Talk:COVID-19 vaccination in Canada

Controversy section

Thank you Coolcaesar for your edits - I'm all for exploring the complicated implications of vaccine manufacturing in Canada - it's kind of a complicated past. I worry the sources currently used are slanted toward an anti-Trudeau government bias and therefore not very neutral - perhaps we could get some other opinions. I'm pinging HueMan1, Arrecife, Moxy, UmpireRay, AMT5596, LABcrabs, Johnny Au and Oceanflynn who were on the original discussion for the creation of this page. CaffeinAddict (talk) 16:04, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

• The Lexchin article provides a rich resource with numerous useful links that could be the beginning of a section "Vaccine manufacturing in Canada".
• This is a current and constantly changing situation that is politically charged. Rather than focusing on "criticism" and "controversy" in separate sections, it is my understanding that we present differing points of view groups by topics, where RS sources that cite both pros and cons of decisions, actions, policies, etc are grouped together. In book reviews, for example, favourable and unfavourable reviews are included in one section.

• There is at least one source that is an Opinion piece.
• Exact dates are extremely relevant. The January 22, 2021 Opinion piece might not be helpful in depicting an accurate understanding of the situation. References to what happened 50 years ago can be used if the dates and people concerned are clearly stated.
• This is a generalized statement: "By early 2021, the speed of Canada's deployment of COVID-19 vaccines had become the topic of widespread public discussion." If we want to keep it as a statement that will reflect accurately the narrative when read 5 years from now, it would need more references than one NYT article. We need more RS and specific dates, etc. The statement could be contextualized in terms of responses globally in all countries about the confusion surrounding the rollout. Ex, "According to a number of media sources, on this exact date [then list 3 or more RS that confirm that statement], this thing happened.[RS, RS. RS]. However, these on [this exact date] said that .....[RS, RS, RS]."
• I think the use of the sandwich statement method is useful in dealing with controversial topics. Begin and end with the factual statements, and place misinformation in between and punctuate both with RS.

I changed this sentence with its single RS—a February 18, 2021 article in New York Times—that introduced the controversy section, "By early 2021, the speed of Canada's deployment of COVID-19 vaccines had become the topic of widespread public discussion, along with the related question of why the vaccines were not being produced in Canada" to "A February 18, 2021 article in New York Times said that Canadians were concerned about the rollout of the vaccination program." I moved it to the section on Major General's February 18 announcement about the end of shortages.Oceanflynn (talk) 17:53, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

"Major General Fortin announced on February 18, that the period in which Canada experienced limited supplies, is now over and there will be an "abundance of supplies" in the spring and summer months. This will result in a "significant scaling-up of immunization plans in provinces." Pfizer's new "locked in" delivery schedule includes 475,000 doses in February and 444,600 per week in March, according to the PHAC's vaccine distribution tracker. A February 18, 2021 article in New York Times said that Canadians were concerned about the rollout of the vaccination program."

I moved this content to a "Notes" section temporarily. Much of the content could be used in a new section "Vaccine manufacturing in Canada" using the Lexchin articles list of references as a good beginning:Oceanflynn (talk) 17:55, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

• In a January 14, 2021, Opinion piece in the Financial Post, responding to the delay in rolling out of Canada's vaccination program, GlaxoSmithKline Canada's Paul Lucas—who served as CEO from 1995 to 2012—said that, fifty years ago, during the Liberal premiership of Pierre Trudeau, there was little interest in chemical patents. Lucas said that this policy discouraged private investment in pharmaceutical innovations in Canada and caused the Canadian pharmaceutical industry to become focused on generic drugs.
• Health policy professor emeritus Joel Lexchin said that the publicly-owned vaccine manufacturer Connaught Laboratories was privatized under the Conservative government of prime minister Brian Mulroney (1984-1993). Connaught was then part of Sanofi Pasteur. GSK acquired the Quebec-based vaccine manufacturer IAF BioChem. Sanofi and GSK—corporations outside Canada controlled decision-making about production. The three biggest vaccine makers—GlaxoSmithKline, Merck and Sanofi—lacked the new technologies essential for the production of newer forms of vaccine, that upstarts—such as Moderna and BioNTech—had mastered and by December it was evident that they were incapable of producing an effective COVID-19 vaccine.
• According to Lexchin, newly-elected U.S. President Joe Biden reportedly continued the controversial America First policy of predecessor Donald Trump with respect to vaccine distribution. Canada was unable to obtain vaccine doses from the United States, even though the relevant American vaccine manufacturing facilities are relatively close to the Canada–United States border: Pfizer's facility in Kalamazoo, Michigan and Moderna's facility in Portsmouth, New Hampshire (actually a Lonza Group facility producing under contract).

