The Rot Within

"Our analysis demonstrated that Canadian RWE [right-wing extremists] communities identified in this study engage in a range of harmful behaviours."

"This includes potentially illegal activity such as the incitement and glorification of violence and explicit hate speech."

"In particular, the communities studied in this report appear to act as hubs for disinformation and conspiracy theories, including content relating to the COVID-19 pandemic."

Institute for Strategic Dialogue, London report

 

"[Thousands of people are joining pandemic conspiracy movements through social media, so when doctors and public figures spread false online information] it lends conspiracy theory promoters an air of credibility."

"In some way, shape or form similar stuff like that is happening all across Canada,. It just seems like more of it is happening in Alberta now." 

"it's a very dangerous combination of things happening right now. In an environment like that, all it takes is one unstable person to try to act out the violent fantasies of the group."

Evan Balgord, executive director, Canadian Anti-Hate Network research group 

A video widely circulated online this week shows Dr. Gary Davidson, an emergency medicine physician at the Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre, accusing the government of waiting for a drop in admittance numbers to trigger a lockdown to enable it to take credit in swift action. (Kyle Green/The Associated Press)

 

The Province of Alberta stands out as the most COVID-vulnerable poster child in Canada struggling in vain to check the surge of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta strain that has been overwhelming countries the world over in its viral contagiousness. Hospitals are overwhelmed, case counts are soaring, 'elective' surgeries are once again being cancelled, death numbers increasing. The premier of the province is in a quandary, having to backtrack on opening the province too soon, now once again re-imposing a lockdown, and with it a move to COVID passports, infuriating the population.

Unable to cope with its ICUs crowded with patients and shortages, the province sent out an appeal to other provinces for help. Those that were able to oblige are receiving air-lifted COVID patients requiring emergency hospital care that Alberta hospitals are unable to service. Neighbouring Saskatchewan was one province that was unable to open its ICU doors to Alberta patients. It too is overwhelmed with COVID patients. In Alberta the influx of patients invariably reflects unvaccinated people.

Resistance by anti-vaxxers in Alberta is endemic by a wide margin in comparison to other provinces, and more prominent in outlying areas. These are people hugely resistant to the very idea that medical science is on the right track in advising populations how best to protect themselves from the virus. These are the people convinced that government is trying to control their every thought, to take away any vestiges of personal agency and independence. And they are supported by groups that feed on this unstable paranoia.

 

On social media all manner of theories abound, posing as knowledge-based solutions, from the use of horse de-wormer medications as a 'cure' for COVID, to other bizarre remedies that sometimes land people in hospital. Suspicion of government motivations is rampant. Doctors pressured by some of their patients, provide them with vaccine-exemption letters on health grounds, from enabling patients to bypass wearing masks in public to arguing that medical conditions preclude inoculation.

The Alberta College of Physicians and Surgeons is preparing to publish a letter addressed to its physician-members and the public at large, reiterating its support for vaccines and public health requirements in place to curb the spread of COVID-19. Doctors identified by the College as spreading misinformation on social media platforms have been warned that their behaviour may impact the credibility of their profession and may in fact lead to suspension of their medical practise certification.

With the highest number of unvaccinated people in the country, the spread of misinformation continues to harm the public even as case numbers explode. Sources such as not only doctors but other public workers and well-known figures including police officers, firefighters and others weigh in on their beliefs contrary to government authorities and medical community experts. One popular country singer reported to his large following that people recovered from COVID are immune thereafter to the virus.

A report out of London by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue think tank that monitors disinformation spoke of online communication channels associated with white supremacy and racism having seen exponential growth during the pandemic. 

Alberta on Tuesday reported 29 additional COVID-19 deaths, bringing the total since the pandemic began to 2,574 people. Photo by IAN KUCERAK / Postmedia

 "It's incredibly disappointing to see your profession do things that are so harmful to others."

"We're in pretty unprecedented times. There are always events where the odd physician may say or do things that are counter to traditional pratices of medicine, but not to this degree, not to this scale."

"This is just the minority of people in the profession that are creating a problem, but that minority is having a huge impact."

"Physicians do have a very powerful voice in society and people listen to it."

"I would recommend that whoever is listening to those physicians also listen to some of the other evidence that's out there with an open mind."

"Unfortunately, we see a lot of confirmation bias where people want to believe the science that they're hearing, instead of critically appraising that science." 

"[The college had an emergency meeting and] counsel made it very clear that we need to be aggressive in dealing with [doctors spreading misinformation]."

Scott McLeod, registrar, College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta

COVID and Commercial Flight

"Pre-COVID, most airline pilots would look down their noses at flying cargo."

"Now they're like, 'Pick me'!"

"[There are signs that career aspirations are dwindling for junior pilots too.] They’ve given up."

"Our prediction is that, very quickly, we will have a real problem in the aviation sector."

Mark Charman, chief executive, Goose Recruitment, U.K.

 

"I am very concerned about what will happen October 1 when the CARES Act relief funding runs out. This is three or four times the scale of what we had to deal with post-9/11. Even though the airplanes were only grounded for five days, the ripple effects lasted over a decade."

"There were mass layoffs, airline bankruptcies, shutdowns. A lot of pilots never came back. I had been furloughed and when you have a family and children to care for, it can be devastating."

