Canada has gone from a vaccine laggard to a world leader in COVID-19 immunizations in just a few months’ time — thanks to an ambitious vaccination campaign that has so far blunted the spread of the much more virulent delta variant.
More than 79 per cent of those eligible for a shot have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
While that’s a high number, it suggests there are still more than six million people over the age of 12 who have chosen to forgo a shot altogether, or wait for a later date.
The number of unvaccinated Canadians is roughly equivalent to everyone living in the Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Winnipeg and Quebec City metropolitan areas combined.
Experts agree more people need to get the shot to avoid another pandemic resurgence with devastating consequences. The challenge now involves easing access and convincing the hesitant among us to roll up their sleeves, experts say.
After a blitz in April and May, the number of new first doses being administered has stalled at well under 100,000 daily since June 16. That means it would take months more to immunize the remaining holdouts at the current pace.
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Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, said recently the vaccination campaign has produced impressive results. But it’s not enough, she said, to simply hit the government’s early target of 75 per cent of the eligible population with a single shot when the much more contagious delta variant — which appears to be twice as virulent as other strains — is circulating widely.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the doctor leading the COVID-19 fight in the U.S., was among those who first suggested “herd immunity” against the virus would develop at a 75 to 80 per cent vaccination rate. The new variants may have rendered that target obsolete.
“Should we aim for higher? Yes, I think we should. Shoot for higher, shoot for gold, shoot for the stars. That gives us a better buffer for managing the COVID-19 situation,” Tam said.
“We’ve got some work to do,” Dr. Howard Njoo, Tam’s deputy, tolda press conference Thursday. “I think we could obviously do better.”
WATCH: Dr. Njoo discusses COVID-19 booster shots
Dr. Njoo says while research on the need for a booster shot is under way, his main focus now is on fully vaccinating Canadians. 1:59
Caroline Colijn is a mathematician who specializes in infectious diseases at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C.
Colijn told CBC News it’s hard to pinpoint an exact vaccination rate that would make it safer to further relax pandemic-related restrictions in Canada — but it should be higher than it is now.
More shots in arms could spell the difference between a fourth pandemic wave — like the crush of new cases piling up in the U.K. and the Netherlands — and no wave at all, Colijn said, citing some of the modelling she and her team of researchers have compiled.
“There is a lot of uncertainty and I don’t think we have one number where we can say ‘Oh, OK, it’s 82 per cent, that’s it, that’s enough and we won’t have COVID anymore,'” she said. “But we do know that 90 per cent would give us so much better protection than 80 per cent because it cuts in half the number of people who aren’t protected at all.”
Colijn said that at 90 per cent protection, there will be both fewer cases and fewer opportunities for new mutations to emerge because there won’t be as many unvaccinated vectors for the virus.
“I’m not going to say we’re going to be in the clear. We don’t know how much immunity will wane over time, hopefully it won’t. But I think it would put us in a really great position,” she said. “We can say with high confidence we’ll be in a much, much better position at 90 per cent. We’ll cut those chains of transmission and we’ll be more resilient to the arrival, spread or emergence of new variants.”
Widespread infections among millions of unvaccinated Canadians could be enough to overwhelm the health care system again. New variants also threaten to penetrate the high level of protection that the fully vaccinated currently enjoy.
“It’s even more important for us to really reach a high level of vaccinations when we start to see variants that can break through that vaccination. You just need that much more vaccination to get to the same place,” Colijn said.
The federal government’s own modelling, released late last month, suggests hospital capacity may again reach dangerous levels in the fall and winter months if vaccine coverage is at or below 80 per cent across all age groups with the contagious delta variant as the dominant strain.
(CBC News)
In the United Kingdom, where 87.6 per cent of adults have had a first shot, hospitalizations have increased to levels not seen since February, with 600 daily admissions and reports of 50,000 new cases — most of them of the delta variety — each day. The number of people in hospital with coronavirus could reach “quite scary” levels within weeks, England’s chief medical officer Chris Whitty said Friday.
‘Rural areas have had the biggest problems’
In Ontario, a province where vaccines have been relatively plentiful in most areas for weeks, vaccination coverage varies greatly by region and age.
While vaccine uptake has been extraordinarily high among older Canadians, in many jurisdictions the 18-29 age cohort has been noticeably less willing.
In the City of Ottawa, for example, well over 90 per cent of residents 70 years of age and older have had at least one shot — an enviable level of coverage. As of July 14, fewer than 70 per cent of people aged 18 to 29 have had that first dose.
