February 10, 2021
Today there is again more news about delays in securing a supply of vaccine for the Canadian public. You have probably wondered – who gets the vaccine and when? When will it be my turn? These are good questions. Health care workers, teachers, hockey players….can I go buy the vaccine? Here is a little poll to see what you think. There are moral issues at hand and some of these questions are not that straight forward.
What ever you feel, there is no right answer and the decision makers, I believe, are trying to do the right thing. After all it is their first pandemic.
At the end of this post is a straw poll for you to respond. Please take the time and let me know what you think.
I have taken comments from news articles on the Googily to help in your analysis.
Should health care workers and first responders get vaccinated first? (Vancouver Sun)
The question of whether to vaccinate health-care workers over those at greatest risk of dying — people in their 80’s and 90’s living in long-term care — isn’t clear-cut because the two are connected, said UBC bioethicist Anita Ho.
“The workers are younger and may not know they are infected, so could easily transmit the virus to people in nursing homes,” she said. “Plus, if your workforce is not protected you could end up without enough doctors, nurses and others to care for people.”
Decision-makers must also weigh the principle of reciprocity, which suggests “it is fair to prioritize the vaccination of health-care workers, who are often more exposed than others to the risk of contagion, since they are committed to caring for society,” according to the World Health Organization.
Those workers are also assuming the risk of transmitting the virus back to their own families, Ho said.
“In addition, because health-care workers come into contact with susceptible individuals, they have a moral obligation to get vaccinated to avoid placing patients at risk of infection.
Should the wealthy be allowed to jump the cue? (Global News)
Kerry Bowman, a bioethicist at the University of Toronto, says in the short term, there won’t be any jumping of the queue or preferential VIP treatment, but private sales may happen once the rollout is extensive.
“It’s very ethically problematic if sports teams and individuals are vaccinated first,” he told Global News.
“We’re in a global emergency. If you were to absorb several hundred vaccines for a sports team, for example, you could literally be costing other vulnerable people their lives.”
The drug companies have entered into contracts with the federal government, which in turn is allocating the vaccine doses to the provinces and territories.
Given the limited supply in the initial stages of the rollout, private companies and individuals have a small window of opportunity to get their hands early on the doses, if they wish to do so, said Anita Ho, an associate professor of bioethics and health services research at the University of British Columbia.
So, if you’re a private business owner, a celebrity, professional athlete, frequent traveller, or anyone looking to directly purchase the vaccine from the drug makers, for now, you will just have to wait your turn like the rest of the general public.
“I see vaccines as a public good and if we are allowing people to purchase, whether it’s companies or individuals, then we can be exacerbating the existing inequity in Canada already,” Ho told Global News.
Earlier this month, the National Hockey League faced some backlash on social media after a report it was planning to privately purchase doses of a COVID-19 vaccine for all parties involved in the upcoming 2021 season.
John Shannon, an NHL insider and long-time hockey reporter, tweeted the report, noting that it’s only an interest of the NHL at this point, “when and if it’s available for private purchase.”
“The league also is adamant that they would not jump the line to do so,” he added. The NHL has not officially commented on the report.
Should Teachers get vaccinated first? (CTV News)
I think everyone would agree that health care workers and Long Term Care Seniors should be the first in line for the vaccine. But who is next? There are many professions that are advocating that they should be next.
The Canadian Teachers' Federation (CTF), a not-for-profit organization which represents 300,000 teachers and education workers across the country, said in a press release issued Tuesday that those working in schools put themselves at risk of COVID-19 exposure "every day."
Shelley Morse, CTF president, explained to CTV News Channel that teachers are in close contact with students and other adults indoors with poor ventilation for hours at a time. Morse added that even if schools try to adhere to physical distancing, she said class sizes are too large to maintain the sufficient distance required to prevent transmission.
"If you have 20 to 40 students in your classroom, it's virtually impossible to keep them two metres apart and masks aren't mandatory in some jurisdictions, and if they are, it's only for grades five to 12 so we don't see the same protections as are in place in the public," Morse said.
With these discrepancies in public health measures, Morse said giving teachers and education workers vaccine priority would add an "extra layer of protection" that would keep not just themselves safe, but also students and their families.
She added that vaccinating teachers and education workers will also ensure that in-person teaching can continue.
