Canada's Vaccine Success

If you live in a country where there are multiple political parties you probably have some sense of how I feel. The party or parties which are not in power act as though every failure was obvious before it started or that every move made is horrifying and country ruining.

And that is the tale of Canada's vaccine rollout. Which, by all accounts, was not only pretty good, but also predictably so.

Before that though, you cannot talk about this without first talking about the one major failure; Canada's initial attempts to work with a Chinese company on a vaccine. A lot of people speak as though it was obvious that this deal was going to fall apart and that Canada shouldn't have put all of its eggs in one basket. 

And while I can agree with the latter half of that, for a country with no local production, the way things fell apart possibly created a better option than the original. Though, I want to add, I don't contribute things like good timing to the government. I don't believe that they could have known it would have worked out this way. Basically, they got it right for the wrong reasons. 

More than that though, I disagree that the outcome with CanSino was obvious. While people tend to focus on Meng and the "2 Michaels", the fact is; there are at almost all times Canadians being detained abroad and there are always other sporadic issues creating political tension. These issues almost never devolve into all out war though they can hurt other agreements. And which agreements is usually pretty random from an outsiders perspective. There are limitless ways China could have retaliated. 

Cratering the CanSino deal was actually among the more unlikely outcomes. And I say this because China *REALLY* didn't like the attention it was getting over this issue and COVID-19. And China was trying to use vaccines as a means of promoting a positive image of the country on the global stage. So, you can maybe get a sense of why this might have been considered low risk. China retaliating over the Huawei case (which is presumed linked to the 2 Michaels which is a case they wish would go away) by attacking Canada's vaccination efforts on the most visible topic of the day, COVID-19? It was PR suicide. 

Summing up the first point; yes, failure to diversify is dumb. But, the CanSino vaccine looked promising early on, could be produced in Canada and there wasn't much reason to believe it was a deal that was at risk of any political interference.

So, how did it all end going so right? For that, you need to start with an understanding of why I consider it to have gone so right in the first place. Obviously, where we are now as one of the global leaders in terms of full vaccination is a huge part of things. But, it is easy to get hung up on the slow start. However, without local production of an approved vaccine we never would have gotten things started much faster than we did. 

Both the EU and US at times made moves to slow or stop shipments of vaccines abroad. And given that these are the only places Moderna and Pfizer were coming from (AstraZeneca wasn't approved until after we started receiving vaccines in the first place). If Canada had been any earlier and/or had larger number of earlier doses, they likely would have been intercepted or blocked. But, even if they hadn't been early production wasn't anywhere near where it is now. 

Furthermore, had we diversified earlier we likely would have made deals with more suppliers. It was less obvious who would "win". So, it was more of a shotgun approach. But that sort of approach ties up a lot of funds on long odds and once you're committed you have less wiggle room.

This is why luck/timing played a critical role. By the time CanSino bailed, the front runners were well identified. We were able to invest aggressively in a smaller number of companies and, it was still early enough that we were only a few weeks back on shipments of Pfizer vs countries like the US when things finally started rolling out. A little earlier and we would have been less sure how to invest, and a little later and we would have been much further back in the line. 

And, because the CanSino deal had basically vaporized and it was more or less the only deal, it allowed a quick pivoting of a LOT of money. 

After that, Canada's vaccine rollout happened basically as predicted (uncontrollable delays aside which really had minimal impact in the grand scheme of things). If you looked at shipment numbers, timing, and targeted age groups, everything went according to plan after the shots started rolling in.

The media is inept and politicians are conniving little scumbags so, you may not have gotten that impression. But, it is pretty frustrating to hear to the media complaining that the vaccination rates within my age group were abysmally low... when vaccinations had not yet been made available. Or, hearing that 2nd doses in my age group aren't ramping up as fast as other age groups 2 weeks after they officially opened for my age group. You need to wait a minimum of 4 weeks to even book the appointment, and the Provincial system was booked most people 16 weeks out, and re-bookings were still 8 weeks. And, unsurprisingly as you actually hit the timeframes where those people COULD get their first or second doses, the respective numbers rose more or less in accordance with it.

However, the narrative that the rollout was slow, or slow among certain groups was repeated by both the media and opposition politicians. Despite the fact that there was literally no way it could have been done quicker. Up until the last week or so, vaccines in most places were snatched up as they were made available. 

We're starting to plateau now. Which certainly isn't great news. But, starting to plateau is not the same as having stopped and we're hitting this point when we've already surpassed many other countries.

Also, I think, at least here in Ontario, that we will continue to see a steady trickle of vaccinations through to September and October. As I said above, when I booked my first shot, it automatically booked me for a second, 16 weeks out. People don't generally love needles. And I suspect a great many people aren't rushing to bump up their second dose. And that means there are likely a great many people in my age group or younger who will wait until September or October to get theirs.