"So in a time when there are little jobs available, it makes me very concerned for my aviation industry co-workers and friends." 

Laura Einsetler, pilot for a major U.S. airline, aviation blogger at CaptainLaura.com, and author of Remove Before Flight

Aggressive waves of the fast-spreading delta variant also threaten to push back a travel recovery, which could bring more trouble to the industry as pilots leave for good to retire, look for other work or as their flying qualifications expire   Business Standard

The search for work is occurring among airline pilots all over the world; grounded by the pandemic for over a year. Recruiters for the few new flying positions on the market see pilots anxiously pursuing any potential leads in a desperate effort to save their careers in aviation. Goose Recruitment agency recently initiated a campaign for 30 Boeing Co. 737 cargo pilots to service a client's order out of Europe. 

 

No fewer than 400 resumes landed within a 48-hour period. For the most part, the applicants represented pilots of commercial passenger jets.

A recruiter of overseas pilots for Chinese and Japanese airlines Wasinc International Ltd. receives so many emails from out-of-work applicants, that advertising to fill positions is no longer necessary to highlight roles it is positioned to fill. Down-on-their-luck aviators from Brazil and Mexico, to Canada and Europe, increased a conservative 30 percent from pre-virus days, according to Wasinc chief executive, Dave Ross.

There is some hope on the horizon for some of these out-of-work pilots, given a rebound in U.S. domestic air travel, in an industry decimated by the crisis in declining aviation resulting from the SARS-CoV-2 virus pandemic. The four largest carriers in the United States saw  temporary and permanent job losses that exceeded 150,000 last year, inclusive of pilots and other airlines staff. And according to OAG Analytics, global airline capacity is stuck 31 percent behind normal levels.

Ongoing and supremely aggressive waves of the highly infectious Delta variant continue to threaten to limit and push back a recovery in travel which may conceivably heap more problems on the industry, even as pilots take their permanent leave in retiring, or look about for other work, or as their qualifications expire. The risk to the aviation industry is that a shortage of skilled operators in t he cockpit is inevitable when at some future date, a firmer recovery manages to establish itself.

Typically, under normal circumstances, airline pilots must pass two proficiency checks annually along with additional qualifications linked to specific aircraft models which can expire in a year to 24 months. A condition that risks a shortage of skilled operators in the cockpit at such time when recovery finally arrives. In January, a survey found that over half of the world's commercial pilots were no longer making their living flying; they'd abandoned the profession in desperation.

Four Chinese carriers are clients of Wasinc, including Sichuan Airlines Corporation, accepting applications from overseas pilots, where once there were 23 prior to the pandemic. Travel restrictions tied up with COVID means it has become difficult for foreign pilots to enter China for assessments. In the event that a pilot lands a job, the pre-pandemic compensation packages of some $24,000 monthly have taken a huge hit since pilots no longer fly as many hours. Leading some to leave the industry completely.

"What a lot of people don’t realize is that for pilots, should you find yourself laid off or your airline goes out of business, you cannot simply slide over to another [airline] and pick up where you left off." "The way airline seniority systems work, there is no sideways transfer of benefits or salary. If you move to a different company, you begin again at the bottom, with probationary pay and benefits, regardless of how much experience you have."

"You lose everything. So any threat to our companies makes us nervous." 

Patrick Smith, pilot for a major U.S. airline,author of Cockpit Confidential

Conde Nast Traveller

 

 

Wuhan Institute of Virology Hypothesis 'Politicized'

"Peter Daszak is in many ways typical of the international world of disease prevention. As the president of EcoHealth Alliance, Daszak has spent millions of dollars of grant money from the National Institutes of Health in recent years. His organization's special focus is on preventing the outbreak of emerging diseases, such as coronaviruses. He was deeply involved with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) because his organization had funded bat coronavirus research that lab was doing when the COVID-19 outbreak occurred in late 2019."

"Daszak has been a good friend to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Chinese Communist government that runs it for years. His role in trying to discredit the lab leak theory has come under scrutiny amid a pronounced shift in media attention towards the theory and amid revelations about Daszak's own ties to the Institute."

"Early in the pandemic, Daszak was behind the creation of an open letter, signed by several scientists, which squarely rejected the suggestion that a lab accident at the WIV may have released the virus into the city of Wuhan. Daszak did not disclose his conflict of interest when signing the letter, which would receive significant coverage in news reports purporting to debunk the lab leak theory."

Peter Schweizer, President, Governmental Accountability Institute, U.S.

Shi Zhengli ('Batwoman' center) and Peter Daszak (far right). (Emerging Viruses Group)

"We will not accept such an origins-tracing plan as it in some aspects, disregards common sense and defies science."

"We hope the WHO would seriously review the considerations and suggestions made by Chinese experts and truly treat the origin tracing of the COVID-19 virus as a scientific matter, and get rid of political interference." 

"[China has always supported] scientific virus tracing [and wants to see the study extended to other countries and regions]. However, we are opposed to politicizing the tracing work."

Zeng Yixin, vice minister, National Health Commission, China

Zeng Yixin, vice minister of the National Health Commission, speaks at a news conference at the State Council Information Office, in Beijing, on July 22   Mark Schiefelbein, The Associated Press

"Without Chinese cooperation, WHO's hands are tied, international hands are tied, and our ability to identify the origins of the virus will be much reduced."

