While that’s great news for Canada, experts warn that unless other nations have access to vaccines, Canadians will have to continue to live in a “bubble” — meaning our borders could remain closed.
“It’s the old adage, ‘No one is safe until everyone is safe,’” Raywat Deonandan, an epidemiologist with the University of Ottawa, said. “We cannot get close to the eradication of coronavirus unless vaccines are made available to everyone.”
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But vaccines may not be available to everyone, especially in low-income nations.
1:32 Coronavirus: Canada secures 2nd agreement with Moderna for early vaccine doses
Coronavirus: Canada secures 2nd agreement with Moderna for early vaccine doses
According to a Reuters investigation published Wednesday, COVAX, the global effort to deliver COVID-19 vaccines to poorer countries, faces a “very high” risk of failure, potentially leaving nations home to billions of people with no access to vaccines until as late as 2024.
That is because the program is struggling from a lack of funds, supply risks and complex contractual arrangements, which could make it impossible to achieve its goals, the investigation found.
“One could argue that if I am vaccinated, what do I care?” Deonandan said. “But we don’t know if the vaccination makes you immune to being infected again. If the disease is prevalent anywhere, then we all suffer the probability of infection. “
He warned that unless other nations have access to vaccines, then Canadians hoping to travel internationally in the near future will be out of luck.
Canada is one of the largest contributors to the COVAX program, according to the federal government.
In a statement to Global News, the office of the Prime Minister said that Canada had announced a $440 million into COVAX — the second-largest contribution any country has made so far.
Canada’s Minister of Democratic Institutions Karina Gould told Global News Wednesday, the country recognizes how “important it is for us to respond to this issue globally.”
“Until we defeat COVID everywhere, we defeat in nowhere,” she said.
Canadian border could remain closed
The Canada-U.S. border has been closed since March. The border restrictions, which do not cover trade or travel by air, have been rolled over several times and will remain until at least Jan. 21 of next year in an effort to curb rising cases of the novel coronavirus.
The federal government has also warned that non-essential travel outside of Canada must be avoided.
As the vaccines continue to roll out and coronavirus levels potentially start to lower in the country, many Canadians may be itching to hop on a plane for a much-needed vacation, or even cross the border into the United States to see friends or family.
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2:21 Task force will examine re-opening U.S.-Canada border
Task force will examine re-opening U.S.-Canada border – Nov 29, 2020
But Deonandan said that if other nations can’t innoculate their citizens, then the coronavirus will continue to spread, and travelling may be impossible.
“There’s no such thing as a hermetically sealed nation that no infection seeps into,” he explained. “Even the countries that have isolated themselves, like Australia and New Zealand, they monitor their borders very, very carefully and they’re always finding coronavirus cases.”
As of Thursday, there have been more than 74 million cases of COVID-19 worldwide, and the numbers are continuing to grow. The virus that has killed more than 1.6 million people has exposed vast inequities between countries, as fragile health systems and smaller economies were often hit harder.
And many low-income nations lack the funds, resources and infrastructure to efficiently roll out a coronavirus vaccine.
Their best chance of receiving a COVID-19 vaccine is through the COVAX initiative, led by the World Health Organization. But the initiative has secured only a fraction of the two billion doses it hopes to buy over the next year, has yet to confirm any actual deals to ship out vaccines and is short on cash.
Gould said Canada is pushing for other nations to contribute more to the COVAX initiative, as there is still $4.8 billion to raise in order to make advance purchase agreements with pharmaceutical companies.
5:57 Coronavirus: WHO urges countries to join forces in global COVID-19 vaccine plan
Coronavirus: WHO urges countries to join forces in global COVID-19 vaccine plan – Aug 24, 2020
She warned that if the vaccines do not reach people around the world, not only will it cause inequity in healthcare in poor nations, but also it could lead to a continued border closure in Canada.
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“We can do everything here at home to protect ourselves from COVID-19, but we don’t want to keep our borders closed in the long-term. We want to be connected to the world,” Gould said. “And so that’s why having this international mechanism to try and address these challenges is so important.”
Everyone needs access to a vaccine
According to a recent report, nine out of 10 people in 70 low-income countries are unlikely to be vaccinated for the virus in 2021 because the majority of the most promising vaccines have been bought up by the West.
Rich countries with 14 per cent of the world’s population have secured 53 per cent of the most promising vaccines, according to the People’s Vaccine Alliance, which includes Amnesty International, Frontline AIDS, Global Justice Now and Oxfam.
Canada has secured more doses per head of population than any other – enough to vaccinate each Canadian five times, said the alliance.
“COVAX is all about allowing nations to purchase vaccines, but if a vaccine is not there to purchase, you cannot purchase it,” Deonandan said.
He recommended that nations, like Canada, commit to donating vaccines once the country reaches a surplus — potentially by the end of 2021.
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“Maybe some people aren’t on board with just giving it away,” Deonandan said, adding there could be agreements put in place for surplus supply to be made available to COVAX for purchase.
“There are all kinds of strategies to prevent it from sitting in a warehouse going to waste.“
Lessons from eradicating smallpox
The WHO has pointed to the global effort to eradicate smallpox as a way to combat the coronavirus.
Smallpox was eradicated 40 years ago after “unprecedented” co-operation between nations, and a similar global effort could help bring an end to COVID-19, World Health Organization officials said in May.
In 1959, the WHO started an initiative to eradicate smallpox. Although the virus had been stamped out in rich nations, it continued to spread in populations in South America, South Asia and Africa.
But the global eradication campaign suffered from a lack of funds and a shortage of vaccine donations.
2:09 Coronavirus: Trudeau says Canada contributing close to $500M towards WHO’s COVAX facility
Coronavirus: Trudeau says Canada contributing close to $500M towards WHO’s COVAX facility – Sep 29, 2020
In 1967 there was a renewed global effort to eradicate the deadly disease, which included measures such as increased financial aid and vaccine donations. In 1980, the World Health Assembly officially declared the world free of smallpox.
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Speaking in May on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the eradication of smallpox, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that “smallpox is the first and to date the only human disease to be eradicated globally.”
“Humanity’s victory over smallpox is a reminder of what’s possible when nations come together to fight a common health threat,” Tedros said. “Many of the basic public health tools that were used successfully then are the same tools that have been used to respond to Ebola and to COVID: disease surveillance, case finding, contact tracing and mass communication campaigns to inform affected populations.”
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
