Every day, the online research publication Our World In Data releases information about vaccine doses being administered across the globe. And every day, one country emerges as a world leader: Israel.
For example, when the University of Oxford-based organization released its Jan. 1 data, the total number of vaccination doses administered per 100 people for Canada was 0.26. For the U.S., it was 0.84. The United Kingdom: 1.47. And for Israel it was 11.55, 44 times more than Canada.
But Israel, with a population of nine million, was also tied for third in the world in total number of doses (1 million), behind China (4.5 million) and the U.S. (2.79 million). Canada’s dose count totalled just under 100,000.
As Max Roser, founder and director of Our World In Data tweeted on Friday: “the country is rapidly getting to a point where mass deaths and mass lockdowns are over.”
The reasons for Israel’s success are multifaceted, and there may be lessons that Canada can learn.
‘Should be commended for it’
“I think it’s remarkable watching how organized Israel is in terms of getting access to a tremendous amount of vaccines and mobilizing vaccine rollout in a very expedited manner,” said Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious diseases physician and member of the Ontario government’s vaccine distribution task force.
“And they should be commended for it.”
But the rollout is not without some controversy. Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and in the Gaza Strip will not be vaccinated by Israel, a responsibility that some aid groups believe Israel shares with Palestinian officials.
Still, the country continues to garner praise. Since the start of its vaccination campaign on Dec. 20, Israel has inoculated just over 11 per cent of its population — one million of its citizens — and aims to vaccinate a quarter of all Israelis by the end of the month.
Certainly, Israel’s small size, and dense population, especially compared to a sprawling country like Canada, gives it an inherent advantage in terms of reaching its population with a vaccine, suggested Allon Moses, director of the Hadassah Medical Organization’s Department of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.
Moses said the fact that Israel’s medical services are centralized, provided by four main health maintenance organizations (HMOs) has made it easier to reach the population through emails and advise people to make appointments. (Everyone over the age of 18 must register with one of the four government-subsidized HMOs.)
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Israel’s experience in war and battle has also meant the country “is built on dealing with emergency, the country is built on recruiting soldiers to help,” Moses said.
About 700 paramedics on reserve duty have joined the civilian vaccination campaign in order to make the operation more efficient, the Israel Defence Forces said in a statement.
“So we are a small country with a relatively good infrastructure of medicine and a lot of good-willed people who are willing to help to get the country to be vaccinated in record time,” Moses said.
Digitized medical record system
Nadav Davidovitch, director of the School of Public Health at Ben Gurion University, also lauded the country’s digitized medical record system as “one of the best in the world,” which is helping with the organization of vaccination efforts and helping keep track of those on the priority list who should get a shot.
Perhaps most significantly, Israel was able to secure a large supply of vaccines — although how many has not been disclosed — but enough to vaccinate a million of its population. (Israel will have a two-week break in the vaccination of the general public due to an expected shortage of vaccines, the Jerusalem Post reported.)
Davidovitch said Israel and its tech-based economy, and connections to the pharmaceutical industries, made it an attractive candidate for Pfizer to supply its vaccines.
“It’s important to have vaccines being distributed in a place that will be very successful,” Davidovitch said.
As well, Davidovtch said Israel had been preparing for a couple months in advance for the vaccine rollout.
There have been more than 150 vaccine clinics running across the country, while vaccination vans travel to periphery towns.
People wait to receive a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine in Soroka Hospital in Beersheba, Israel, Tuesday, Dec. 29. ‘We are a small country with a relatively good infrastructure of medicine and a lot of good-willed people who are willing to help to get the country to be vaccinated in record time,’ one expert said. (Tsafrir Abayov/The Associated Press)
In comparison, Ontario, with a population of 14.5 million, has only 19 vaccination clinics across the province. These 19 sites all contain the special freezers needed to store the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
Pfizer has advised Canadian health officials to administer early doses of the vaccine at the sites where they are first delivered in large batches. Health officials have been told by Pfizer that too much movement of the vaccine can lead to deterioration.
Repackage vaccine
But according to Israel’s health ministry, it is the first country in the world to repackage the vaccine to distribute it across the country.