References

References

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Oceanflynn (talk • contribs)

The National Post is a centre-right source that is unsurprisingly critical of Trudeau. Johnny Au _{(talk/contributions)} 00:37, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

One shot... two shot... three shot... blue shot

With J&J approved a bunch of the metrics are about to get screwy because of the one shot deal, in addition, it looks like most provinces are going to start applying the four month space between shots going forward - any advice on how to roll with the punches here? CaffeinAddict (talk) 16:20, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Well we should remove the sentence saying that some provinces intend to delay the second dose. It seems they all announced the switch to 4 months now. Otherwise people who get Janssen's vaccine should be counted as a single dose, but still added to the "fully vaccinated" column. In the end, there will be X "people fully vaccinated", and less than X/2 "doses administered". To add to the confusion, some people will likely never show up for the second dose, so it will not balance anyways. --zorxd (talk) 22:26, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

As soon as J&J it'll be a big 'ole logistical mess. CaffeinAddict (talk) 01:22, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

NACI

National Advisory Committee on Immunization currently redirects here. Should this receive an article? -- 67.70.27.246 (talk) 11:01, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Yes it should. I recommended it on the WikiProject Canada page but I really don't have time to fill something like that out. It certainly has a lot to do with the COVID-19 vaccination program right now but is definitely not exclusive to just these vaccines. CaffeinAddict (talk) 03:33, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Vaccination map

It should be based on percentage of population that has been vaccinated, not the number of doses administration. —Northwest (talk) 05:20, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

I am currently making one, it should be up soon. Nsophiay (talk) 13:47, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Awesome - thanks! The one we were using was just taken from a website that had a CC license. CaffeinAddict (talk) 05:19, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Approval vs. Authorization

To date, none of the vaccines have obtained full approval by Health Canada. They are Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), or the equivalent in Canada. Should we use the term "approval" in the article, or should we use the term "authorization" instead? --LABcrabs (talk) 05:21, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

The vaccines are all fully approved in Canada, just through a different pathway (the interim order). We don't use/have the EUA pathway here. Seeing as Health Canada themselves refer to the vaccines as "Approved vaccines" and they are fully approved under the interim order, there's no reason why "approval" should not be used. Jacobwensley (talk) 15:41, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Quebec vaccine mandate

@LABcrabs Since Quebec has a vaccine mandate for healthcare workers in both the private and public sector, should they be listed as having a "Partial" vaccine mandate for private industry in the table? Nsophiay (talk) 23:21, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

@Nsophiay I'm of the opinion the healthcare workers, whether public or private, should be under the "Healthcare workers" column. This includes hospitals, clinics, senior homes and so forth. If a significant industry is excluded, such as senior homes, then it should be listed as "Partial" under that column. I will rename "Private industry" to "Other private workers" or such, so that it's distinct from healthcare. --LABcrabs (talk) 22:22, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Sounds good, thanks! Nsophiay (talk) 23:03, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Just fyi I created the table originally - the concept of "Healthcare workers" IMO seems irrelevant since they're all regulated by the province. I'd be interested in your opinions on "Private Industry" because it's very vague. Originally it was mainly Universities, but has now expanded to all sorts of industries. "Teachers" is an interesting one as well, which also seems to be a hot topic. Thoughts on expanding the table or would it make it too complicated? CaffeinAddict (talk) 02:44, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

I think we should keep "Healthcare workers" as a category, given their unique position in a pandemic (ie. having direct contact with patients). We could also have another column for "Education" in general, which would include teachers, universities, and any other education-related jobs. This way, the sectors targeted by the "Private industry" category are less vague. Let me know what you think. Nsophiay (talk) 04:48, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Update vaccine passport map

