Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Canada's 'gamble' on delaying, mixing and matching Covid-19 vaccines paid off

cbc.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 179 posts

Re: Canada's 'gamble' on delaying, mixing and matching Covid-19 vaccines paid off

#41

Post by roenxi »

SECProto wrote: post #35
roenxi wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're setting up restrictions on public (and private) transport [0]. Work is being done to support using OHS as a lever to push vaccination [1] which is going to require centralised databases integrated into business processes. Toronto is setting up systems to verify that everyone is vaccinated at gatherings of 1,000+ people [2]. This is setting the infrastructure to implement a social credit system. It is a small…

...the step from "vaccine requirements on federally regulated transport services" is a hell of a lot closer to "drivers license to operate a car" or "recognized ID to board a plane" than it is to "full China-style surveillance system tracking system that monitor where every citizen is". I think your interpretation of this is hyperbolic.

If holding employment, catching a train or attending a festival are conditional on having a drivers license then I'm unhappy about that too. The explicit purpose of this is to exclude people from society if they disagree with the government's cost/benefit calculations.

There is evidence in the article that the vaccines reduce the risks of COVID by 2-3 orders of magnitude, which gets it into the range of a bad flu. We know that a lot of people have already had COVID and pose a lower risk than someone who is vaccinated. These compliance systems are going to do more harm than good. It is never going to work out well when the government brings in authoritarian compliance measures to protect a majority from a minority who are being accused of causing all the problems of today. That script has been put into production before.

Re: Canada's 'gamble' on delaying, mixing and matching Covid-19 vaccines paid off

#42

Post by coronqueue »

ipaddr wrote: post #32
AlexandrB wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bizarre comment. What does the efficacy of Canada's improvised mixed vaccination "plan" have to do with implementing a dictatorship? And have you noticed how big and poorly connected rural Canada is? It's pretty easy to get out of range of cell towers and effectively not be trackable. How is the Canadian government going to cover the country with enough infrastructure to monitor where every citizen is in a…

The tracking is through vaccine checkins via vaccine passports. Boarding any travel method in Canada now requires a vaccine checkin. These passports will remain a long time.

Vaccine passports in Canada are implemented using the https://smarthealth.cards/ standard. The QR codes are verifiable offline using digital signatures.

The app used in BC is open source and available on Github: https://github.com/bcgov/BCVAX-iOS https://github.com/bcgov/BCVAX-Android

It works just fine with the device in airplane mode, and does not maintain a record of the QR codes it has verified.

Re: Canada's 'gamble' on delaying, mixing and matching Covid-19 vaccines paid off

#43

Post by tobias3 »

jeromegv wrote: post #22
sandworm101 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Canada dragged its heels on pre-ordering vaccines. No. Canada made some bad bets on where they would be getting vaccine. Canada assumed that a particular person would still be in the white house and that early US vaccines would not be available for export. So Canada threw in largely with European suppliers. That gamble was wrong. The certain person lost and US vaccination rates were lower then expected. US vaccine…

You are revisioning history. Contracts were with companies. Not governments. Canada didn’t order US vaccines. It ordered Pfizer, Moderna, Etc. They were free to ship from wherever they wanted as long as national governments allowed it. Yes once Biden authorized it it accelerated shipment. But there was no gamble, Canada never ordered from US government.

Yes, the US didn't ever have an explicit export ban. But the US government had passed the Defence Production Act, then went to the vaccine manufacturers and made priority contracts with them. What did you think would have happend if the vaccine manufacturers had say no, we'll supply the highest bidder from our US plants first?

The only other production locations were in Europe, so guess where the vaccine manufacturers thought Canada's doses would come from?

Please don't fall for the obvious obfuscation from the US government.

Re: Canada's 'gamble' on delaying, mixing and matching Covid-19 vaccines paid off

#44

Post by nitrogen »

chroem- wrote: post #21
AlexandrB wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bizarre comment. What does the efficacy of Canada's improvised mixed vaccination "plan" have to do with implementing a dictatorship? And have you noticed how big and poorly connected rural Canada is? It's pretty easy to get out of range of cell towers and effectively not be trackable. How is the Canadian government going to cover the country with enough infrastructure to monitor where every citizen is in a…

I'm not clear on what GP's connection to vaccinations is, but for what it's worth, Australia has recently implemented some very authoritarian covid policies despite it being sparsely populated. People are only allowed to leave their homes for two hours a day and everyone is required to take pictures of themselves inside their homes at regular intervals to prove their location to the police. Violators are being shot w…

everyone is required to take pictures of themselves inside their homes at regular intervals

That is... bizarre. Very bizarre. Do you have a link to read more?

Re: Canada's 'gamble' on delaying, mixing and matching Covid-19 vaccines paid off

#45

Post by coronqueue »

roenxi wrote: post #41
SECProto wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...the step from "vaccine requirements on federally regulated transport services" is a hell of a lot closer to "drivers license to operate a car" or "recognized ID to board a plane" than it is to "full China-style surveillance system tracking system that monitor where every citizen is". I think your interpretation of this is hyperbolic.