In rural Renfrew County, a sprawling region in eastern Ontario, the vaccination campaign has hit a wall of vaccine hesitancy.
Earlier this month, some areas in the county reported first-dose vaccination rates at just 50 per cent, according to provincial data — while urban areas like Toronto and the suburbs in Peel Region had coverage rates that were some 15 to 20 points higher.
Dr. Rob Cushman, the medical officer of health for Renfrew County, told CBC News that 90 to 95 per cent of the shots administered in his jurisdiction over the past three weeks have been second doses, even though just 72 per cent of the people in the area have had a first dose. (That last number is likely somewhat higher, Cushman said, because vaccinations among Canadian Forces service members have not yet been factored into the local numbers. There’s a large military base in Petawawa, Ont.)
“It’s a big problem. Some of our rural areas have had the biggest problems,” Cushman said. “These people who haven’t been vaccinated in the 20 to 45 years of age crowd — they’re going to suffer the most, they’re going to get it and they’re going to give it to their kids. We really have to motivate them even though they’re young and they may think they’re invincible.”
Cushman said lower vaccine rates can be explained in part by access problems for rural dwellers; he’s already planning pop-up clinics in smaller communities in the coming days. But he estimates that as much as 10 per cent of the population won’t get the shot, no matter what.
“There’s a real dig-in-your-heels anti-vax crowd and you have distrust of government, libertarianism, anti-science and all these things,” he said.
Acting medical officer of health for the Renfrew County and District Public Health Unit Dr. Rob Cushman is warning that people between the ages of 18 and 45 are falling behind other age groups on vaccination. (Renfrew County and District Health Unit/YouTube)
There’s another group of people, Cushman said, who are not fiercely opposed to getting a shot but are worried about possible side effects, suffer from needle-related phobias or feel lingering anxiety about the pace at which these products were developed.
He said there’s also a perception that, because many rural areas have been spared the high caseloads reported in some cities, Canadians in more remote areas face a lower risk of infection.
“We’ve done very well compared to the city and people think we’re more immune,” he said. “But what we’re seeing now — and I didn’t know this even three months ago — is just how high the vaccination rate needs to be to get herd immunity. It’s a matter of really convincing people, and it’s a hard sell, let me tell you.”
Lagging vaccination rates have been reported in other rural regions. Recent polling conducted by the Saskatchewan Population Health Evaluation and Research Unit found a vaccine acceptance rate of less than 64 per cent in some parts of the province’s northern and southern regions, compared to 74 to 89 per cent in urban areas like Regina and Saskatoon.
Beyond smaller pop-up clinics designed to target the holdouts, Cushman is considering more personalized interventions — sending public health workers door-to-door to connect with unvaccinated homes and empowering more family doctors to give the shot.
CALGARY – MEG Energy says it earned $167 million in its third quarter, down from $249 million during the same quarter last year.
The company says revenues for the quarter were $1.27 billion, down from $1.44 billion during the third quarter of 2023.
Diluted earnings per share were 62 cents, down from 86 cents a year earlier.
MEG Energy says it successfully completed its debt reduction strategy, reducing its net debt to US$478 million by the end of September, down from US$634 million during the prior quarter.
President and CEO Darlene Gates said moving forward all the company’s free cash flow will be returned to shareholders through expanded share buybacks and a quarterly base dividend.
The company says its capital expenditures for the quarter increased to $141 million from $83 million a year earlier, mainly due to higher planned field development activity, as well as moderate capacity growth projects.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
Premier David Eby is proposing an all-party committee investigate mistakes made during the British Columbia election vote tally, including an uncounted ballot box and unreported votes in three-quarters of the province’s 93 ridings.
The proposal comes after B.C.’s chief electoral officer blamed extreme weather, long working hours and a new voting system for human errors behind the mistakes in last month’s count, though none were large enough to change the initial results.
Anton Boegman says the agency is already investigating the mistakes to “identify key lessons learned” to improve training, change processes or make recommendations for legislative change.
He says the uncounted ballot box containing about 861 votes in Prince George-Mackenzie was never lost, and was always securely in the custody of election officials.
Boegman says a failure in five districts to properly report a small number of out-of-district votes, meanwhile, rippled through to the counts in 69 ridings.
Eby says the NDP will propose that a committee examine the systems used and steps taken by Elections BC, then recommend improvements in future elections.
