Canadians need COVID clarity from feds
MOST DAYS, IT HAS BEEN DOWNRIGHT CONFUSING. — REMPEL GARNER
Information and advice about COVID-19 from Canada’s health officials has been — at best — unclear. Most days, it has been downright confusing. This has left Canadians with many questions at a time when the country is seeing a vaccine shortage.
A case in point was a National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) press conference on Friday about the Astrazeneca vaccine.
NACI recommended that Astrazeneca be offered to people 30 and older. However, there were a few caveats — “if the individual does not want to wait for an MRNA vaccine (ie. Pfizer and Moderna)” and if “the benefits outweighs the risk.” It went on to state that MRNA vaccines are “preferentially recommended.”
This directly contradicts what many public health advertisements have been telling Canadians, that “the best vaccine is the first one offered to you.”
What happened here? NACI’S statement from Friday on “preferential vaccines” leaves room for debate on what it is advising Canadians. When it says to take Astrazeneca “when the benefits outweigh the risks,” what does that actually mean? Is that different for different groups of people? And when it adds “if someone does not want to wait for an MRNA vaccine,” is this an implication that’s something people should be considering?
These are not questions the public should have to speculate about. This also isn’t the first time there have been issues with federal government communications on the Astrazeneca vaccine.
In early March, NACI advised against administering the vaccine to persons 65 and older, citing efficacy concerns. Health Canada went on to ignore this advice without adequately communicating why it was doing so. This led to confusion among Canadians about whether the vaccine was both safe and effective. Then, news of blood clotting associated with the Astrazeneca vaccine broke.
Instead of learning from the mistakes of two weeks earlier, the government had Health Canada’s chief medical adviser, Dr. Supriya Sharma, telling the public that “there hasn’t been enough data to show that we should make a change to the way that the vaccine is used or changes to the labelling.” Later that same day, Dr. Howard Njoo, deputy chief public health officer at the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), told Canadians that the government was pausing the use of Astrazeneca for adults under 55, “pending further risk/ benefit analysis.” Canadians were left questioning if the right hand knew what the left hand was doing on an important issue with potential impacts on their health.
The responsibility to ensure Canadians get clear and consistent advice from the government rests with the Minister of Health. Patty Hajdu should be ensuring that her officials at Health Canada are working with NACI to harmonize information, address concerns and leave no doubts in Canadians’ minds that the government is making the right decisions. NACI shouldn’t feel as if it has to go to the media to have its concerns addressed and known by the public.
The health minister should also be taking NACI’S advice through a more cohesive communications strategy that ensures transparency while communicating consistently and clearly. There is no shortage of communications experts in Health Canada and the health minister’s office — why hasn’t the minister been utilizing their expertise?
When asked how these communication failures keep happening, Hajdu said NACI isn’t part of the government and that Health Canada is the regulator. Yet NACI’S board reports into an arm of her portfolio and is appointed by the government.
More than ever, Canadians must be able to understand and trust the information being shared about public health measures by government officials and representatives. This trust will continue to erode, and compliance with health orders may wane, if someone doesn’t take clear action to rectify the situation. Canadians need a transparent, consistent, and unambiguous communications structure.
The buck stops with Health Minister Hajdu.