"Going back to online learning will not be conducive to good learning for students and they've already had three or four months of that. If we can keep schools open, that's what our goal should be and in order to do that schools have to be safe and sustainable," Morse said.
Should Politicians get vaccinated first? (Los Angeles Times)
The debate over politicians’ access to the vaccine is relatively specific to the United States. Though a handful of foreign leaders, such as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have gotten publicly vaccinated, many have refrained.
In Canada, for example, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he has no problem waiting for his shot.
“When there’s a time for healthy people in their 40s to get their vaccine, when it’s our turn, I will be as close to the front of that line as I can get,” Trudeau told CP24 television. “I am super-enthusiastic about getting vaccines, and I certainly want to show people that they’re safe and that we trust our doctors. But there’s a lot of vulnerable people who need to get these vaccines much quicker than I will, and we’re going to make sure that they get it first, because that’s the priority.”
Some public experts have said it was OK to make politicians a priority for inoculation, given the crucial work the government needs to do to address the impact of the pandemic and other tasks.
“It’s important for our government to be functioning well,” said Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s school of public health. “We don’t want to risk governors and members of Congress getting sick and dying.”
Still, Minnesota State Sen. Matt Klein worries that politicians will end up regretting early inoculation. He himself just got his shot, but not because of his legislative position. Klein is a doctor who treats COVID-19 patients at a Minneapolis-area hospital.
“Honestly, it should be front-line people,” Klein, a Democrat, said. “I understand that a lot of the politicians are getting it to demonstrate to the public that it’s safe, but I’m afraid it will instead generate resentment.”
Should Canadians be vaccinated first before Brazil (STAT by Ed Silverman, Dec 2020))
As wealthy governments race to lock in supplies of Covid-19 vaccines, nearly a quarter of the world’s population — mostly in low and middle-income countries — will not have access to a shot until 2022, according to a new analysis.
As of mid-November (2020), high income countries, including the European Union bloc, reserved 51% of nearly 7.5 billion doses of different Covid-19 vaccines, although these countries comprise just 14% of the world’s population. Meanwhile, only six of the 13 manufacturers working on Covid-19 vaccine candidates have reached agreements to sell their shots to low and middle-income countries.
Looked at another way, the projected vaccine courses per capita by country show Canada, followed by Australia, the U.K., Japan, the European Union, and U.S., have reserved at least one vaccine course per person. Canada has reserved 9.5 doses, or well over four courses, per person. By contrast, low- to middle-income countries, such as Brazil and Indonesia, reserved less than one course for every two people.
“High-income countries have sought to secure future supplies of Covid-19 vaccines but have left much of the rest of the world with uncertain access. Those hopes are today focused on a handful of lead vaccine candidates, some of which might yet falter or fail,” wrote the authors.
However, some contracts have not been disclosed or are heavily redacted, making it difficult to pinpoint supply priorities. The authors argued that greater transparency is needed about manufacturer agreements as well as underlying R&D costs, public sector financing and pricing arrangements in order to achieve more equitable access.
Earlier this week, the Canadian government committed to provide $380 million to various global initiatives designed to provide equitable access to Covid-19 diagnostics, therapies, and vaccines. Canada has reportedly been in talks to donate excess vaccine doses as well, but no commitment or details have been made public.
“As the uncertainty diminishes over which vaccines will succeed and which will not, Canada’s commitment to ensuring an effective global response will be tested,” Anthony So, one of the study authors and a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, wrote us.
“How and at what point will it share effective Covid-19 vaccines it has procured with those faring worse in the pandemic or in greater need of receiving even the first round of doses? The same question may face a number of other high-income countries that have entered into bilateral agreements with vaccine manufacturers: scale-up at home or share abroad.
If you want, please rank these groups in order of priority to receive the corona virus vaccine.
1. Health care workers
2. Long Term Care Patients
3. Regular Politicians
4. World Leaders (Presidents, Prime Ministers, Dictators)
5. Teachers
6. General Public (based on age)
7. Seniors (over 70 year old)
8. Wealthy hockey players, Celebrities, VIP’s
9. Brazil (low Income countries)
I would rank them as follows:
1-2-7-5-4-6-9
3 and 8 get in line like everyone else.
That’s it for now. Let’s hear what you have to say.
Ronco 😊
Comments