Vaccine-related news has dominated the waterfall of coronavirus headlines in recent weeks and so far, it’s been refreshingly positive.
Multiple COVID-19 vaccines could be approved in the coming months, and Canada has deals to secure millions of doses of various candidates. The question then becomes, which one will Canada roll out, and why?
“I don’t think it’s going to be a winner-takes-all situation,” said Jean-Paul Soucy, an epidemiology PhD student at the University of Toronto. “Nothing is stopping them from them all being approved.”
It would be an “unexpected blessing,” said Soucy, but one that might come with unique challenges.
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Timing will be everything, he said.
“There are a million things that could speed things up or hold things back at this point,” said Soucy. “The biggest conversation now should be around planning.”
3:10 Moderna says its COVID-19 vaccine appears to be 94.5% effective
Moderna says its COVID-19 vaccine appears to be 94.5% effective
Challenges
The vaccine candidates expected in the new year are likely to pose significant logistical and distribution challenges.
The federal government is already seeking assistance from the military and provinces are currently working on their individual plans to identify where vaccines should be deployed.
All of the above will become more complicated should multiple vaccines be approved around the same time, said Soucy.
“You’ll probably have some places with one, some have another, depending on shipping and manufacturing, differences in population,” he said.
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“Even if there are modest differences in effectiveness between the various vaccines, speed is going to be way more important to the effort.”
Kelly Grindrod, a pharmacist and professor at the University of Waterloo’s School of Pharmacy, said some of the challenges that lie ahead are “long-standing” for Canada.
Canada does not have a national vaccine registry, and even at regional and provincial levels, “it’s really hard to track,” she said.
“There are multiple vaccines on the horizon, many of which require two doses,” she said. “So you’re not just tracking one dose, you’re tracking two. That’s going to emerge as a real challenge.”
Then there are approved vaccinators. Grindrod believes it’s here the web could become even more tangled.
In the past few years, Canada added pharmacists as vaccinators to increase capacity, especially in rural areas.
“But what happens when people are moving locations?” she asked. “Do you get one dose at your doctor’s office and one at the pharmacy? Or are they all given centrally, like at a hockey arena? This stuff has to be solved.”
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6:00 Coronavirus: WHO chief warns vaccines do not mean time for complacency
Coronavirus: WHO chief warns vaccines do not mean time for complacency
A “good, robust tracking system” may provide more flexibility, she said.
Canada does have a national system that monitors adverse effects following immunization, which Grindrod said will become “critical” with a new vaccine. But as of now, it’s not set up for success.
“In an ideal scenario, this is all in one big connected system, but it’s not,” she said. “They’re two separate parts to the same problem.”
Opportunities
To experts, overall, the pros outweigh the cons.
“There are challenges we are facing, but what a great challenge it is to have many COVID-19 vaccine candidates,” said Alyson Kelvin, a Dalhousie University researcher who specializes in emerging diseases.
“One company cannot simply supply vaccines for the entire world.”
There are vaccine frontrunners, but no official approvals. Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca all have trials to complete before the world can truly know the effectiveness profiles of each vaccine, and how they differ.
Pfizer’s announcement of its preliminary trial results showed its vaccine candidate was about 90 per cent effective. That was followed up about a week later with final trial results and safety data, indicating a 95 per cent effectiveness rate.
Then there was Moderna. The company announced preliminary results for its own vaccine on Nov. 16, which indicated an effectiveness of about 95 per cent.
AstraZeneca is the latest to join the positive-news party. The drugmaker said Thursday that its late-stage trials found its vaccine was well tolerated and produced a strong immune response in people over 70 — a significant development given vaccines often don’t work as well in older people, who are at highest risk of serious infection from COVID-19.
1:23 Coronavirus: Trudeau won’t confirm date of receiving Moderna and Pfizer vaccines
Coronavirus: Trudeau won’t confirm date of receiving Moderna and Pfizer vaccines
Final decisions will depend on vaccine efficacy, both Kelvin and Grindrod noted.
“If there is a difference in responses in, say, people over 65, which we often see, then you may see one vaccine being preferentially given to that demographic,” said Grindrod.
That’s why the recent developments in AstraZeneca’s vaccine candidate are so significant.
“It specifically shows the vaccine is effective in older people,” she said. “That’s a piece of information we’ve been waiting for.”
There will still be specialized research to do even after the first roll-out of vaccines, Grindrod added.
For ethical reasons, children and pregnant women are not part of the broader research at this point. Pfizer’s experimental coronavirus vaccine has only been tested in 12-year-olds, while Moderna says it would test teenagers “very soon,” followed by children under the age of 12.
With “multiple companies reaching similar midpoint check-ins,” Grindrod is hopeful there will be positive developments for targeted populations in the near future.
“This isn’t a one-off fluke,” said Grindrod.
“This is moving extraordinarily fast. It’s a week-by-week thing now, not a year-by-year thing. What we don’t have this week, we might have by next.”
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.