Mara Pillinger, senior associate, global health policy and governance, O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Georgetown

"We believe a lab leak is extremely unlikely and it is not necessary to invest more energy and efforts in this regard."

"[More animal studies should be conducted particularly in countries with bat populations]."

"In the next step, I think animal tracing should still be the priority direction. It is the most valuable field for our efforts."

Liang Wannian, Chinese team leader, WHO joint expert team

The World Health Organization's first investigative team arriving in China in February of this year was significantly hampered by the guidance and continual presence of Chinese authorities vetting their every move, informing them what they could and could not do, offering them limited opportunity to visit areas of concern in their investigation of the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing the global pandemic. Vital data that would have afforded the investigative team important information in their study was held back, so the conclusion reached was fairly predictable; no idea really how, where and why COVID emerged.

Unlikely, however, that it was the result of a laboratory accident where a pathogen under study at the Wuhan Institute of Virology somehow escaped to wreak havoc first in Wuhan then across the great wide world. On the team was a virology expert with direct ties to the Wuhan laboratory, and his influence certainly went far in convincing the other members of the WHO team that a laboratory 'escape' could not possibly have occurred.

Among the world's leading virology scientists much criticism of the report erupted, and by extension criticism of of the World Health Organization itself, leading its head, Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to speculate that there might be something to the lab escape theory after all, and that another, more extensive, in-depth scrutiny might be in order. He did, in fact, order such a second investigation, expressing the hope that Beijing would be fully co-operative and open to the venture.

But it was not to be. Mr.Zeng, China's vice minister of its National Health Commission together with Chinese experts urged the WHO, even as they poured cold water on any cooperation on China's part with a second investgation as to the origins of COVID, recommended an expansion of origin-tracing beyond China to encompass other countries. It has always been China's contention that the original infection was sourced elsewhere than China. 

Other countries, suggested Liang Wannian, the Chinese team leader on the joint expert team of the WHO, had another brilliant idea, that further animal studies be undertaken in countries with their own bat populations so that if evidence was unearthed incriminating other countries they needed to explore in depth whether any of them could have experienced a laboratory leak leading to the global pandemic. Back to square zero with Beijing.

Because Beijing claims that the issue has been 'politicized', the WHO's intention to study the origins of the coronavirus where it began, investigating audits of laboratories and markets in Wuhan, with the express aid of Chinese authorities simply isn't going to occur. The WHO's plan of action having listed the hypothesis of a violation of laboratory protocols in China was a direct assault on the scientific integrity of Chinese science, and therefore 'political'.

 

Strange that, since in 2010, Shi Zhengli director of the Centre of Emerging Diseases at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and a bat expert, published a paper describing a scenario where infected rodents led to a deadly virus leaked from a Chinese lab. The paper's title was: "Hantavirus outbreak associated with laboratory rats in Yunnan, China," of an outbreak of hantavirus hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome at a college in Kunming as the result of a lab leak in 2003.

 

And Peter Daszak, renowned zoologist and molecular biologist in 2015 co-authored an article in the journal Nature titled, "Spillover and pandemic properties of zoonotic viruses with high host plasticity," where he wrote that zoonotic virus spillover from wildlife was "most frequent" in a number of settings and occupations, including "laboratory workers." He also warned that laboratories are one of the most dangerous settings for major spillover events. 

Peter Daszak (R), Thea Fischer (L) and other members of the World Health Organization team investigating the origins of the Covid-19 coronavirus, arrive at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan  on February 3, 2021.  HECTOR RETAMAL | AFP | Getty Images

A Global Disaster

Waiting to receive Covid-19 vaccinations in Mumbai, India, on Monday.   Credit...Divyakant Solanki/EPA, via Shutterstock

"The current wave is particularly dangerous."

 "It is supremely contagious and those who are contracting it are not able to recover as swiftly. In these conditions, intensive care wards are in great demand."

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal

 

"[The world is entering a critical phase of the pandemic and needs to have vaccinations available for all adults as soon as possible]."

"This is both an ethical and public health imperative."

"As variants keep spreading, this pandemic is far from over until the whole world is safe."

Udaya Regmi, South Asia head, International Federation of Red Cross, Red Crescent Societies

 

"As India did that, [halting vaccine exports to retain supplies to inoculate its population], the pipeline of vaccines dried up for COVAX."

"I don't know who did the maths, but someone did the maths wrong."

"And the decision to go exclusively with the Serum Institute of India and not provide the license to more manufacturers has proved deadly for the developing world [in a shortage of vaccines for re-distrition]."

Leena Menghaney, Médecins Sans Frontières, New Delhi

 

"The ferocity of the second wave did take everyone by surprise."

"While we were all aware of second waves in other countries, we had vaccines at hand, and no indications from modeling exercises suggested the scale of the surge."

K. Vijay Raghavan, principal scientific adviser to the Indian government

 

"The situation is horrible, absolutely terrible ... Everyone is afraid, every single person."

"People are afraid that if I am talking to a person, maybe I won't get to talk to them tomorrow or in the near future."

