Queue-jumping is the worst kind of selfishness
There was Spain’s top general, the guy who represented that country’s military at daily briefings where he detailed how troops were cleaning nursing homes and helping to care for elderly residents: Forced to resign following allegations of jumping the vaccine queue.
There was the mayor of a town in Austria, who got a first jab of the BioNTech vaccine at a long-term-care facility, despite a national vaccination strategy, calling for prioritization of residents, employees and medical staff at long-termcare homes. He didn’t resign and wasn’t particularly apologetic either, claiming he’d merely waited in line in case there was a leftover dose. “I wouldn’t throw out stale bread either, but use it to make toast,” he told the public broadcaster ORF.
Also in Austria, a regional head of the Red Cross was “admonished” after authorizing the vaccination, not just of his employees, but of their relatives, too.
In London, the founder of a luxury travel company offered to fly members who were 65 and older to the United Arab Emirates to receive privately obtained vaccines. China’s Sinopharm vaccine, in wide usage in the U.A.E., but not yet approved by the World Health Organization, can be accessed as part of a partnership to “bring tourism into the area.” Britain’s interior minister described the scheme as “morally reprehensible.”
Floridians are seething that snowbirds from Canada and across the U.S., over age 65, are eligible for vaccines if they own a home in the state.
As of the end of January, more than 40,000 out-ofstaters who qualify had been inoculated from among 1.3 million vaccinated. Nice shot if you can get it, despite gaping racial and ethnic disparities everywhere.
And, of course, there was the Canadian casino executive and his wife, who secretly travelled to the Yukon to get a jump on jabs intended for vulnerable and elderly Indigenous residents.
With more than 150 million doses of various COVID-19 vaccinations already in arms around the world, as per the New York Times vaccinetracker, there are doubtless many more people who’ve used wealth, stealth and power to get themselves inoculated against the pandemic, even while many poor countries have yet to see delivery of a single dose. The aforementioned are merely the higher profile miscreants and fraudsters.
Canada’s international reputation took a wallop for being the only Group of Seven country, the mega-haves, to draw on a supply of COVID-19 vaccines meant primarily for developing countries, scooping up 1.9 million doses (through June) from the cost-sharing COVAX program allotment of earmarked AstraZeneca vaccine.
Prime Minster Justin Trudeau has been under intense pressure to speed up sluggish distribution of all the coronavirus vaccines. Accused of double-dipping, Trudeau defended the decision, saying half of the $440 million investment had always been intended for domestic supply. Canada is entitled.
But there’s entitled and there’s rich nation entitled, amidst the arms race.
Canada found, itself, with a case of the vaccine shorts after both Pfizer and Moderna temporarily reduced contracted delivery.
Trudeau, however, has assured that Canada is still expecting four million doses from Pfizer and two million doses from Moderna by the end of March.
About 2.3 per cent of the Canadian population has received at least one dose of the vaccine already, compared to 8.8 per cent of the American population, largely because the U.S. invested pre-order billions in front-of-the-line arrangements with several manufacturers long before there was a vaccine and funded a great deal of the research.
Thus, while the U.S. proved a dismal failure in containing the pandemic, they’ve leapt to No. 4 in global vaccine distribution, 13.5 doses per 100 people. Israel tops the list at 67.7 per 100. Canada sits 37th, at 3.1 per 100, according to ourworldindata.org.
On Thursday, Providence Therapeutics confirmed it has sold two million doses of their “first fully made-in-Canada vaccine,” which won’t even be in Phase 2 human trials until May, pending regulatory approval, to the Manitoba government.
Which begs the question: Why isn’t Ontario doing the same?
Further, last week the Providence Therapeutics CEO blasted the federal government for not yet responding to their request for support in producing the vaccine. “The apathetic response of the government of Canada to a serious proposal that could save lives is unacceptable,” Brad Sorenson told a Calgary conference. “Review it and reject it if there is no merit; embrace it if it’s viable … but do something!”
The waiting game is apparently too much for some, those with hungry eyes on vaccine availability and privileged proximity.
Because there is collective moral consciousness and there is individual moral consciousness.
Or lack thereof.
While not exactly akin to jumping on the last helicopters out of Saigon or pawing for a cup of flour from the back of a food relief truck in faminestricken Sierra Leone, the vaccine scramble is bringing out the worst in some people.
Perhaps most especially in those who’ve never known want before.
And with 150 million doses dispensed, who’s going to notice a bit of muscle-flexing subterfuge, right?
Well, staff at an Ottawa retirement home noticed last weekend when the manager allegedly bumped a housekeeper to bring his wife to the vaccine trough. As first reported by the Ottawa Citizen on Wednesday, employees at the Stirling Park Retirement Community complained in a letter to their union that the housekeeper was in tears after being told she would not be vaccinated. The union has, in turn, filed a complaint with Ottawa Health and the Ministry of Health, along with a grievance against the home, claiming it failed to administer the vaccine properly and didn’t maintain a safe workplace.
On Feb. 7, according to the staff letter, some employees and caregivers were told there would be five doses of Moderna left over after residents received their first dose of the two-dose regimen. The Moderna vaccine expires six hours after a vial has been opened. Three healthcare workers, one essential caregiver and one housekeeper stepped forward. The housekeeper, however, was allegedly bumped for the spouse of a senior executive, a woman who isn’t an essential worker and doesn’t work or volunteer at the home.
Stirling Park, which has had COVID-19 outbreaks and access to the local vaccination program since Dec. 15, is operated by Riverstone Retirement Communities.
Spokesperson Mike Traub confirmed to the Star via email on Thursday that the executive in question has been suspended while an investigation is conducted. “We take this matter seriously and will be looking into the situation immediately.”
In Brantford, a similar complaint is being investigated by the Retirement Homes Regulatory Authority after a frontline worker told the Brant County Health Unit that the owner of Amber Lea Place and his wife were vaccinated, along with some family members of the home’s manager. The Brantford Expositor quoted a staffer upset after she and other front-line workers witnessed the queue-jumping, which appeared to have been pre-arranged.
“They were not getting leftover vaccine, because they were already there at 11 a.m., when we were told to come in. And they don’t volunteer here.”
LiUNA Local 3000, which represents thousands of healthcare workers, has also alleged that a nurse at the Villa Leonard Gambin long-term care home in Vaughan, which has had four outbreaks, was required to vaccinate at least 10 people who were not staff or essential caregivers. Friends and family of management were allegedly vaccinated.
As Ontario on Thursday announced it has vaccinated nearly 90 per cent of nursing home residents and delivered injections to all long-term care facilities, NDP Leader Andrea Horwarth called on Premier Doug Ford to take action, urging consequences to prevent “scofflaws and selfish people” from queue-vaulting, even as more professions, such as paramedics and teachers, clamour to be deemed a priority.
Different countries have taken different approaches to vaccine distribution and who gets priority. Indonesia, for example, has chosen to vaccinate the working population first, not the elderly, putting the emphasis on reviving the economy and reaching herd immunity, which has been a dicey proposition elsewhere.
In Canada though, the rollout is firmly delineated: residents and staff of congregate-living settings that provide care for the elderly; healthcare workers; those aged 70 and older, beginning with adults 80 and older; and adults in Indigenous communities where infection “can have disproportionate consequences.”
Not executives, not pencilpushing managers, not their spouses, not their pals.
Can’t take the vaccinations back. So, for the spouse who allegedly bounced the housekeeper at Stirling Park: least you can do is pick up a bucket and scouring brush ….