The world is watching
PM ‘playing jazz’ with lives over vaccine rollout
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau may not be able to attend the G7 meeting in Britain in June, because he may not be eligible to receive his second shot until Aug. 28, due to Canada’s four-month dosage-delay policy. And it’s entirely the prime minister’s fault. This week, Ottawa doubled-down on its policy of treating the population like human guinea pigs by opening the door to mixing vaccines. This is playing jazz with Canadian lives.
On May 5, a bombshell study of the Pfizer vaccine, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed the folly of what Ottawa is doing. It was conducted in Qatar and the data demonstrates the importance of receiving two doses administered 21 days apart, when it comes to fighting two variants, both of which are circulating in Canada.
The study shows that Pfizer’s effectiveness against the British and South African variants are minimal after only one dose (29 per cent and 16.9 per cent, respectively), but become 89.5 per cent and 75 per cent effective, 14 days after the second dose.
Trudeau should be forced to respond to this result and to justify the scientific basis for this country’s dose rationing. But he won’t, because the policy is not based on science, as Pfizer Canada’s CEO made clear in a recent interview.
Canada’s failure is being noticed by other countries — a situation that will be all that much worse if he fails to show up to the G7 summit. This week, a Canadian Press story quoted vaccine expert Dr. Peter Hotez, the dean of the school of tropical medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, who said he “was really astonished” when he found out that “about a third of (Canadians have) received a single dose and essentially no one’s gotten fully vaccinated.… I can’t believe the U.S. is not out there helping. It’s in our own enlightened self-interest to do it.”
The real question is not why Americans aren’t helping, it’s why should they have to? Fortunately, some Canadians are able to take matters into their own hands. Many snowbirds, or those with American relatives or friends, have gone south to get their jabs. Others are driving across the border after booking reservations in border states.
But all Canadians deserve to know if their government is making any efforts to secure help from the Americans, who are awash in vaccines. And while we’re at it, it would be nice to know how long a single jab provides protection for. And if the second shot is given after four months, will it provide the same protection as two doses administered three weeks apart, or will it essentially continue to provide the same amount of protection as the first shot did?
These are questions the government should have had answers to before it started using Canadians as lab rats. The media, and the Opposition, should be holding this government’s feet to the fire. And the provincial healthcare systems should be up in arms. This is not the way a G7 country should behave. Period.