OTTAWA – Canadian authorities are struggling to regain lost ground in their attempt to vaccinate people vulnerable to Covid-19, following an initial release that many public health officials criticize as slow and disorganized.
While Canada rushed to order vaccines and approved the use of fire developed by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE in early December – two days before the US authorized it – the nation lagged behind several of its colleagues in developed vaccination countries.
Just over 0.5% of the northern US neighbor’s population has been vaccinated since Wednesday. By comparison, the United States has vaccinated 1.6 percent of its population to date, and Israel has inoculated more than 18 percent, according to Our World in Data, a nonprofit research project at Oxford University. The UK vaccinated about 1.9% of its population by January 3, the last time the number of vaccinations was available.
Public health experts say Canadian officials have struggled to quickly move vaccine doses from industrial freezers where they need to be stored to long-term care facilities, where elderly residents are among the first designated inoculations. The launch was complicated by a decentralized health system run by individual provinces and territories and Ontario’s decision to discontinue vaccinations in the country’s most populous province for two days during the holidays.
The head of the provincial government’s vaccine working group, retired General Rick Hillier, later said the break was a wrong decision, taking into account that long-term care homes will have fewer employees available to receive vaccine doses during holidays.