in the early part of 2021. This is, to keep the space references going, light years ahead of everyone else. As of Dec. 31, when Israel had a world- leading 7.5 per cent of its population vaccinated, Bahrain, in second place, had roughly 3.5 per cent. Britain was in third with just over one per cent.
How’s Canada doing? I regret to report that according to stats compiled at the website Our World In Data, source of the above figures, Canada comes in a bit behind. We are at ... 0.23 per cent. We’d be somewhat but not massively higher if Ontario, the most populous province, hadn’t slowed down vaccinations over the holidays.
The province said that this was due to shortages of key staff at overworked health- care facilities, and there’s probably some truth to that. Our health- care system was undermanned and overworked even before COVID-19 hit. But after all the anxiety about Canada being at the back of the line for receiving vaccines, for us to move slowly distributing the ones we have on hand is a bad look. Gen. ( ret.) Rick Hillier, former commander of the Canadian Armed Forces and the man running Ontario’s vaccine effort, has acknowledged that the slowdown was an error and has said it won’t happen again, and that Ontario will rapidly ramp up efforts ... which does seem to be happening. Still. Not our finest moment.
Canada’s slow start , though frustrating, is less remarkable than Israel leaping so far ahead of the rest. Israel undeniably has a lot going for it. It’s densely populated but geographically compact. It has an advanced health- care system and a well- organized population (the record-keeping required to operate a mandatory military service has some advantages outside the realm of defence). Netanyahu, fighting for his political life as the country heads into its fourth election in two years, is obviously highly motivated to get the vaccination rollout right. It’s not hard to see why Israel would do better than enormous, sparsely populated Canada, where our governments are so notoriously bad at databases that we can barely pay our federal employees and many medical records are still illegibly scrawled on slips of dead trees.
But I wonder if there’s something deeper, more fundamental. Does a country that is forced to take its security seriously against some kinds of threats — in Israel’s case, home- front terrorism and military attack from regional enemies — have an advantage at responding to other threats, even if they’re unrelated?
A lecture from a Second World War history class during my undergrad comes to mind. The professor had been talking about allied code- breaking efforts, and noted the exceptional contributions of Poland to the cause. He asked the assembled students why Poland was so good at code- breaking and spying. No one answered. With a dramatic flourish, he put a map of Poland’s place in Europe on the screen, showing it wedged between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. “Because they had to be,” he said. The point was made.
Israel is similar. It is good at security and organization because it has to be. Canada, on the other hand, is not, because it doesn’t.
Israel’s accumulated advantage is not a luxury, of course. It’s been hard earned and no doubt many of its citizens would welcome the opportunity to indulge in a little Canadian complacency. Alas, that’s not the reality of Israel’s neighbourhood. In contrast, though I’ve often pulled my hair out in frustration at Canada’s lazy stance on domestic preparedness ( this would explain my hairline, I suppose), I never make the mistake of forgetting how lucky we all are to live in a country that can flake out on security and never pay too high a price.
But the bill always comes due eventually. Israel will likely be back to something like normal, at least in terms of COVID, months before Canada. We needn’t fear rocket fire from our neighbours, which is a plus, but we’ll be barred from restaurants and family reunions a lot longer than our Israeli friends.
It doesn’t have to be this way. We could choose, even absent direct military threat, to simply prioritize competent, capable emergency preparedness. But we never have, and probably never will, until we need to. And then it might be too late.