Canada's pandemic wavering

by Maj (ret'd) CORNELIU E. CHISU, CD, PMSC,
FEC, CET, P. Eng.
Former Member of Parliament Pickering-Scarborough East
As we approach Spring, with the Covid-19 generated pandemic still in place and new mutations on the rise, our leading politicians, their staff and civil service advisers seem to have lost their beacon, or whatever was showing them the way. They look like an exhausted swimmer on the brink of drowning, desperately trying to get to shore.
It seems clear by now that Canada, a G7 country, lacks the true leadership to protect our citizens from the ravages of the coronavirus pandemic. From testing, vaccinations and lockdown measures taken inappropriately and with the wrong timing, politicians both provincially and federally have shown their true incompetence. Factoring in the contradictory advice political leaders sometimes receive from the highest levels of public service management, we now have the full picture of a disaster.
Let us first look at testing. In the early pandemic fog, MPs were briefed by officials on the government's plans. At the time they asked the Public Health Agency of Canada when it would be possible to get more tests so everyone can be tested. Rhonda Kropp of the Public Health Agency of Canada testifying to MPs in the Health Committee said:
"There are rapid test kits that are currently being tested and we're hoping to have them available as quickly as possible. They will be a game-changer."
In reality, it took another six months before the government purchased rapid tests made by Abbott Laboratories and a further month before any arrived in Canada.  Unfortunately Canada lacks the expertise and infrastructure to produce them.  While millions of test kits have now been shipped by Ottawa to the provinces, there has been a strange reluctance to roll them out. One source said 80 per cent of those tests are still sitting in warehouses, with provinces slow or unwilling to deploy them. Is this leadership?
How is it possible that 10 months after a top public health official declared rapid testing to be a "game-changer," few asymptomatic Canadians are being tested for COVID?
The answer seems to be a combination of political will and administrative won't.
Governments both provincially and federally have so many priorities, especially during a pandemic, that bureaucracies running around like headless chickens neglect causes without champions.  Our political leaders should be championing this cause. Where are they?
Despite the rhetoric, the federal government has not been a strong advocate of rapid testing. In fact, quite the opposite, given that the federal health minister has said she believes rapid tests may spread the infection.
On the provincial level, the province of Quebec has one million tests at its disposal and another million on the way, yet it has used just 18,400 rapid tests, preferring to rely on laboratory tests. People should be encouraged to get tested at clinics, said the province's health ministry advisor.  But it is obvious that only people who are symptomatic will go to a clinic for a test. The point of rapid tests is to catch asymptomatic people who are spreading the disease unknowingly. Proponents argue that, while antigen tests may not be as accurate as lab tests, they do catch the majority of cases when people are at their most infectious. Routine rapid testing is a route back to normalcy. It seems that against the best advice of veteran pandemic fighters, perfection has become the enemy of the good.
So here we are, with politicians and their advisors showing their lack of competence to the detriment of the general public, with nobody taking responsibility.
Now let's look at the vaccines. The vaccine producers in Canada have basically been silenced by bad policies inflicted on them for decades by successive governments, regardless of political affiliation.  As a result the only solution was to rely on foreign manufacturers. The Canadian government announced with great fanfare that they had secured enough vaccines to inoculate the entire Canadian population by September 2021.
But guess what. The European supplier Pfizer of Germany and Moderna of the United States, a member of the European Union and respectively US, just said that they have encountered difficulties in delivering to Canada as scheduled. Not unreasonably, the European Union and US will take care of their own citizens before supplying vaccines to outsiders. Furthermore, it seems that Canada only had a verbal agreement with vaccine suppliers, not a contract. Again, a clear  demonstration of incompetence.
In desperation Prime Minister Trudeau announced a memorandum of understanding with Novavax on last week, to produce its vaccine at the National Research Council's biologics plant in Montreal. But the timing is ridiculous, as with all goodwill, it will be the end of the year before the plant starts producing vaccines, months after every Canadian will have had access to vaccines brought in from overseas (assuming everything goes to plan which is not clear at the moment.)
Manufacturing plants in the U.K. were built in the last 10 months and are now churning out AstraZeneca's vaccine (however it is advised that this vaccine should only be administered to people over 65 years of age). Canada could have followed suit, had it not made some inexplicable decisions, including a failed alliance with a Chinese vaccine producer.
To general bemusement, the bureaucracy patted itself on the back for its urgency. Certification usually takes two years but because of the exceptional circumstances of COVID-19, the timeline has been "greatly condensed," said an NRC spokesperson.
This does not seem to be a reasonable answer.  However, by now we should used to the "scientific advice" on which our governments rely. Just take a look at the advice on international air travel over the last 10 months. The scientific advice in the  early stages of the pandemic was that it was not necessary to stop air travel, in fact, the suggestion was dubbed racist. The current advice, justified by fear of spreading mutated forms of the virus, is to lock down travel to the Caribbean, without any mention of US destinations like Florida or Myrtle Beach. How nice.
The real question is: Do we have leaders in Canada to deal realistically with the pandemic or do we only have weather vanes whirling with the wind? Beware of the stupidity virus riding on the wind.  It might be more contagious than Covid-19.     What are your thoughts?