Thought of the Day - December 22 - Vaccine War Snippets Redux

Now the latest in the vaccine wars (last week's instalment: Thought of the Day - December 14 - Vaccine War Snippets ):

1) Mass vaccinations have moved ahead rapidly over the last month:

• China has now administered well over a million vaccine doses - mostly SinoPharm (claimed as 86% effective), as well as SinoVac (claimed as 97% effective) vaccines;

• Russia ramped-up mass vaccinations at the beginning of December using its Sputnik V (claimed 95% effective);

• Vaccination have also recently started in other countries including Britain, Canada and the USA.

Here is a list of vaccines that have approvals - Moderna (94.5%) has also just been added in the US, and AstraZenica (70%) will probably be added starting with the UK before the end of the year.

2) Canada has agreed to purchase 414 million vaccine doses, from seven companies (Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Medicago, Johnson & Johnson, Novavax and Sanofi). Almost seven times more than required for our total population, even when double doses are counted.

Surveys currently indicate at present only 67% of Canadian are keen to get the vaccine. So I guess if most of the seven we have purchased come to market we will have far more to give away than we can actually use.

Here is a chart from before our seventh purchase.

3) In a related story, with an estimated 10% of Canadian's already having been exposed to SARS-CoV-2, according to various anti-bodies studies, there is a growing debate whether these people should be vaccinated as well. One school of thought is exposure to SARS-CoV-2, whether the resulting COVID-19 was symptomatic or not, provides as good if not better immunity than a vaccine. The other side of the debate - better safe than sorry.

4) Japan purchased over 10,000 medical-grade freezers earlier this month. Dry-ice may also be in short supply as the Pfizer vaccine makes its world tour. Will this be the next COVID-related shortage? Probably not as it seems none of the other vaccines have the "cold-train" restrictions like Pfizer/BioNtec. That said, the Federal Gov't is taking no chances and has ordered tens of thousands of kilograms of dry ice per week, and more than 400 additional freezers.

Cheers

Cliff