Canadians have spent much of the past year watching the progress of the COVID pandemic in the United States with a mixture of pity and scorn. Infection rates were much higher than in Canada and fingers of blame were being pointed in all directions. But suddenly we don't seem so clever. Our current infection rate is now higher than that in the US (although it is still much lower over the full course of the pandemic) and our vaccine rollout has been way slower, although we are starting to catch up.
So of course the finger-pointing is under way here, with parts of the media (led by the Toronto Star, for example here) blaming everything on failures at the Provincial level while other parts, (led by the National Post, for example here) lay all the problems at the foot of the Federal government. It's almost a straight-up political divide, as the Provinces the Star et al like to pick on the most (Ontario, Alberta) have right-wing Tory Premiers, while at the Federal level, Justin Trudeau is a Liberal.
Let's look at some of the facts here, starting with the Federal government. Canada has come under some criticism internationally for allegedly "hoarding" vaccines. Total orders placed with the manufacturers would be enough to vaccinate everyone in the country ten times over. There is, however, a big difference between placing orders and actually receiving the vaccines. Canada sold off its vaccine manufacturing capacity decades ago and is now entirely dependent on imports. With every country in the world clamoring for supply, Canada has had to wait its turn. This has meant that vaccine rollout has been much slower than in the US, UK and other countries, though it has picked up in recent weeks.
There's more...to compensate for the slow arrival of vaccines, Canada has opted to focus on giving as many first shots as possible, which means delaying second shots. For the Pfizer vaccine, the recommended gap between first and second shots is 21 days, but Canada is extending that to four full months! This may well work out fine -- the 21 day recommendation is not cast in stone -- but it certainly leaves Trudeau open to criticism.
If the main job of the Federal government has been to lay its hand on the vaccines, the Provinces have been tasked with distributing them to the public. The Provinces have also been responsible for day-to-day management of the response to the pandemic within their individual jurisdictions. If we focus particularly on Ontario, which accounts for 40 percent of the national population (including me), the report card is distinctly mixed.
All in all it would be fair to say that Doug Ford's government has been too slow to impose restrictions when they were clearly needed and too fast to loosen them at the first signs of any improvement in infection rates. We are now into our third lockdown and there is little sign that lessons are being learned. In a two-week period in late March/early April, Ford announced an easing of restrictions, then a Province-wide lockdown, and then a Province-wide stay-at-home order that is to last at least a month.
On the vaccine front we can be a little more forgiving. The huge variability in weekly shipments of doses has made it difficult for the Provinces to plan very far ahead. For example, last week Canada received about 3 million doses (of which Ontario would likely get about 1.2 million), but this week only 1 million are expected to arrive for the whole country. Pop-up clinics, including one bizarrely located at a theme park north of Toronto, have found it particularly difficult to maintain a reliable supply The Provincial booking system has mostly worked well, however, and the target of getting every adult in the Province a first shot by Canada day looks achievable.
Plenty of mistakes, then, at all levels, but we should perhaps be prepared to be a little charitable here. After all, nobody has had to deal with this kind of problem on this kind of scale before. That's not likely to cut much ice with the politicians or their cheering sections in the media. There is every expectation that Justin Trudeau will look for an opportunity to call an early election in hopes of converting his current minority government into a majority. Next week's Federal budget (April 19) will very likely set out the Liberals platform for such a vote, which will probably come in early Fall.
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