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

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

#141

Post by defaultname » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 10:32 PM UTC

victorhooi wrote: post #111

defaultname wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Unlike the US and Europe, Canada dragged its heels on pre-ordering vaccines" Canada was one of the first countries to pre-order vaccines, signing massive agreements with just about every candidate maker. I'm aware of literally a single deal happening with another country prior to Canada's orders. What thwarted Canada's efforts was that the US defacto nationalized the medical establishment in that country, while Cana…

I'm not sure I buy this (about Canada). Israel was one of the first to vaccinate most of their population - and they are a tiny country with no domestic manufacturing of the vaccines. Although Israel quite openly stated they paid a premium to get early access to vaccines. So basically, it was simply a question of commercials, and ponying up the cahs. Singapore did likewise - basically bought out every vaccine they co…

Israel is a small nation (1/4 the size of Canada, which itself is a small nation) which agreed to do data sharing with the vaccine makers [1]. It effectively became a testbed. 100% of Israel's Pfizer and Moderna vaccines came from Europe.

Israel was an extreme outlier. It is not a counterpoint whatsoever. Israel got priority first shipping before Canada, and even the European countries that hosted the factories.

Many of these comments are weird in that they seem to hold Canada's vaccination effort as some sort of failure. In reality it was one of the most rapid on the planet, dramatically faster than just about every other OECD country outside of the US (courtesy of nationalizing production) and the UK (courtesy of protectionism), and then testbed Israel.

I'm not sure what you don't buy -- the fact that Canada signed up early and for massive quantities is very well accepted fact. The reality that Pfizer and Moderna's European factories became massively oversubscribed (while US factories were basically off limits to everyone else) is also accepted fact.

[1] - Even if Canada was suitable as a testbed (e.g. it's too large and distributed), healthcare is run at the provincial level. There are 13 sovereign healthcare agencies, and this is constitutionally decreed, so it was unlikely to have been possible even if the country agreed to do it.

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

#142

Post by redis_mlc » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 10:50 PM UTC

coronqueue wrote: post #45

roenxi wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 researcher…

An Israeli study said immunity due to infections was stronger than vaccines.

Also, the NIH reported this summer that their 2020 estimates of infection rates were completely wrong, with 5x more infected than previously thought.

Death certificates have been revised in the US back to January 2020 for corona deaths. (Some were in San Jose, so that's been in the local news.)

The above matches what we've seen in SF. Based on very low ICU usage in 2020 (10%-15% corona of total ICU bed usage in Santa Clara County hospitals, before delta), corona likely entered California in late 2019 (Calif. got 50,000 passengers per week from China before the travel halt) and circulated enough to avoid the spikes seen in NY.

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

#143

Post by klyrs » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 10:56 PM UTC

mthoms wrote: post #119

roenxi wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your source is comparing reinfection risk. Reinfection risk is very low [0]. It can't drive a pandemic. And, fairly critically, it is crazy to start isolating people from social life over that low reinfection risk. You've been exposed to people who are unvaccinated for all sort of dangerous diseases through your life and nobody has tried to lock them out of society for that. EDIT I suppose I'll throw in here this isn…

>This is about how to treat people who make choices that the government disagrees with I hate to tell you this. Putting restrictions on non-vaccinated people is not some Government conspiracy. It's literally what the vast majority of the people of Canada want for their safety. That includes your neighbours and (possibly) your family members. That's what the government is supposed to do. Sure, you could make some "tyr…

It's not like we didn't do this with measles, mumps, polio, smallpox, rubella, tuberculosis...

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

#144

Post by querulous » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 11:13 PM UTC

azernik wrote: post #72

pastage wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes they acted faster with more political capital at stake AFAIK, in the end the important part is how free trade countries reacted to the pandemic. There is a lot to say about acting in a way that hinders pandemic compared to making nations feel safe.

Israel is a "free trade country". If you were a rich nation, it was eminently possibly to get early delivery dates written into your contracts. Canada decided not to for some reason (cost?) and in actual fact deeply regretted it.

canada did, but their contracts assumed delivery from the us plants. when trump restricted export canada had to go back to pfizer and moderna and secure supply from the european plants

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

#145

Post by querulous » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 11:18 PM UTC

tomohawk wrote: post #128

Interesting note: any Canadians wanting to work in the US or go to school in the US would be forced by policies here to get vaccinated YET AGAIN, because US policy is not about safety or immunity, but about compliance with a partisan position.

this isn't true at all. only canadians who received az as one of their doses (less than 10% of the population) are not recognized as vaccinated in the usa

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

#146

Post by newsclues » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 11:51 PM UTC

earlyriser wrote: post #104

newsclues wrote: post #89

Canadian government funded media outlet defends the government’s actions. There was a reason people complained about the government’s funding of media.

Some people, but I see more people happy of having public medias.

I don’t need a state media and public funding for private media.