Manoj Garg, resident, New Delhi

AstraZeneca doses manufactured in India arriving in Kathmandu, Nepal, in January.  Credit...Niranjan Shrestha/Associated Press

In January, when the Indian government appeared satisfied that it would be able to control the initial outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, it enacted strict orders for its population to remain at home to venture so far and no further from their homes, and only for essential business. The infection rate in India's largest cities wasn't as disastrous as it might have been, given crowded living conditions and matters appeared to be well in hand. As one of the world's largest producers of vaccines, India also magnanimously began donating vaccines to its less-well-off neighbours.

It's a familiar scene; countries that succeeded in gaining a level of control over the global pandemic looked outside their borders at neighbours struggling to achieve what they did, and generously offered assistance. Some countries when China was in the throes of the first infections with the pathogen that originated in Wuhan, sent respirators, masks and anything else they had to give assistance, at a time when their own countries had not yet been engulfed by the fast-spreading virus that all too soon hit Europe and North America, sending Italy and Spain into a headspin.

Things have not proceeded well for India. To a good degree perhaps it was predictable; in fact India with its great population of 1.35 billion people was initially thought of as a potential tinderbox of opportunity for any threatening virus, and it seemed puzzling at first that it hadn't exploded into a firestorm of cases. It's almost as though the virus has a sense of dramatic timing, keeping the world in suspense, and then striking. It has struck India through a second venomous wave that seems unstoppable.

 

India is now experiencing what Italy did a year ago, in the shortage of hospital beds and medical oxygen. Italy became a symbol of the worst that the SARS-CoV-2 virus could inflict on humanity, but worse was to come when the U.S. and Brazil began their own epic struggles for survival against a beast of a virus. The world was given a hopeful boost of encouragement at early news that vaccines were in development, and then a vision of recovery as a handful of pharmaceutical manufacturers saw their products succeed in third level trials leading to approvals for mass inoculations.

 

Confidence was high for those countries with vaccine-producing facilities and the logistics of production and distribution and contract-signing proceeded apace. With India's own national vaccine producer on contract with AstraZeneca and the assurance that it could handle the demand for its product both at home and abroad. Now, however, for a week of succeeding days hundreds of thousands of new COVID cases have been logged for the world's second largest population. There are now 18 million in India infected with COVID-19.

 

Each day over 300,000 people test positive for the virus. The health facilities and crematoriums are working on overdrive and they are still being overwhelmed. On Wednesday alone, 360,960 new cases of COVID were tallied, horrifying India itself and the world around it, impelling other nations to begin sending relief to India, medical equipment, medical oxygen, respirators, personal protection equipment. The numbers are staggering, but according to experts these are not true numbers which are in fact, many times greater than the official tallies.

 

Yesterday alone, 3,293 Indians died of COVID-19. There is one death from COVID reported in Delhi state every four minutes. Ambulances convey bodies of COVID-19 victims to temporary crematorium facilities set up in public parks, parking lots and anywhere else they can be installed to relieve the pressure. Bodies are burned on funeral pyres set up in row after row. 

 

A mass cremation this week in New Delhi for people who died from the virus.  Credit...Atul Loke for The New York Times

In the Delhi suburb of Gurgaon, Genesis hospital informs families they must take their family members elsewhere in view of its supplies of oxygen fast depleting. "The hospital is trying to get fresh oxygen but we are told we have to make alternative arrangements", stated Anjali Cerejo who must now attempt to find another bed elsewhere for her father who had been admitted to the hospital which now is unable to keep him as a patient. 

There is a burgeoning black market in operation however, where scarce supplies, including medical oxygen can be had at prices far, far in excess of what their usual rate is. For those who can afford those astronomical prices there may be a hope, but for the vast numbers of other afflicted people when the public hospitals and clinics are unable to respond, there is no hope. 

 

It is a scene of bedlam as people are lined up on trolleys, in cars and rickshaws with their family members holding oxygen cylinders for them, desperately awaiting an empty bed in the hospital.

India, according to the World Health Organization's weekly epidemiological update, accounts for 38 percent of the 5.7 million cases of COVID-19 reported worldwide last week. The B.1.617 variant of the virus that surfaced in India has a higher growth rate than other variants in the country, according to early modelling, suggesting increased transmissibility. 

India's best hope lies in vaccinating its vast population, in experts' opinion. Registrations were open for everyone in the population above age 18 to be vaccinated. Ironically and tragically, the world's biggest producer of vaccines is vastly short of stocks to inoculate the estimated 600 million people now eligible, added to the efforts to inoculate India's elderly, and those with other compromising medical conditions.

Several states in India have reported a shortage of coronavirus vaccine doses. AP Photo: Rafiq Maqbool

"I think the highest priority, you know, to be quite frank, has to be India."

"I mean, their situation is so desperate and the cases continue to rise [validating the decision to retain vaccines produced in India to be used in India]."

"This is a crisis now at a global level [but countries in Africa awaiting doses supplied to COVAX by India must wait]."

Salim Abdool Karim, epidemiologist, Columbia University 

The Serum Institute in Pune, India, is the world's largest vaccine maker. Supplied: The Serum Institute

The Mysterious Origins of SARS-CoV-2 Virus

The Huanan Seafood Market was previously identified as a location for a potential virus spillover, Dr Eddie Holmes says. Source: Getty

"The discussion was 'where could a disease emerge?' Well, here's the place -- that's why I went."

