Canada’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout requires a shift in approach

I often stand by Aesop’s adage slow and steady wins the race, seeking to embed the tortoise’s principles of patience and earnestness into my professional and personal lives. However, when it comes to Canada’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout, I’m increasingly finding myself wishing for the pace and haste of the hare.

This doesn’t mean cutting corners. Instead, it means greater urgency, confidence and speed – straight out of the gate.

Despite Canada ordering the world’s largest number of vaccine doses per capita (including the two approved Pfizer and Moderna vaccines), our efforts have been outpaced by 11 other OECD countries. According to Our World in Data, collected by the University of Oxford, vaccination doses administered in Canada currently sits at just 2.23 per 100 people.

Why is Canada lagging? We administered our first vaccine on December 14, 2020 - 43 days ago. That means we’ve had over six weeks to vaccinate people. Yet, Canada isn’t treating vaccinations with the highest priority it deserves.

Canadians have been begging pharmaceutical companies to develop and ship more vaccines and to do so more quickly. Even then, when Canada did have vaccines sitting in freezers, we were slow to actually get the shots into peoples’ arms. For example, Ontario startlingly shut down its vaccination clinics over the holidays. From the very beginning, we’ve missed an opportunity to mobilize every government employee to help manage the provinces’ and country’s vaccination efforts. All necessary resources should be diverted to help the rollout effort. 

Now, we are facing a supply shortage caused by delays. But the country can’t afford to sit back. Where I live and work, the City of Toronto opened and closed its pilot vaccination clinic at the Metro Convention Centre (in a two-day span) because there were no vaccines to administer. Why not use the time to test run the process on a massive scale? For those who haven’t gotten the flu shot, it’s a great opportunity to immunize and test the process. Or, in the absence of any jabs, public health officials could practice and identify the kinks and iron them out immediately.

The federal government says that all Canadians who want a vaccine will be able to receive a dose by the end of September. But if we see new vaccine delays, hiccups in logistics or other changes, what’s the back-up plan? Although the Pfizer slowdown is temporary and will ultimately enable significantly higher production later this year, it highlights the need to be adaptable and efficient.

Canada is the second largest country by land mass with many rural and remote areas. Nevertheless, we can learn a great deal from other nations. Other countries have made inoculation a top national priority, and underscored it with urgency, innovation and conviction.

Leading the world in the number of vaccines given per capita is Israel. Despite starting immunizations a week after Canada, it has vaccinated 25 per cent of its population. Israel paid a premium to secure a huge supply of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and has since been delivering it around-the-clock. With 150 vaccine complexes plus a drive-in vaccination site, the country is an incredible example of efficiency and speed.

Israel also appears to be tackling a 21st century problem with modern tactics. The country is using social media, texting and phone calls to send messages to the general population, schedule appointments and send reminders for follow-up shots. Canada should use this time of shortages to set up and test a similar strategy, incorporate Amber Alerts and work through any glitches. Additionally, instead of involving its military like Canada, Israel is using its existing healthcare administration, plus technology, to maintain simple and swift logistics.

Similarly, the U.S. is vaccinating nearly one million people per day. The U.K. is also delivering its three approved vaccines at a rapid pace, with some regions inoculating nearly 300,000 people a day.  By contrast, Canada is set to receive just over 171,000 vaccine doses over the next two weeks. As a country, we are receiving fewer doses of vaccine per week than one region in the U.K. is vaccinating per day.

Another large reason for Britain’s success is its growing army of citizen volunteers. Why isn’t Canada using a similar model to fan out its existing supply?

Meanwhile, Denmark’s vaccination program is taking the lead in the EU. Vaccines were administered in all the country’s elderly care centres within a couple of weeks of initial rollout – with experts citing the country’s digital capabilities as a factor in its success. Denmark has a centralized database that helps health officials determine vaccination priorities. The Danes are also accustomed to communicating with authorities electronically – streamlining processes and communication.  

While comparing countries (and even Canada’s own provinces) is not a black and white task, we must look to our peers for key learnings. When there are lives at stake, we cannot afford to meander like the tortoise, and sit back and wait. Let’s use the time of shipment delays wisely to ensure we stay on track. The Globe and Mail’s André Picard puts it perfectly: “If we’re going to treat pandemic patients 24/7, we should be doing pandemic prevention in the form of vaccination 24/7 as well.”

Let’s remember our own strong history of medical innovation. Canada’s Banting and Best are the icons behind insulin; Dr. James Till and Dr. Ernest McCulloch are the brains behind transplantable stem cells. We are responsible for a number of medical breakthroughs and must similarly meet this moment.

Our healthcare workers are doing an unimaginable job. Those on the frontlines continually put their own fears aside and relentlessly show up for others. These brave people deserve our strongest commitment and the grandest parade in the history of this country, once life is sort-of back to normal. Ramping up our vaccination efforts is supportive not only of them, but our seniors and our country as a whole.