“Fortunately, the solution for safe transport of the vaccines allows us to vaccinate in small and remote locations, in retirement homes and nursing homes,” Hezi Levy, Director General of the Ministry of Health, said in a statement.
Vivian Bercoviic, a former ambassador of Canada to Israel, suggested that politics may also be at play. With an election slated for March, a successful vaccine rollout campaign certainly would be a boon for the political fortunes of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayhu.
“So he knows that if he is able to turn Israel into this beacon of accomplishment in terms of national vaccination program, it will not only reflect well on him personally, but it’ll be a matter of national pride.”
(Our World In Data)
Bogoch said that while Israel deserves all the praise it receives for its speed in administering the vaccine, it is easier for smaller countries to more efficiently administer vaccines in general.
“Canada has pretty significant logistical hurdles just based on the size of the country. We have rural populations, we have remote Indigenous populations, and everybody needs access to this,” he said. “Even the northern part of the country is also going to pose some significant challenges as well.”
Bogoch said that it’s pretty clear that per capita, Israel certainly has access to significantly more vaccines to begin with per capita. And because Israel has so many, it likely started planning administering the vaccines much earlier.
Dr. Zain Chagla, an infectious diseases physician at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, Ont., said Canada could take some lessons from Israel.
He said Canadian officials could also learn how Israel is setting up its registration system and how it appears to be managing through bureaucratic hurdles.
But most importantly, Canada could learn how Israeli officials been able to transport the vaccine around to other locations.
“Israel has been able to move the vaccine around to multiple different places, multiple different sites, pop ups and that type of thing,” said Chagla, who is also an associate professor at McMaster University.
“The ability to not centralize in a single place, does help with the distribution. They can mobilize more volunteers.”
MONCTON, N.B. – New Brunswick RCMP say two youths have been arrested after an emergency alert was issued Monday evening about someone carrying a gun in the province’s southeast.
Caledonia Region Mounties say they were first called out to Main Street in the community of Salisbury around 7 p.m. on reports of a shooting.
A 48-year-old man was found at the scene suffering from gunshot wounds and he was rushed to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Police say in the interest of public safety, they issued an Alert Ready message at 8:15 p.m. for someone driving a silver Ford F-150 pickup truck and reportedly carrying a firearm with dangerous intent in the Salisbury and Moncton area.
Two youths were arrested without incident later in the evening in Salisbury, and the alert was cancelled just after midnight Tuesday.
Police are still looking for the silver pickup truck, covered in mud, with possible Nova Scotia licence plate HDC 958. They now confirm the truck was stolen from Central Blissville.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MISSISSAUGA, Ont. – Golf Canada has set an impressive stretch goal of having 30 professional golfers at the highest levels of the sport by 2032.
The World Junior Girls Golf Championship is a huge part of that target.
Credit Valley Golf and Country Club will host the international tournament from Sept. 30 to Oct. 5, with 24 teams representing 23 nations — Canada gets two squads — competing. Lindsay McGrath, a 17-year-old golfer from Oakville, Ont., said she’s excited to be representing Canada and continue to develop her game.
“I’m really grateful to be here,” said McGrath on Monday after a news conference in Credit Valley’s clubhouse in Mississauga, Ont. “It’s just such an awesome feeling being here and representing our country, wearing all the logos and being on Team Canada.
“I’ve always wanted to play in this tournament, so it’s really special to me.”
McGrath will be joined by Nobelle Park of Oakville, Ont., and Eileen Park of Red Deer, Alta., on Team Canada 2. All three earned their places through a qualifying tournament last month.
“I love my teammates so much,” said McGrath. “I know Nobelle and Eileen very well. I’m just so excited to be with them. We have such a great relationship.”
Shauna Liu of Maple, Ont., Calgary’s Aphrodite Deng and Clairey Lin make up Team Canada 2. Liu earned her exemption following her win at the 2024 Canadian Junior Girls Championship while Deng earned her exemption as being the low eligible Canadian on the world amateur golf ranking as of Aug. 7.
Deng was No. 175 at the time, she has since improved to No. 171 and is Canada’s lowest-ranked player.
“I think it’s a really great opportunity,” said Liu. “We don’t really get that many opportunities to play with people from across the world, so it’s really great to meet new people and play with them.
“It’s great to see maybe how they play and take parts from their game that we might also implement our own games.”
