Politic?

COVID : Making a List and Checking it Twice

"We've never had a situation where we've rolled out a single vaccine for 35 million [people[ all at once, as it were. That's just not possible."
"We don't have enough doctors and capacity to do that all at the same time. And that's even assuming we'll have enough of the vaccine right from the start."
Alan Bernstein, microbiologist, head, CIFAR Science-funding charity

"Those conversations should hopefully start to be communicated with the public ... so people aren't taken aback."
"Betting out in front of these things is going to be really useful, explaining who is going to get this first and why."
Matthew Miller, virus expert, biochemist, McMaster University

Bottle containing results for COVID-19 vaccine testing. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

"We need to be working on that [priority list of vaccine recipients] so when the vaccine hits our shores, we're ready."
"If you were the prime minister right now, your job would be to make sure Canadians get access to vaccine. That goes for every president and every prime minister in the world."
"But I think we want to do it in a way ... that is ethical and not just rich countries snapping up all the vaccine."
Dr.Gerald Evans, chair, infectious disease division, Queen's University

"All levels of government are working together to develop plans for the efficient, effective and equitable allocation, distribution and administration of an eventual COVID-19 vaccine."
"[Canada has not yet arranged to purchase the Oxford vaccine but is monitoring development of vaccines worldwide to negotiate advanced agreements] as soon as it is feasible."
Tammy Jarbeau, public health agency spokeswoman

Photograph: NICOLAS ASFOURI/Getty Images

It made top news days ago when the head of an Oxford University research team in development of a COVID-19 vaccine revealed that it could be ready for the first recipients by December. Concordantly a statement was issued by the European Union top drug regulator that approval of a vaccine might be possible before the end of 2020. Several different vaccines may possibly end up on the market by then. That anticipated hurdle over, the next problem comes forward.

The sheer difficulty and scale of manufacturing sufficient vaccine dosages required to immunize 7.8 billion people the world over. Vaccine developers such as the Oxford team and its corporate partner AstraZeneca are already preparing to produce millions of doses before regulartors even approve the vaccine. It's what is called getting ahead of the game, and the game in this particular instance is defanging a dread zoonotic that has made millions around the world ill, strained medical facilities and destroyed the lives of close to 2/3 of a million victims.

CanSino Biologics’ Tianjin, China. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo

That's a staggering 16 million people across the globe that have been diagnosed with COVID-19 up to the present, with 642,000 deaths. And a world economy completely disrupted. Hundreds of millions of people left unemployed. Entire industries thrown into disarray, thousands of businesses shuttered, cities laid waste by an eerie quiet of human activity. Children from elementary school to high school, along with university students all disengaged from schools that have been closed as precautionary measures, suffering the effects of isolation on their mental health.

None of the deep, severe damage to the social weal, to business and trade, to the world economy can be fully remedied without the successful discovery of a working, safe vaccine against the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19. Yet once that has been achieved, the mind-numbing logistics involved in producing a vaccine stockpile sufficient to service the needs of the world's population arises to bedevil the minds of planners. Then, once the first available doses can be deployed the difficult decisions to be made: who will be first?

Experts in the field of immunization and virology speak of the creation of a science-based priority list before vaccination clinics are opened. And the determination of which group/s in society merit inclusion on that priority list. The elderly and health-vulnerable groups to head the line? A focus on the young and the restless to tackle the emerging problem of wholesale community transmission? This is a vital task the National Advisory Committee on Immunization is set to tackle to issue a guidance listing priority groups for early vaccination in Canada.

The Canadian government has moved on one item; ordering 75 million syringes for delivery of the injections -- to a population of 37 million Canadians. Usually it takes three or four years for the development of new vaccines. That process has been accelerated by the world reaction of scientists responding to the sheer numbers of infections this zoonotic has ticked off worldwide to earn its title of a global pandemic threat on the business end of a relationship with the Angel of Death.

HANDOUT/Sao Paulo State Government/AFP via Getty Images

With the use of imaginative and hopeful technologies over 100 vaccine candidates have been produced for SARS-CoV-2, and twenty of those are already involved in expedited human trials. Phase 3 studies to determine whether the vaccines protect people against COVID have not yet begun. In Canada, the government signed off on an agreement between the Chinese company CanSino in collaboration with Canada's National Research Council where a refurbished Montreal-based facility plans to produce 100,000 doses monthly. A rate that would take 30 years to cover all Canadians.

The shortage of health professionals to administer the vaccines is yet another issue, recognizing the need to marshal as many qualified professionals as can be done to help in the immense task of vaccinations; family doctors, pharmacists, retired nurses. Dr.Evans emphasized that each Canadian should be immunized within two to three months. Dr.Jeff Kwong, a public health professor at University of Toronto, views those timelines with skepticism: feeling it would take at least seven to nine months to vaccinate everyone in the country.

People over age 60, those with underlying health conditions such as cardiovascular disease, hypertension and diabetes remain prime candidates for the first wave of inoculations. Next should logically come frontline health-care workers, following which people in "congregant" work areas like meat plant employees and migrant farm workers should be prioritized. Since children seem to suffer relatively mild symptoms, not viewed as accelerators of the epidemic they may or may not make a priority list.