CBC used to be good, it’s pretty bad nowadays.

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

#147

Post by helloworld11 » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 2:14 AM UTC

mthoms wrote: post #139

rubyist5eva wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canadian citizens have freedom of movement in our constitution, it should not be contingent on getting an invasive medical procedure using a product from a foreign profit seeking pharmaceutical corporation.

The vast majority of Canadians would disagree with the characterization of simply getting a shot in the arm as an "invasive medical procedure" . Please, stop the over dramatization. It's embarrassing. Children, babies and pets get needles all the time. It's literally a fact of modern life. You know what isn't a fact of modern life? Polio.

And guess what the blindingly obvious difference is for those children and babies that get their different vaccines? That it's fucking voluntary. It's a decision made by their parents or guardians based on their own health and risk criteria, with no authoritarian travel restrictions based on ambiguous science and apparent corporate cronyism thrown in on top of the situation. This is very different from what's being enforced now in Canada (and a number of other countries) for the COVID vaccines. That the government is blatantly doing this "for your own good" is revolting but unsurprising. That so many people who used to be proud of their country being a relatively free place applauding it is simply grotesque.

If the excessive hysteria comes from anywhere, it's from regulatory bodies, politicians and supportive members of the public who are using this pandemic as an excuse for measures that most people would have flatly rejected in other circumstances. 99.4% of the population recovers from Covid normally, young people are barely touched by it compared to the mortality rates for so many other things, and despite the really vulnerable segments of the population being largely protected at this point, and having easy access to said protection, now no matter your age above 12, you're essentially forced to comply with something that no government should have a business of imposing like this. Piss off.

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

#148

Post by ipaddr » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 3:44 AM UTC

coronqueue wrote: post #140

ipaddr wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's look at the details a little closer. You download a QR code from the government. You are identified at this point and linked to your test results given your QR code. Those open source clients are for BC only. Assuming the app store version matches those clients that ensures you are not being track in private businesses during a vaccine check. This doesn't ensure the federal system is using the same clients or o…

In BC, secretly engaging in tracking would be both illegal and contrary to public policy. The system was reviewed by https://www.oipc.bc.ca/ as part of the rollout, and it's privacy-preserving properties were an essential part of the system being deemed acceptable. There are multiple independent open source implementations of the SMART Health Card QR standard. It's really just some JSON + compression/encoding/digital…

At all travel points trains/planes the government will require a vaccine passport check. This check will require the person to provide id to match against the vaccine passport information. At this point your information/location are verified and entered into a government system.

As for tracking by private companies. At your local pizza shop your location may not be tracked through the open source clients you list but at larger venues the opportunity for information gathering/sharing is possible. Previously one could buy a ticket to a game from someone outside now everyone eventing must identify themselves.

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

#149

Post by johnisgood » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 4:19 AM UTC

querulous wrote: post #145

tomohawk wrote: post #128

Interesting note: any Canadians wanting to work in the US or go to school in the US would be forced by policies here to get vaccinated YET AGAIN, because US policy is not about safety or immunity, but about compliance with a partisan position.

this isn't true at all. only canadians who received az as one of their doses (less than 10% of the population) are not recognized as vaccinated in the usa

Eh, I think his point stands. Similarly to the story I told in my other comment:

1. Hey, you need the vaccine to go in there to visit your relative!

2. OK. Woman walks to the other part of the hospital to get vaccinated.

3. Woman returns 10 minutes later and is able to visit the relative.

Why? I thought the vaccine takes time to work. Plus, I thought asymptomatic people have a next to none chance of transmitting, vaccinated or not. So, is it about health & safety?

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

#150

Post by roenxi » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 5:35 AM UTC

mthoms wrote: post #119

roenxi wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your source is comparing reinfection risk. Reinfection risk is very low [0]. It can't drive a pandemic. And, fairly critically, it is crazy to start isolating people from social life over that low reinfection risk. You've been exposed to people who are unvaccinated for all sort of dangerous diseases through your life and nobody has tried to lock them out of society for that. EDIT I suppose I'll throw in here this isn…

>This is about how to treat people who make choices that the government disagrees with I hate to tell you this. Putting restrictions on non-vaccinated people is not some Government conspiracy. It's literally what the vast majority of the people of Canada want for their safety. That includes your neighbours and (possibly) your family members. That's what the government is supposed to do. Sure, you could make some "tyr…

Something being popular is no guarantee at all that it is a good idea. The US just left Afghanistan this year, for example. Anyone claiming that 20 year debacle was a mistake going in to it was not in for a pleasant time - but they were right. The Patriot Act is much more long-lived than Bin Laden.

The worst time to do this is hastily and when people are feeling scared; these are some serious bridges being crossed. The systems being set up to deal with people who aren't scared of the coronavirus are going to be permanent and are a very decisive step in reshaping Western culture using the model trailed in China.