OTTAWA – Canadian authorities are scrambling to fill lost ground in their quest to vaccinate vulnerable people against Covid-19, following an initial implementation that many public health officials criticized as slow and disorganized.
While Canada quickly ordered vaccinations and the use of the shot by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE was developed, approved in early December – two days before the US approved it – the country fell behind with several of its peers in the developed countries in the administration of vaccinations.
Just over 0.5% of the population of the northern neighbor in the US has been vaccinated since Wednesday. By comparison, the U.S. had vaccinated 1.6% of its population by that date, and Israel had vaccinated more than 18%, according to Our World in Data, a nonprofit research project at Oxford University. The UK vaccinated about 1.9% of the population by January 3, the latest date for which vaccinations were available.
Public health experts say Canadian officials have struggled to move the vaccine dose quickly from industrial freezers where it needs to be stored to long-term care facilities where the elderly are among the first designated vaccine. The deployment was hampered by a decentralized health care system run by individual provinces and territories and by Ontario’s decision to suspend vaccinations in the country with the largest population in the country two days during the holidays.
The head of the provincial government’s vaccination task force, retired Genl. Rick Hillier, later said the interruption was the wrong decision, taken under the expectation that long-term care homes would have fewer staff available to receive vaccine doses during the holidays.