"I've been to a few of these markets, but this was a big one -- it felt like a disease incubator -- exactly the sort of place you would expect a disease to emerge."

"[There were] crates of wildlife stacked on top of each other [including fish, snakes, rodents and raccoon dogs -- known to be susceptible to COVID-19]." 

"In my mind, the wildlife trade is the most likely source of it [the virus]. The role of that market is still uncertain, but there was clearly a lot of transmission and to me it smells like there's a strong link -- we need to follow it through."

“My concern is that the finger pointing has got so bad, will that happen? I think China just doesn’t want it to be China… so then the question is, are we actually going to see all the data? I honestly don’t know. But the more the politics gets into it, the less likely we will."

Dr.Eddie Holmes, evolutionary biologist, virologist, University of Sydney

"We know how easily SARS-CoV-2 spread from minks to mink farmers in Europe."

"So it's likely the farmer was the index case who then took it to the market, where there was a super-spreading event."

Dr.Dale Fisher, infectious diseases expert, Division of Infectious Diseases, National University Hospital, Singapore

Members of the Wuhan Hygiene Emergency Response Team leaving the closed Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in mid-January 2020    Credit: NOEL CELIS/AFP via Getty Images

According to a British scientist, recalling  his trip to China in 2014 when he was a guest of the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control and was taken by scientists there to the Huanan seafood market, back then the Chinese biologists working at the laboratory were of the solid opinion that the open air 'wet' market was a potential source for the emergence of a zoonotic; the transference of a virus from animal to man. Dr.Holmes was taken as a courtesy and a sharing among scientists to view the market for himself in the company of his scientific Chinese peers.

 

The visit, as Dr.Holmes explains the situation, was involved with a larger project to hunt down new pathogens with the potential to become pandemics in China. Of his 2014 visit, Dr.Holmes recalled the market as he saw it then which is now shuttered, as having been comprised of a sprawling network of narrow covered streets. At the time of his visit it was late afternoon, not a particularly busy time for the merchants and shoppers. He saw wildlife, dead and alive in crates. 

 

He was witness to one animal escaping its crate: "It had got out and somebody was clubbing it", he said of the animal that had been bludgeoned in front of him. He had no knowledge, he added, whether the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control had increased its disease surveillance, or had introduced safety measures in the years following his visit and before the emergence of the pandemic. 

 

This was the notorious market that gained global attention at a time when the first cases of COVID-19 -- reported originally as a 'mystery pneumonia' -- were discovered in people who worked at the Huanan market, and those who shopped there. Two-thirds of the 41 people officially identified as having COVID and hospitalized with it -- had been exposed to the market. That exposure, and the infectious virus going on to infect hundreds of thousands in Wuhan, led to the market being shuttered in January of 2020.

 

According to experts, the site is acknowledged as having had a significant role in the beginning circulation of COVID-19. "No firm conclusion", however, was contained in a report from the World Health Organization on the origins of SARS-CoV-2, to identify the precise role of the Huanan market, though there was confirmation that the virus was most likely to have leaped from bats to humans through an intermediary animal, as yet unknown.

 

Live wild animals in crates stacked on top of each other, taken in October 2014 during Dr Eddie Holmes' trip to the market   Credit: Eddie Holmes

What is indisputable is that wildlife trade in general and wet markets particularly have been recognized for a long time as being linked to emerging new pathogens. Evidence exists that SARS leaped the biological gap to humans in 2002 at markets in Guangdong, China.  

Early in 2020 Chinese researchers had collected roughly a thousand samples from the Huanan market, swabbing rubbish bins, doors and stalls, as well as stray cats and mice, and found there widespread contamination "compatible with introduction of the virus through infected people, infected animals or contaminated products". 

Four days following the first known case of COVID, the first individual with a traceable link to the market became ill on December 12, suggesting COVID-19 might have been spread under the radar in parts of Wuhan simultaneously even before circulation was amplified through the Huanan market.

 

Wet markets are widespread across China and Asia where residents can buy meat, seafood and fresh produce. Pictured is one such market in Nanning, Guangxi. Source: Getty

"When wild animals are kept in cages or pens, slaughtered and dressed in open market areas, these areas become contaminated with body fluids, faeces and other waste, increasing the risk of transmission of pathogens to workers and customers and potentially resulting in spillover of pathogens to other animals in the market."

WHO guidance report

 

"[No evidence that live wildlife was still sold at the market was found – though it was noted that both Dr Holmes’ pictures and] unverified photographs and videos in media reports [suggest otherwise – and none of 457 animal samples taken from the market between January and March 2020 tested positive for Sars-Cov-2.]"

"The manager informed the teams the market was cleaned twice a day, morning and evening. Pests and rats are sought out and killed; holes were closed. Rigorous cleaning was done once or twice a week." "Even though there are rooms above some stalls, vendors were not allowed to live in the market."

Joint WHO-China team report

Inside Huanan food market in October 2014. Dr Eddie Holmes described the site as dirty, not particularly crowded, but with areas full of wild animals in crates    Credit: Eddie Holmes

 

 

When The Experts Get It Wrong

People wait in line to receive their COVID-19 vaccination at a clinic in the Fraser Health region of Surrey, B.C., on Wednesday. New early data suggests that Canada’s recommendation to delay the second dose of COVID-19 vaccines for up to four months may not be effective in some older, more vulnerable people. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

"People who want their second shot are now in limbo. Some don't know when their next shot is coming, some [are] told four months. They don't know if they have sufficient protection or if they have to wait, or whether the second shot will work."

