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And now, a thread about the #COVIDvaccine in #Quebec:
While TVA helps the #Legault government boast about how amazing they're doing at administering the vaccine, here's a reality check using some cold hard math: https://www.tvanouvelles.ca/2021/01/10/le-quebec-est-la-province-qui-vaccine-le-plus-au-pays
While TVA helps the #Legault government boast about how amazing they're doing at administering the vaccine, here's a reality check using some cold hard math: https://www.tvanouvelles.ca/2021/01/10/le-quebec-est-la-province-qui-vaccine-le-plus-au-pays
1. We've only vaccinated 83,000 people in Quebec so far. That's 0.9% of the population. In comparison, the UK and the US have vaccinated 2%, Bahrain 5%, and Israel a whopping 21%. https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
2. That's only a first dose. Acting on sketchy science and against the recommendations of both Pfizer and Moderna (who developed and tested the vaccines) and Health Canada (who approved them) Quebec has CANCELLED the second doses for the people who received the first one.
3. Quebec keeps lambasting Canada for the slow supply of vaccine doses, and yet 27% of our existing supply still sits in freezers, unadministered.
4. The claim that we can vaccinate "up to 250,000 per week" sounds nice, but so far we haven't even managed to vaccinate 100,000 in a MONTH. We're vaccinating fewer than 10,000 people per day right now. Israel, with a similar population size, vaccinates 20x that number daily.
5. Even at this hypothetical rate of 250,000 per week, if we were to start tomorrow, it would take more than a year to vaccinate everyone in Quebec. 55 weeks, to be precise. That gets us not to late September (as promised by the feds), but to next February.
6. And of course we're not starting tomorrow because we don't expect to receive that amount of vaccine yet. We have 6.8 million adults in this province. Quebec "hopes" to have 250,000 vulnerable people vaccinated by the end of March. (cont.)
At that rate, to meet the Federal government's assurance that "every Canadian who wants one can receive a vaccine by the end of September", we'd have to vaccinate a further 6.55 million people between April and September, i.e. in 26 weeks.
At two doses each, that would require us to be able to administer an AVERAGE of 500,000 doses per week, i.e. DOUBLE what the government states as its maximum target capacity.
In case you've forgotten your high school math, an average means that some weeks would be higher, some weeks would be lower. In truth, when the large shipments are received in summer and fall, we'll need to be able to achieve a pace of a MILLION doses per week.
7. "All vulnerable people" are definitely not covered in the first phase, so we can't reopen before that. Currently there's no timetable to vaccinate immunocompromised people or those with high risk health conditions under 65 or living outside of care facilities.
8. All this to say, #Quebec, we're in this for the long haul. Realistically we'll be locked down for the remainder of 2021 and probably 2022 as well.
But there's an alternative. #Australia has shown us what that alternative is. We could do things right now that don't require vaccination. Meaningful hard lockdowns that don't just look to keep the numbers manageable, but to keep them low to nonexistent.
REAL sacrifices in the short term that don't cancel each other out, like we're currently doing by opening schools and keeping the economy going while imposing a meaningless curfew.
Shut everything down for 28 days for real. Massively ramp up rapid testing at scale. Hire thousands of contact tracers and modernize our system to be able to trace in a matter of hours, not days. Invest in ventilation in schools and workplaces. Get to #COVIDzero in #Quebec.
#Australians haven't vaccinated yet but they got to see their families for the holidays. They can go to restaurants, attend concerts, go to work and to school without fear.
They can't travel, granted, and they do have to be prepared to swiftly lock back down for outbreaks.
They can't travel, granted, and they do have to be prepared to swiftly lock back down for outbreaks.
But #Australia has had a total of 909 deaths from COVID. #Canada has had 16,900, of which more than HALF were in #Quebec. That's 15,000 people who didn't need to die. 15,000 families who shouldn't have to be in mourning right now.
We can do this. We must do this.
We can do this. We must do this.
Vaccination will take time even if we ramp things up. But we don't have to suffer like this in the meantime.
Make no mistake: #COVID19 is a formidable enemy. But the #Legault government has failed #Quebec in every single way so far.
Make no mistake: #COVID19 is a formidable enemy. But the #Legault government has failed #Quebec in every single way so far.
As long as people in #Quebec and the fawning media like @tvanouvelles continue to allow @francoislegault , @cdube_sante etc. to pat themselves on the back and get away with it, we'll never be able to emerge from this thing.
#COVID19 has stolen too much of our lives already. We need to act swiftly, decisively, and immediately if we want to ever hope to get our lives back. We need to get #Quebec to #COVIDzero now.
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