Recently, the National Advisory Council on Immunizations, or NACI, announced that it was reasonable to wait up to sixteen weeks between your Covid-19 vaccination shots. This applies to the three, Health Canada approved, two shot vaccines (Pfizer/BioNtech, Moderna, and AstraZeneca). Canada is the only country in the world to stretch out the interval between shots to four months. The manufacturers of the vaccines continue to suggest three weeks between shots.
This decision was not without controversy. No less than Canada’s chief scientist, Dr. Mona Nemer, called this a “population level experiment.” Multiple other physicians have tweeted concerns about this. Pfizer/BioNtech won’t sign off on this, and I’m not aware of Moderna or AstraZeneca agreeing to this extended interval either.
But NACI is made up of some really smart people as well. They’ve been providing independent and unbiased advice on all vaccines to the Federal government since 1964. No doubt NACI looked at data from countries around the world, and found that in countries like the UK and Israel, the incidence of COVID19 fell dramatically in the general population after just one dose. This was particularly of note in the UK because they had delayed their second shot (to 12 weeks) despite being called reckless by other countries.
So, we have one group of extremely bright and knowledgeable people saying delaying the second shot up to 16 weeks is ok. Another group of extremely bright and knowledgeable people is saying that this is a problem.
Look, I’m just an old country doctor, not a virologist or immunologist or population health specialist or so on. There is no way I could get into an educated discussion about whether going to 16 weeks between shots will be safe and effective or not because my brain is just not big enough to understand all the minutiae around rising and falling antibody levels.
But I’ve been around long enough to have read multiple statements and press releases from bodies like this, and I’ve learned to read between the lines. Here’s what’s really going on, that nobody (including the press) is talking about.
It’s the fourth bullet point in the summary section of NACI’s recommendation:
- NACI recommends that in the context of limited COVID-19 vaccine supply, jurisdictions should maximize the number of individuals benefiting from the first dose of vaccine by extending the interval for the second dose of vaccine up to four months
“The context of limited COVID-19 vaccine supply.” See the reason that NACI felt obliged to have Canada be the only country in the world that extends the interval to 16 weeks, is because Justin Trudeau and the Liberal government have botched the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines. If we had more COVID-19 vaccines, NACI would never have been put in a position of having to explore a population level experiment.
Trudeau has been saying for weeks now that more vaccines are coming. Heck back on Feb 19 he promised a “big lift” of vaccines. But despite all the hyperbole, the simple fact remains that as I write this blog, Canada is 62nd in the world when it comes to delivering COVID-19 vaccines to our population. We’re behind such illustrious world powers like Dominica, Serbia, Estonia and Aguilla to name a few. For a G-7 country, that’s just embarrassing.
This source for all the above information is Our World in Data and you can link to the relevant page here. It is updated daily so my comments are based on what I saw as of March 14, 2021.
Is it any wonder that there’s actually a #TrudeauVaccineFailure on Twitter?
Look, I, like you, am acutely aware that the Trudeau government has signed lots of deals with vaccine manufactures to get Canadians the vaccine. But it’s also extremely telling that Trudeau has refused to release the vaccine contracts. These contracts undoubtedly have a delivery schedule in them, so the fact Trudeau won’t let us see them really incriminates his government. It does nothing to dispel the concerns around the competence of how his government handled the vaccine procurement process.
Th main role of a national government is to protect the welfare of its citizens. If Canada had been in the top ten in vaccines procured per capita (surely not unreasonable for a G-7 country), NACI would not have needed to explore a 16 week vaccination interval. And we likely wouldn’t be looking at a third wave in Ontario.
By not procuring COVID-19 vaccines in a more timely manner, the Trudeau Liberals have failed the people of Canada.
justanoldcountrydoctor 