The vaccination effort is going pretty much as I expected. The vaccines are arriving in Canada by the 100s of thousands and the provinces are administering them according to the relative levels of competence of each provincial government.
However, one big question I do have is why have all of the governments, both Federal and Provincial, decided to vaccinate according to age instead of vaccinating where infections are on the rise?
I understand that the first priority should have been people in Long-Term Care facilities. That makes sense because they were particularly hard hit by the virus. It is pretty obvious to me that the next people on the priority list should have been health workers working in hospitals that are treating COVID patience.
However, once that was done the efforts should have been to vaccinate the so-called hot spots instead of vaccinating according to age. Yes, people over 80 are more vulnerable than younger people but someone over 80 in a green zone is in less danger than someone of any age in a red zone. If you are in a green zone your chances of contracting the virus are much less than if you live in a red zone.
The upshot of this is green zones should be way down on the priority list for receiving vaccines. Indeed, I would say that they do not receive any vaccines, instead sending their allotments to the red zones. There is community spread but it is confined to specific zones. To bring down that spread requires following the established public health measures and administering the vaccines in areas were the spread of the virus is most rampant. Finally, if you focused on the hot spots the logistical issues surrounding the administration of the vaccine would be reduced.
So the order of priority should be:
- Areas under lockdown
- Red Zones
- Yellow Zones
- Green Zones
There might be some scientific reason for the approach that they are following but if it exists I have not seen it articulated yet.
However, I would bet a sizable chunk of money that the reason is largely political. After all, after letting the virus run through LTC homes it would be politically difficult to tell senior citizens that they have to wait, even if they are living in a zone where the threat of them contracting the virus is very low. As well, targeting areas where infection growth is the highest might be perceived as rewarding bad behaviour and punishing good behaviour. Remember almost the entirety of the four Eastern Provinces of Canada are in the green so if a government were to deny them vaccines because they are needed in Ontario it would cause political trouble for the Federal government. The same is true at the Provincial level. Focusing on red zones, which is basically Toronto, would not be taken well by rural Ontarians, who happen to be the base for the Ford government.
We are entering a third wave of the pandemic. One way to mitigate that would be to vaccinate the hell out of the Regions of the country leading us into that third wave. If that means that regions of the country, that are not as hard hit by the virus, have to wait a little longer to receive vaccines then that might be the price we need to pay to really get on top of this. Unfortunately, I believe that ship as sailed and a new approach will not be taken.
Please note that this whole post is predicated on the fact I cannot find any medical or scientific reason why governments have chosen this approach to vaccinating Canadians. It was not the approach taken 11 years ago for the H1N1 flu vaccine. If anybody can provide me with plausible science of why the approach they are taking is superior to the one I am suggesting in this post I would welcome seeing it.