“I look forward to working with all MLAs to uphold our shared commitment to free and fair elections, the foundation of our democracy,” he said in a statement Tuesday, after a news conference by Boegman.
Boegman said if an independent review does occur, “Elections BC will, of course, fully participate in that process.”
He said the mistakes came to light when a “discrepancy” of 14 votes was noticed in the riding of Surrey-Guildford, spurring a review that increased the number of unreported votes there to 28.
Surrey-Guildford was the closest race in the election and the NDP victory there gave Eby a one-seat majority. The discovery reduced the NDP’s victory margin from 27 to 21, pending the outcome of a judicial review that was previously triggered because the race was so close.
The mistakes in Surrey-Guildford resulted in a provincewide audit that found the other errors, Boegman said.
“These mistakes were a result of human error. Our elections rely on the work of over 17,000 election officials from communities across the province,” he said.
“Election officials were working 14 hours or more on voting days and on final voting day in particular faced extremely challenging weather conditions in many parts of the province.
“These conditions likely contributed to these mistakes,” he said.
B.C.’s “vote anywhere” model also played a role in the errors, said Boegman, who said he had issued an order to correct the results in the affected ridings.
Boegman said the uncounted Prince George-Mackenzie ballot box was used on the first day of advance voting. Election officials later discovered a vote hadn’t been tabulated, so they retabulated the ballots but mistakenly omitted the box of first-day votes, only including ballots from the second day.
Boegman said the issues discovered in the provincewide audit will be “fully documented” in his report to the legislature on the provincial election, the first held using electronic tabulators.
He said he was confident election officials found all “anomalies.”
B.C. Conservative Party Leader John Rustad had said on Monday that the errors were “an unprecedented failure by the very institution responsible for ensuring the fairness and accuracy of our elections.”
Rustad said he was not disputing the outcomes as judicial recounts continue, but said “it’s clear that mistakes like these severely undermine public trust in our electoral process.”
Rustad called for an “independent review” to make sure the errors never happen again.
Boegman, who said the election required fewer than half the number of workers under the old paper-based system, said results for the election would be returned in 90 of the province’s 93 ridings on Tuesday.
Full judicial recounts will be held in Surrey-Guildford and Kelowna-Centre, while a partial recount of the uncounted box will take place in Prince George-Mackenzie.
Boegman said out-of-district voting had been a part of B.C.’s elections for many decades, and explained how thousands of voters utilized the province’s vote-by-phone system, calling it a “very secure model” for people with disabilities.
“I think this is a unique and very important part of our elections, providing accessibility to British Columbians,” he said. “They have unparalleled access to the ballot box that is not found in other jurisdictions in Canada.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
WINNIPEG – A public memorial honouring former judge, senator and chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission into residential schools, Murray Sinclair, is set to take place in Winnipeg on Sunday.
The event, which is being organized by the federal and Manitoba governments, will be at Canada Life Centre, home of the NHL’s Winnipeg Jets.
Sinclair died Monday in a Winnipeg hospital at the age of 73.
A teepee and a sacred fire were set up outside the Manitoba legislature for people to pay their respects hours after news of his death became public. The province has said it will remain open to the public until Sinclair’s funeral.
Sinclair’s family continues to invite people to visit the sacred fire and offer tobacco.
The family thanked the public for sharing words of love and support as tributes poured in this week.
“The significance of Mazina Giizhik’s (the One Who Speaks of Pictures in the Sky) impact and reach cannot be overstated,” the family said in a statement on Tuesday, noting Sinclair’s traditional Anishinaabe name.
“He touched many lives and impacted thousands of people.”
They encourage the public to celebrate his life and journey home.
A visitation for extended family, friends and community is also scheduled to take place Wednesday morning.
Leaders from across Canada shared their memories of Sinclair.
Premier Wab Kinew called Sinclair one of the key architects of the era of reconciliation.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Sinclair was a teacher, a guide and a friend who helped the country navigate tough realities.
Sinclair was the first Indigenous judge in Manitoba — the second in Canada.
He served as co-chair of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba to examine whether the justice system was failing Indigenous people after the murder of Helen Betty Osborne and the police shooting death of First Nations leader J.J. Harper.
In leading the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, he participated in hundreds of hearings across Canada and heard testimony from thousands of residential school survivors.
The commissioners released their widely influential final report in 2015, which described what took place at the institutions as cultural genocide and included 94 calls to action.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
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