Manufacturing not the issue
Would things be different if Canada had our own vaccine production?
Domestic production did not determine the ability to vaccinate its population in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. Home to major vaccine factories, their citizens still have to wait for months to receive vaccines made within their borders.
Canada signed contracts early and for more doses than most other countries. The government was told the vaccines would not receive final approval until the spring of 2021 and signed contractual delivery dates.
But, vaccines for international distribution were ready months ahead of expectations. And now after a month long scramble by countries to secure vaccine supplies; it’s looking like a fool’s errand.
The World Health Organization head, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus publically warns, “Vaccine-nationalism is morally indefensible .... It is epidemiologically self-defeating and counterproductive trying to get your country served earlier; because you cause an uneven and delayed international vaccination that will accelerate the rise of mutant variants and make the disease hit your county and its economy harder.”
Canadians should remember this particular nature about our vaccine supply, before we cast angry dispersions.
Jon-Peter Christoff
West Kelowna
FOO FIGHTERS, “MEDICINE AT MIDNIGHT”
(ROSWELL/RCA)
“Medicine at Midnight” is what happens when the Foo Fighters embrace grooves instead of riffs. Who asked for that? No one, really. But we should have.
The nine-track album cocks in at a swift 36 minutes and it’s the band’s coolest in years, throwing out sounds they’ve rarely shown before -- David Bowie, hair metal and glam rock. The band sounds like it’s having fun.
Adele and Kelly Clarkson producer Greg Kurstin — who also helmed the band’s 2017 album “Concrete and Gold” — has turned the often dour Foo Fighters leader Dave Grohl into a party songwriter with an album that sometimes veers toward parody but never crosses the line.
“Making a Fire” has finger snaps and nana-na lyrics (listen for Grohl’s 14-year-old daughter, Violet, on backing vocals). “Cloudspotter” sounds like Warrant’s “Cherry Pie” and has a Jimi Hendrix-style riff along with a nods to him in the lyrics (“Refuse me while I kiss the sky”).
“Holding Poison” has a Husker Du feeling and “Chasing Birds” is like a psychedelic mood-changer that The Flaming Lips could have recorded, with Grohl singing: “The road to hell is paved with broken parts/Bleeding hearts like mine.”
The anti-war “No Son of Mine” has a
Metallica-ish feel and the title track, we swear, has a slinky Roxy Music vibe and a guitar solo reminiscent of Bowie’s “Let’s Dance.” Speaking of Bowie, there more than a touch of The Thin White Duke to “Shame Shame” -- a little “Fame” at least.
The old Foos are not entirely erased. The last song, “Love Dies Young,” is a classic rocker that could have come from any of the band’s previous nine albums.
But the fact that they can still surprise and create great new sounds after 10 albums is enough to cheer. “Go and put that record on,” Grohl sings in one song — and you should.