If holding employment, catching a train or attending a festival are conditional on having a drivers license then I'm unhappy about that too. The explicit purpose of this is to exclude people from society if they disagree with the government's cost/benefit calculations. There is evidence in the article that the vaccines reduce the risks of COVID by 2-3 orders of magnitude, which gets it into the range of a bad flu. We…

Where is your data to support your extraordinary claim that "a lot of people have already had COVID and pose a lower risk than someone who is vaccinated"?

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/10/prior-infection-vs-v...

"The CDC researchers found that people previously infected but unvaccinated were 2.34 times more likely to get reinfected than people who were previously infected and fully vaccinated."

"The researchers saw even more variability when they looked at neutralizing antibodies—those known to bind to the virus and prevent it from infecting cells. Neutralizing antibody levels in recovered people varied over a range of 40,000-fold, and up to 20 percent of people didn't have any detectable level of neutralizing antibody."

For vaccines, we have data showing they are highly effective:

http://www.bccdc.ca/Health-Info-Site/Documents/Vaccine_Effec...

We have data showing reduction in transmission as a result of vaccination.

We don't have comparable data for people who have merely been previously infected, and in fact the data we do have seems to provide evidence that they pose higher risk. The immune system is not as reliable when it is having to fight off an infection while mounting its response vs when it is able to mount an immune response while not under attack from the virus.

We're quite happy here with our freedom to go to a restaurant or attend a festival without exposing ourselves to the risk of being around unvaccinated people.

Re: Canada's 'gamble' on delaying, mixing and matching Covid-19 vaccines paid off

#47

Post by mseidl »

refurb wrote: post #3

“Bold” strategy? Canada had no option if they wanted to vaccinate quickly. Unlike the US and Europe, Canada dragged its heels on pre-ordering vaccines. Once it was apparent they couldn’t control the case numbers without vaccines, they took what they could get, prioritized first doses then realized they had different vaccines delivered for 2nd doses. The fact the mixed vaccines gives good protection is more luck than…

In Germany I have a mixed vaccine. I think they found mixed vaccines were better at fighting delta.

Re: Canada's 'gamble' on delaying, mixing and matching Covid-19 vaccines paid off

#48

Post by HeavenFox »

refurb wrote: post #38
defaultname wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada's two biggest suppliers by far have been Pfizer and Moderna. Canada doesn't dictate where they supply the product from. The US nationalized production in that government decree made it illegal to ship to anyone else unless US contracts had been satisfied in full (NOTE: I am not judging this at all. The merits of it are arguable, but it does point out a weakness in a reliance on free trade). The change of gover…

How did Israel gets enough vaccine by April then? Canada had barely started receiving doses then? I see an awful lot of whitewashing to cover mistakes going on.

a) Canada has 4x the population of Israel

b) Israel agreed to the extraordinary term of sharing their data with Pfizer, in exchange for getting doses early, something Canada almost surely won't be willing to do

c) The Israeli PM Netanyahu was facing significant electoral challenges and desperately needed a win, so there was a lot of political will

Re: Canada's 'gamble' on delaying, mixing and matching Covid-19 vaccines paid off

#49

Post by sandworm101 »

refurb wrote: post #38
defaultname wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada's two biggest suppliers by far have been Pfizer and Moderna. Canada doesn't dictate where they supply the product from. The US nationalized production in that government decree made it illegal to ship to anyone else unless US contracts had been satisfied in full (NOTE: I am not judging this at all. The merits of it are arguable, but it does point out a weakness in a reliance on free trade). The change of gover…

How did Israel gets enough vaccine by April then? Canada had barely started receiving doses then? I see an awful lot of whitewashing to cover mistakes going on.

Short story: they put in a higher bid and agreed to actively participate in studies, something that vaccine producers were looking for. But I would not discount the money aspect.

"The first question is how Israel was able to get that many vaccines when supply is short? It is not because—according to reports—Israel paid about $30 per dose, almost double what other nations did. [...] The answer: Israel is a great pilot country for the pharma companies—small and able to put together a massive vaccination program quickly and effectively." https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2021/01/05/the-secre...

Re: Canada's 'gamble' on delaying, mixing and matching Covid-19 vaccines paid off

#50

Post by [deleted] »

SECProto wrote: post #35
roenxi wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're setting up restrictions on public (and private) transport [0]. Work is being done to support using OHS as a lever to push vaccination [1] which is going to require centralised databases integrated into business processes. Toronto is setting up systems to verify that everyone is vaccinated at gatherings of 1,000+ people [2]. This is setting the infrastructure to implement a social credit system. It is a small…

...the step from "vaccine requirements on federally regulated transport services" is a hell of a lot closer to "drivers license to operate a car" or "recognized ID to board a plane" than it is to "full China-style surveillance system tracking system that monitor where every citizen is". I think your interpretation of this is hyperbolic.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN