Canadians perusing social media may be coming across photos of their American peers bearing wide smiles and vaccination cards that show they’ve been inoculated against COVID-19.
A recent ramping up of the United States’s vaccine rollout has it vastly outpacing its northern neighbour, and some Canadians are wondering why distribution here is lagging so far behind.
Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, an infectious disease doctor in South Carolina, says that while the speed of the American rollout has been impressive lately, it’s not been without its faults.
Communication between states has been mostly lacking, she says, and the absence of a uniform standard for vaccine eligibility has led to inconsistencies across jurisdictions. Some states, for example, include teachers high on their priority list while others are still working on inoculating those 80 years and older.
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Confusion in the early stages of the rollout caused frustration and dampened trust, she added. And while the shift to a new presidential administration last month has led to some improvements, Kuppalli says there’s room for more.
“I don’t think we’re the model of success,” she said in a phone interview. “We’ve had a lot of challenges. … but it’s getting better.
“Communication is better, there’s definitely greater transparency, and states have been very forthcoming in ramping up vaccine measures and rolling out mass vaccination sites. So all that’s helping.”
2:28 U.S. on a slow march to another grim COVID-19 milestone
U.S. on a slow march to another grim COVID-19 milestone
The U.S. was vaccinating an average of 1.7 million Americans per day this week, and had administered at least one dose to more than 12 per cent of its population as of Friday.
Canada, which recently dealt with weeks of shipping delays and disruptions from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, has doled out nearly 1.4 million doses since its rollout began mid-December, covering about 2.65 per cent of its population with at least one dose.
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday vaccine delivery is set to rapidly increase, however, with provinces preparing to roll out almost a million and a half doses over the next three weeks.
The Americans have many factors in their favour when speeding up vaccine distribution, experts say, including a much more expansive supply than Canada’s that’s bolstered by production from U.S.-based Moderna.
While having supply is the first step, Kuppalli says getting those vaccines into pharmacies, where they can be easily administered, has also helped. The American government announced weeks ago its aim to supply vaccines to about 40,000 drugstores in the coming months.
Canada has not yet reached the pharmacy stage of its vaccine rollout, but Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease expert with the University of Toronto, expects that to happen once we have enough supply to branch out.
“We have the exact same plan, we just need the critical mass of vaccines,” said Bogoch, who’s also on Ontario’s vaccine distribution task force. “When we get that, you’re gonna see from coast to coast vaccines offered at many different settings.”
While pharmacy distribution makes sense for a quick rollout, it also can lead to problems with wasted doses if people aren’t showing up for their appointments, says Kelly Grindrod, a professor at the University of Waterloo’s School of Pharmacy.
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Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines need to used within a relatively short timeframe after they’re thawed from ultra-cold storage temperatures, Grindrod says, and once a vial has been punctured, that interval decreases further.
She says Canada has been learning from wastage setbacks other countries are experiencing, and she expects Plan B lists to be compiled of individuals who can quickly fill in when no-shows arise.
Those lists have to be made fairly though, she cautions.
2:29 Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine 80-90% effective after 1st dose
Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine 80-90% effective after 1st dose
“You have to make sure there’s no queue-jumping. So it’s not your friend coming in, it’s actually people who would fall normally on the next round of priority.”
Grindrod says queue-jumping — where people with lower risk of contracting the virus or experiencing a bad COVID outcome are vaccinated before higher-priority groups — has been more culturally unacceptable in Canada than it has in the U.S., a country without a universal health-care system.
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So there’s some justifiable outrage, she adds, when Canadians see American friends boasting about getting their jabs, especially if they’re not in high-risk populations.
“Equity is probably the most important principle of the Canadian vaccine rollout,” Grindrod said. “And I’m not sure that’s the case in the U.S.”
While the American rollout has had its faults, Grindrod admires some of the more unique approaches happening south of the border to ensure high-risk groups can get their doses.
She noted the recent role Black churches have played in co-ordinating inoculation drives among typically underserved neighbourhoods, and the pharmacists who have been driving vaccines into remote communities to inoculate those who can’t easily get to an immunization centre.
“You’re seeing really positive examples where communities themselves are helping to create effective outreach,” she said.
“So I think those are the real lessons we can learn from the U.S.”
Montreal Alouettes wide receiver Tyson Philpot has announced he will be out for the rest of the CFL season.
The Delta, B.C., native posted the news on his Instagram page Thursday.
“To Be Continued. Shoutout my team, the fans of the CFL and the whole city of Montreal! I can’t wait to be back healthy and write this next chapter in 2025,” the statement read.
Philpot, 24, injured his foot in a 33-23 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Aug. 10 and was placed on the six-game injured list the next week.
The six-foot-one, 195-pound receiver had 58 receptions, 779 yards and five touchdowns in nine games for the league-leading Alouettes in his third season.
Philpot scored the game-winning touchdown in Montreal’s Grey Cup win last season to punctuate a six-reception, 63-yard performance.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa sustained a concussion for the third time in his NFL career, leaving his team’s game Thursday night against Buffalo after running into defensive back Damar Hamlin and hitting the back of his head against the turf.
Tagovailoa remained down for about two minutes before getting to his feet and walking to the sideline after the play in the third quarter. He made his way to the tunnel not long afterward, looking into the stands before smiling and departing toward the locker room.
The Dolphins needed almost no time before announcing it was a concussion. The team said he had two during the 2022 season, and Tagovailoa was diagnosed with another concussion when he was a college player at Alabama.
Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said Tagovailoa would get “proper procedural evaluation” and “appropriate care” on Friday.
“The furthest thing from my mind is, ‘What is the timeline?’ We just need to evaluate and just worry about my teammate, like the rest of the guys are,” McDaniel said. “We’ll get more information tomorrow and take it day by day from here.”
Some players saw Tagovailoa in the locker room after the game and said they were encouraged. Tagovailoa spoke with some players and then went home after the game, McDaniel said.
“I have a lot of love for Tua, built a great relationship with him,” said quarterback Skylar Thompson, who replaced Tagovailoa after the injury. “You care about the person more than the player and everybody in the organization would say the same thing. Just really praying for Tua and hopefully everything will come out all right.”
Tagovailoa signed a four-year, $212 million extension before this season — a deal that makes him one of the highest-paid players in the NFL — and was the NFL’s leading passer in Week 1 this season. Tagovailoa left with the Dolphins trailing 31-10, and that was the final score.
“If you know Tua outside of football, you can’t help but feel for him,” Bills quarterback Josh Allen said on Amazon following the game. “He’s a great football player but he’s an even greater human being. He’s one of the best humans on the planet. I’ve got a lot of love for him and I’m just praying for him and his family, hoping everything’s OK. But it’s tough, man. This game of football that we play, it’s got its highs and it’s got its lows — and this is one of the lows.”
Tagovailoa’s college years and first three NFL seasons were marred by injury, though he positioned himself for a big pay bump with an injury-free and productive 2023 as he led the Dolphins into the playoffs. He threw for 29 touchdowns and a league-best 4,624 yards last year.
When, or if, he can come back this season is anyone’s guess. Tagovailoa said in April 2023 that the concussions he had in the 2022 season left him contemplating his playing future. “I think I considered it for a time,” he said then, when asked if he considered stepping away from the game to protect himself.
McDaniel said it’s not his place to say if Tagovailoa should return to football. “He’ll be evaluated and we’ll have conversations and progress as appropriate,” McDaniel said.
Tagovailoa was hurt Thursday on a fourth-down keeper with about 4:30 left in the third. He went straight ahead into Hamlin and did not slide, leading with his right shoulder instead.
Hamlin was the player who suffered a cardiac arrest after making a tackle during a Monday night game in January 2023 at Cincinnati, causing the NFL to suspend a pivotal game that quickly lost significance in the aftermath of a scary scene that unfolded in front of a national television audience.
Tagovailoa wound up on his back, both his hands in the air and Bills players immediately pointed at him as if to suggest there was an injury. Dolphins center Aaron Brewer quickly did the same, waving to the sideline.
Tagovailoa appeared to be making a fist with his right hand as he lay on the ground. It was movement consistent with something that is referred to as the “fencing response,” which can be common after a traumatic brain injury.
Tagovailoa eventually got to his feet. McDaniel grabbed the side of his quarterback’s head and gave him a kiss on the cheek as Tagovailoa departed. Thompson came into the game to take Tagovailoa’s spot.
“I love Tua on and off the football field,” Bills edge Von Miller said. “I’m a huge fan of him. I can empathize and sympathize with him because I’ve been there. I wish him the best.”
Tagovailoa’s history with concussions — and how he has since worked to avoid them — is a huge part of the story of his career, and now comes to the forefront once again.
He had at least two concussions during the 2022 season. He was hurt in a Week 3 game against Buffalo and cleared concussion protocol, though he appeared disoriented on that play but returned to the game.
The NFL later changed its concussion protocol to mandate that if a player shows possible concussion symptoms — including a lack of balance or stability — he must sit out the rest of the game.
Less than a week later, in a Thursday night game at Cincinnati, Tagovailoa was concussed on a scary hit that briefly knocked him unconscious and led to him being taken off the field on a stretcher.
His second known concussion of that season came in a December game against Green Bay, and he didn’t play for the rest of the 2022 season. After that, Tagovailoa began studying ways where he may be able to fall more safely and protect himself against further injury — including studying jiu-jitsu.
“I’m not worried about anything that’s out of my hands,” McDaniel said. “I’m just worried about the human being.”
NEW YORK (AP) — When her husband turns on the television to hear news about the upcoming presidential election, that’s often a signal for Lori Johnson Malveaux to leave the room.
It can get to be too much. Often, she’ll go to a TV in another room to watch a movie on the Hallmark Channel or BET. She craves something comforting and entertaining. And in that, she has company.
While about half of Americans say they are following political news “extremely” or “very” closely, about 6 in 10 say they need to limit how much information they consume about the government and politics to avoid feeling overloaded or fatigued, according to a new survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and USAFacts.
Make no mistake: Malveaux plans to vote. She always does. “I just get to the point where I don’t want to hear the rhetoric,” she said.
The 54-year-old Democrat said she’s most bothered when she hears people on the news telling her that something she saw with her own eyes — like the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — didn’t really happen.
“I feel like I’m being gaslit. That’s the way to put it,” she said.
Sometimes it feels like ‘a bombardment’
Caleb Pack, 23, a Republican from Ardmore, Oklahoma, who works in IT, tries to keep informed through the news feeds on his phone, which is stocked with a variety of sources, including CNN, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press.
Yet sometimes, Pack says, it seems like a bombardment.
“It’s good to know what’s going on, but both sides are pulling a little bit extreme,” he said. “It just feels like it’s a conversation piece everywhere, and it’s hard to escape it.”
Media fatigue isn’t a new phenomenon. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in late 2019 found roughly two in three Americans felt worn out by the amount of news there is, about the same as in a poll taken in early 2018. During the 2016 presidential campaign, about 6 in 10 people felt overloaded by campaign news.
But it can be particularly acute with news related to politics. The AP-NORC/USAFacts poll found that half of Americans feel a need to limit their consumption of information related to crime or overseas conflicts, while only about 4 in 10 are limiting news about the economy and jobs.
It’s easy to understand, with television outlets like CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC full of political talk and a wide array of political news online, sometimes complicated by disinformation.
“There’s a glut of information,” said Richard Coffin, director of research and advocacy for USAFacts, “and people are having a hard time figuring out what is true or not.”
Women are more likely to feel they need to limit media
In the AP-NORC poll, about 6 in 10 men said they follow news about elections and politics at least “very” closely, compared to about half of women. For all types of news, not just politics, women are more likely than men to report the need to limit their media consumption, the survey found.
White adults are also more likely than Black or Hispanic adults to say they need to limit media consumption on politics, the poll found.
Kaleb Aravzo, 19, a Democrat, gets a baseline of news by listening to National Public Radio in the morning at home in Logan, Utah. Too much politics, particularly when he’s on social media sites like TikTok and Instagram, can trigger anxiety and depression.
“If it pops up on my page when I’m on social media,” he said, “I’ll just scroll past it.”
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Sanders reported from Washington. David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder.
The AP poll of 1,019 adults was conducted July 29-August 8, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.