Hey Nsophiay could you update the map to include Northwest Territories in yellow as they will be implementing an opt-in vaccine passport? CaffeinAddict (talk) 01:50, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Done! Note that if the updated version doesn't immediately show up, you have to clear your cache. Nsophiay (talk) 02:05, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Nsophiay! Can you now add Yukon in blue? Thanks again :) CaffeinAddict (talk) 15:09, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Done, sorry I'm not keeping up with this! SVGs are very easy to edit, so if there are any more updates that I lag on, feel free to update it yourself. I use Inkscape as an editor. Nsophiay (talk) 15:47, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Update related articles

Related articles needs their summaries updated for their Canada sections, see Vaccine passports during the COVID-19 pandemic and COVID-19 vaccine card -- 64.229.90.53 (talk) 20:58, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

°== Vaccine mandate - not mandatory if you can be tested instead. ==

I think the vaccine mandate table is wrong. Quebec has been forcing health care workers to either be vaccinated or go through regular testing (3 times per week) for a while. However it backtracked on its plan to remove the testing option. Isn't this the same as in Ontario? From what I understand, only BC is really forcing vaccination, with 2.6% of the healthcare workforce on unpaid leave for refusing to get the shot. --zorxd (talk) 13:04, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Ontario does not have a provincial order for HCW in general but a requirement for LTC workers... however many of the major hospital systems like UHN have mandated it. I don't know - should we change the column to "No" or "Partial" for Ontario? As with QC it seems the mandate has no teeth. CaffeinAddict (talk) 02:17, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

It should be clearly noted if there is an exception (such as being tested instead of getting the shot). For example the table now lists Quebec as "no" but Manitoba and NB as "yes", even though all three have the exact same policy (non-vaccinated health-care workers need to be regularly tested). --zorxd (talk) 13:59, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Can we lay out some sources here and figure it out - it's hard when you're not from the particular province. CaffeinAddict (talk) 15:09, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

I made some changes in the form of footnotes. CaffeinAddict (talk) 16:39, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

I am reading the sources cited in the table. Example: [1] which says "Health-care workers, like civil servants, must show proof of vaccination or be tested regularly and be masked". This is for NB, which is still blue/yes in the table. While Quebec, with a similar policy, is grey/no, and Manitoba is yellow/partial. In fact, Quebec might be stricter, since new employees must be vaccinated, only current ones can opt to be tested 3 times per week instead [2] --zorxd (talk) 16:35, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Looks like an old source - things have changed so much since August sometimes it's hard to keep up. For NB specifically, workers will be fired by November 19 if they don't believe in science: [3] [4]. How would you like to see this table changed? Feel free to edit it or make suggestions. My opinion is if there's a clear deadline for either vaccination or frequent testing it should be "Partial", if you are to get vaccinated by a certain date or face termination it should be "Yes" but if there's no clear guidance either way, even in cases where unvaccinated HCWs have to get tested frequently, but there is no set date - that's not a mandate that's just... regular rules/regulations I guess. CaffeinAddict (talk) 17:34, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Well for a start there should be no "yes/blue" unless the policy is in effect. NB still has time to backtrack like Quebec did. And these articles sound like they will. But most importantly, the table should be consistent with itself. If we agree that as long as there is an option to get tested instead, it's yellow and not blue, I'll try to update the table. I especially doubt all these blue cells for provincial workers. --zorxd (talk) 13:11, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

WP:CRYSTALBALL - we can't speculate. Right now they have a mandate - whether or not they backtrack on that mandate in the future is just speculation. Right now the table is very broad. I've suggested before some more details but then it could get bloated. CaffeinAddict (talk) 16:30, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

There is a mandate yes but it is not in force, and we can't speculate wether it will be the case or not. Why isn't it yellow/incomming like for Alberta anyways? --zorxd (talk) 17:07, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Fork: COVID-19 vaccination mandates in Canada

Several paragraphs from this article have been temporarily used to create the new article COVID-19 vaccination mandates in Canada. There is a construction template on this new article but editors are strongly encouraged to contribute. It might result in temporary "edit conflicts" which are often minor and helpful copyedits, so please save a duplicate of your edits. Thank you for your contributions.Oceanflynn (talk) 17:30, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

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