"They signed a consent, which included a vaccine information sheet that says in several places, three weeks for the second Pfizer shot and 28 days for Moderna. [This could be a problem for governments resulting from the legal principle of] detrimental reliance [where one party can force another to abide by its obligations under a contract]."

Toronto lawyer Ian Cooper

"Pfizer could be held legally liable for a death caused by an extension of the time between vaccine doses. I doubt that would ever happen."

"I think it highly likely that Pfizer has been given some 'undertaking' by the Canadian federal government that will hold them harmless. Pfizer would have been legally wise to require that to be in place."

David McCarthy, founder, pharmaceutical industry consulting company

 

"The dosage of the Pfizer vaccine for the second dose is in three weeks, perhaps at the most in four weeks, in order to be effective -- 95 percent, based on clinical studies."

"The delay by our government to postpone the second dose by an extra three months, to July, is irresponsible and dangerous."

"The prime minister should advance the administration of the second dose, from July to April or May."

Leslie Dan, founder of Novopharm Pharmaceuticals

Canada became the sole country in the world earlier this month to mandate a gap of four months between doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. The country is in a position of severe vaccine shortage. Mostly resulting from the federal government's delay in ordering vaccines from trustworthy pharmaceutical sources. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had directed his officials and federal health agencies to work in tandem with a Chinese pharmaceutical company, CanSino Pharmaceuticals which had a link to Canada since its founder was educated and worked for a Canadian pharmaceutical company before returning to China.

 

The National Research Council allowed CanSino unrestricted use of its biopharmaceutical platform on which to base its vaccine. The arranged contract, however, fell through when Beijing refused to permit the vaccine to be shipped to Canada where it was to undergo third trials and production. In the face of the reality of resulting late-order vaccine shortages from Western-oriented reliable sources, the National Advisory Committee on Immunization that had been appointed by the government, decided to stretch available resources by delaying second dosages in favour of vaccinating more people with a first dose.

This decision was undertaken on the theory that while the completed vaccine regimen of two doses reduces risk of infection by over 95 percent, data indicated the first shot on its own can reduce a patient's risk of contracting COVID-19 by a still-impressive 80 percent, ensuring a good level of protection from the virus despite failing to adhere to the 21-day recommended schedule. "Extending the interval between doses was shown to be a good strategy through modelling, even in scenarios considering a six-month interval and in theoretical scenarios where waning protection was considered", the Committee wrote.

Guido Armellin, 86, receives the COVID-19 vaccine during a clinic at a church in Toronto on March 17. A team was on-site administering the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to parishioners as part of a community outreach program to get seniors vaccinated at their place of worship. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

 

Data exists, however, indicating that a delayed second dose can present a disproportionately risky threat to the elderly, most vulnerable to COVID-19. Britain's Public Health Agency shows COVID-19 vaccines not to be as efficaciously potent in elderly populations. First shots for the elderly shown to provide 57 percent protection over the age of 80 in Britain, where 85 percent protection was achieved only when the second dose was administered. 

Members appointed to Canada's National Advisory Committee on Immunization were found to be composed largely of pediatric specialists. "The overwhelming majority of deaths among COVID-19 victims have been elderly, and their interests and unique health and immunological considerations do not appear to be adequately represented on the NACI Working Group", wrote Toronto lawyer Ian Cooper, representing two retired elderly physicians threatening to take Canadian pandemic authorities to court over the decision to delay the second dose of Pfizer, the vaccine they also recommended for use in the elderly.

A notice of claim drafted by Ian Cooper representing the two retired elderly physicians, aged 79 and 83 who have expressed their opposition at having to wait a pharmaceutical-unauthorized protracted length of time for full vaccine coverage was forwarded to the Public Health Agency of Canada, the National Advisory Committee on Immunization and the federal and Ontario ministers of health. "The province broke the promise that was made both in writing and orally at the vaccination site", the draft notice of claim reads; conceivably prior to lodging a legal suit on behalf of the complainants insisting on being vaccinated in a "timely" fashion.

To further emphasize the inadequacy of the policy stretching out those unfortunately scarce vaccine resources, the head of the University of Ottawa Heart Institute has made an urgent appeal for all patients in treatment at the Institute and all patient-facing health workers to receive second doses of vaccine without further delay. Although those involved have received their first dose, in the interval between the first and the second both patients and health-care workers have contracted the novel coronavirus. "I am very worried for the staff" said Dr.Thierry Mesana, president and chief executive of the Heart Institute, at the very time that more transmissible variants are on the rise.

 

"Health Canada has the statutory mandate to authorize drugs for sale in Canada, and only it can authorize changes to the time interval between injections, and then only after the sponsor's submission of new data to support such a change."

"Direct questions need to be asked to Dr. Supriya Sharma, chief medical adviser to the deputy minister and senior medical adviser, health products and food branch -- and specific answers are required."

"Our politicians have played very loose with defined legal requirements, lied to Canadians and jeopardized our lives."