Golf Canada founded the World Junior Girls Golf Championship in 2014 to fill a void in women’s international competition and help grow its own homegrown talent. The hosts won for the first time last year when Vancouver’s Anna Huang, Toronto’s Vanessa Borovilos and Vancouver’s Vanessa Zhang won team gold and Huang earned individual silver.
Medallists who have gone on to win on the LPGA Tour include Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., who was fourth in the individual competition at the inaugural tournament. She was on Canada’s bronze-medal team in 2014 with Selena Costabile of Thornhill, Ont., and Calgary’s Jaclyn Lee.
Other notable competitors who went on to become LPGA Tour winners include Angel Yin and Megan Khang of the United States, as well as Yuka Saso of the Philippines, Sweden’s Linn Grant and Atthaya Thitikul of Thailand.
“It’s not if, it’s when they’re going to be on the LPGA Tour,” said Garrett Ball, Golf Canada’s chief operating officer, of how Canada’s golfers in the World Junior Girls Championship can be part of the organization’s goal to have 30 pros in the LPGA and PGA Tours by 2032.
“Events like this, like the She Plays Golf festival that we launched two years ago, and then the CPKC Women’s Open exemptions that we utilize to bring in our national team athletes and get the experience has been important in that pathway.”
The individual winner of the World Junior Girls Golf Championship will earn a berth in next year’s CPKC Women’s Open at nearby Mississaugua Golf and Country Club.
Both clubs, as well as former RBC Canadian Open host site Glen Abbey Golf Club, were devastated by heavy rains through June and July as the Greater Toronto Area had its wettest summer in recorded history.
Jason Hanna, the chief operating officer of Credit Valley Golf and Country Club, said that he has seen the Credit River flood so badly that it affected the course’s playability a handful of times over his nearly two decades with the club.
Staff and members alike came together to clean up the course after the flooding was over, with hundreds of people coming together to make the club playable again.
“You had to show up, bring your own rake, bring your own shovel, bring your own gloves, and then we’d take them down to the golf course, assign them to areas where they would work, and then we would do a big barbecue down at the halfway house,” said Hanna. “We got guys, like, 80 years old, putting in eight-hour days down there, working away.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
NEW YORK (AP) — Fenway Park has the Ted Williams seat. And now Citi Field has the Grimace seat.
The kid-friendly McDonald’s character made another appearance at the ballpark Monday, when the New York Mets unveiled a commemorative purple seat in section 302 to honor “his special connection to Mets fans.”
Wearing his pear-shaped purple costume and a baseball glove on backwards, Grimace threw out a funny-looking first pitch — as best he could with those furry fingers and short arms — before New York beat the Miami Marlins at Citi Field on June 12.
That victory began a seven-game winning streak, and Grimace the Mets’ good-luck charm soon went viral, taking on a life of its own online.
New York is 53-31 since June 12, the best record in the majors during that span. The Mets were tied with rival Atlanta for the last National League playoff spot as they opened their final homestand of the season Monday night against Washington.
The new Grimace seat in the second deck in right field — located in row 6, seat 12 to signify 6/12 on the calendar — was brought into the Shannon Forde press conference room Monday afternoon. The character posed next to the chair and with fans who strolled into the room.
The seat is available for purchase for each of the Mets’ remaining home games.
“It’s been great to see how our fanbase created the Grimace phenomenon following his first pitch in June and in the months since,” Mets senior vice president of partnerships Brenden Mallette said in a news release. “As we explored how to further capture the magic of this moment and celebrate our new celebrity fan, installing a commemorative seat ahead of fan appreciation weekend felt like the perfect way to give something back to the fans in a fun and unique way.”
Up in Boston, the famous Ted Williams seat is painted bright red among rows of green chairs deep in the right-field stands at Fenway Park to mark where a reported 502-foot homer hit by the Hall of Fame slugger landed in June 1946.
So, does this catapult Grimace into Splendid Splinter territory?
“I don’t know if we put him on the same level,” Mets executive vice president and chief marketing officer Andy Goldberg said with a grin.
“It’s just been a fun year, and at the same time, we’ve been playing great ball. Ever since the end of May, we have been crushing it,” he explained. “So I think that added to the mystique.”