Conservative Member of Parliament Michelle Rempel-Garner

"I’m not aware of data showing that there is efficacy beyond two months of the first dose."

"In the past few weeks, we’ve seen different studies come out showing that the response to the first dose of the vaccine in the people who are elderly, in the people who are immuno-compromised is actually not that good and it wanes quite rapidly."

"[Both Health Canada and the NACI will also have access to the updated findings, meaning a new recommendation could be on the way]. I’m sure they’re following this and they may well be looking at perhaps modulating the recommendation as we go."

"As data emerges about what it takes to protect [seniors and immune-compromised people], we need to be reviewing what we’re doing."

"[As long as there aren’t issues with the vaccine supply, reverting to the original recommendations from the pharmaceutical companies] would be the ideal approach."

"The very people we want to protect the most require that we give them the second dose using the shorter interval, originally as done by the manufacturer in the clinical trials. The one-size-fits-all approach really needs to be modulated in terms of who we need to be protecting."

Canada’s chief science adviser Dr. Mona Nemer

 

 

 

 

COVID in Canada

 

Canada is preparing to roll out an immunization response, which will provide Canadians with access to safe and effective vaccines to protect against COVID-19. This ambitious plan will be delivered through a principled and evidence-informed approach that puts protecting the health and safety of Canadians first.

Governments recognize that Canadians have made great sacrifices to minimize the harmful effects of COVID-19 on our communities and that many Canadians are anxious to know where, when and how they can receive a vaccine. Extensive work has been done over the last several months to secure strong vaccine options and to have the measures necessary to deliver vaccinations to everyone in Canada. Immunizations will be free to everyone in Canada and available over the course of 2021.

Until extensive immunization is achieved, public health measures will continue to be essential to minimize the spread of COVID-19 in Canada and save lives.

Canada's immunization response involves collaboration between the Government of Canada, provinces, territories, First Nations, Inuit and Métis leaders, municipal governments, public health and logistical experts, manufacturers, and all Canadians.

Source: Government of Canada

 

Justin Trudeau at NRC. CP/Graham Hughes

As of Feb. 5, Canada had administered 2.7 COVID-19 vaccination doses per 100 people compared to 61.7 for Israel and 16.2 for the United Kingdom. By contrast, Canada has signed contracts with seven different companies for a total of 234 million doses with options for tens of millions more.

Canada’s first attempt to ensure domestic production was a deal with the Chinese manufacturer CanSino Biologics  in May 2020. Had that deal gone ahead, it would have involved trials at the Canadian Centre for Vaccinology at Dalhousie University and, if successful, subsequent domestic manufacturing. But within days of the agreement being announced, there were already troubles as the Chinese delayed sending the seed material for the vaccine and, ultimately, it never arrived. 

The failure of the CanSino deal and the delay in building the new NRC facility left Canada reliant on foreign sources of vaccine. The contracts for the vaccine were negotiated based on advice provided by the 18 member COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force  set up by the NRC in June 2020.

On top of having no domestic production and the delays, Canada is facing vaccine nationalism from other countries. U.S. President Joe Biden is sticking to an America-first position and not allowing the Pfizer plant in Michigan or the Moderna plant in New Hampshire to export any of their vaccines to Canada until all Americans have been vaccinated.

The European Union is also threatening to block the export of vaccines possibly affecting exports from Belgium, as it too is confronting delays in being able to vaccinate its citizens

The Conversation

There we have it, the Government of Canada's confident assurance to Canadians that it has the matter of responding to the epidemic in Canada, part and parcel of the global pandemic, well in hand. Canadians can be justified in having confidence in their government, the necessary vaccines have been ordered -- even if at a late date, placing Canada behind all other advanced nations due to the tardiness of the ordering because that same government decided to put all its eggs in the wrong basket initially = signing a contract with CanSino Biologics, a Chinese pharmaceutical company under the direct control of Beijing -- and losing precious time until it looked about in desperation to find other reliable sources.

Two of those sources, the only two vaccines to be approved by Health Canada to date, Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, have run into production and delivery delays, leaving Canada in the lurch with a gross insufficiency of vaccine doses and the inability to inoculate the most vulnerable in its population. Canada now stands at a sad 57 in the world of vaccine implementation in its feeble efforts to inoculate its population. When Canadians celebrated in January that vaccines would finally be available, they were brought back to jarring reality when their prime minister promised that every Canadian that wanted to be vaccinated would be, by September of 2021. That far off in time?!

Well, since then that far-off date has been extended to the middle of 2022. And even then, there are no guarantees. While other developed countries have gone about efficiently and purposefully protecting their own, Canada turned in desperation to COVAX -- aUN-sponsored sharing program to ensure that developing and poor nations of the world are able to procure vaccines for themselves -- drawing from their stores and in the process depriving poor nations to the extent that they will have to wait longer. The situation has become cut-throat; every nation for themselves.

Brazil, so hard hit by the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19, is now sending out medical teams to the most remote areas of the Amazon basin, using Chinese vaccines to inoculate their vulnerable populations, just as Alaska, a far richer state in a wealthy and powerful country, producing its own vaccines, sends out its medical teams to isolated and hard-to-reach remote indigenous villages. And Canada -- well, bringing up the rear. Because its government has failed to secure timely vaccines to protect its own. One quarter of Israel is fully vaccinated, the U.K. has administered 13 million doses, the U.S. is on track with its vaccination program.

Should Canada fail to address the pathogen's deadly spread which has killed 21,000 to date, that number could well accelerate, and rise to 46,000 by year's end even as some public health researchers feel that left unchecked, COVID could begin to dry up once 66 percent of the population has been infected. Of course by then the most vulnerable; the health-impaired, those with chronic health conditions, and the elderly will have been decimated in numbers. Numbers could rest at 24.8 million cases in total.

The World Health Organization's estimates are that COVID's fatality rate is 0.27 percent, so that simple math tells us that unchecked, COVID-19 could infect 76 percent of a population relating to 67,000 Canadian deaths in total. Pandemic models at the University of Washington forecast Canada to reach under 30,000 deaths by the first of June. Their September projects of Canada's death count happened to be an underestimate. Since March and the first lockdowns Canada-wide, an average of 1,900 people died monthly from the disease.

Economist Christopher Cotton led a Queen's University team to quantify the effect on the
Canadian economy by continued lockdowns, reaching the estimated conclusion that Canada's economy would be hit on a scale of between eight to 14 percent, representing roughly between $176 billion and $308 billion. Put another way -- between $500 million and $850 million in missing revenues daily. Canada has outspent any other country on COVID emergency initiatives, building debt accordingly to astronomical heights.

 

Although the global pandemic has been a year in its destructive predation on the world, it is still early days, a long way from control. And like any virus SARS-CoV-2 has mutated and will continue to mutate; for the most part harmlessly, but as recent variants have proven in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil, in increasingly threatening forms, far more insidiously contagious, and with as-yet unknown qualities with respect to lethality. And with those mutations and more to come until COVID has finally been put to rest, even greater threats will emerge from those variants.

Those mutations and their incipient threats have galvanized governments and health authorities in countries where vaccines are available and being used expeditiously to exert even greater efforts to control the disease's spread and impact. Canada's government will continue to smile and assure its population that it has everything under control and is doing all that can be done to protect them and those they care about. In the meanwhile, of course, the coronavirus raging in Canada has ample opportunity to mutate at leisure.

 

Paramedics transport a resident from Midland Gardens Care Community in Toronto. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

Canada's Gross Mismanagement of Vaccine Procurement, Distribution and Inoculation

"We've been clear from the start. Canada is strongly determined to vaccinate Canadians while making sure that the rest of the world isn't getting left behind." 

"Our  participation into COVAX is a concrete example of that."

"At this point in time, the idea was always with COVAX that you would have developed countries and developing countries participate so that you would have global buy-in and support for the process." 

International Development Minister Karina Gould

"The COVAX vaccines were a way the developed countries, like Canada, were helping poorer countries have access to vaccines."

"The very fact that Canada is the only G7 country asking the COVAX consortium for vaccines is a demonstration that we have no plan, and Canadians need vaccines to get the country working to secure our future."

"It’s hard for me to divorce the inaction of the government over the last 10 months with what I would do today. We would not be in this position today."

Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has faced pressure to roll out vaccines faster, after delays    Reuters

The World Health Organization, in a bid to ensure that underdeveloped nations of the world not be left behind while their wealthier counterparts received life-saving vaccines against COVID-19, arranged a global pool to assist in the supply of vaccines to poorer countries unable to afford protection by procuring their own vaccines for their populations. The Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is nothing if not prepared at all times to leap into a project with overtones of doing good, and virtue signalling compels the man to announce such a commitment to a universal do-good cause.

Accordingly, among other announcements he is so fond of promulgating to ensure that Canadians are aware that their government is hard at work on their behalf while at the same time not neglecting the obligation to scatter the fairy dust of good works elsewhere in the world, news of hundreds of millions being donated to such charitable good works enables the media to gush over the compelling news of Canadian charity, making Canadians proud of their collective wisdom and caring. 

 

Canada's investment in the COVAX pool under the auspices of the WHO and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (Gavi) represents a vote-winner for Trudeau at the next election.

Particularly when tallied atop this government's unquestioned expediting of taxpayers' lavish funding of financial aid during the COVID epidemic to Canadians in dire economic need. A need no Canadians not requiring government assistance find fault with, only the sloppy manner in which it has been administered so that people with robust incomes intact, teens, and others who shouldn't qualify have received payments upon application, which process had deliberately loose registration guidelines.

Like most things this government initiates and/or involves itself with, there are jarring realities involved serving to diminish the 'good' the government accomplishes and few things illustrate that more shockingly than the revelation that Canada has requested allocations of millions of vaccine doses through Gavi, a source meant to buy vaccines for poor nations, 92 low- and middle-income nations unable to afford purchasing of vaccines on their own.

 

The Advanced Market Commitment facility through COVAX fulfills that role. Canada made a contribution of $440 million to the COVAX fund, half earmarked to secure doses for itself. The fact of this matter is that Canada's current government decided to place its vaccine eggs in the wrong basket; an agreement with China to take part in research toward a COVID vaccine and share in its trials and production. Which fell through when Beijing decided to stop the export of its military-research-linked CanSino vaccine to Canada, permitting the vaccine to be shipped abroad elsewhere.

 

The investment Canada made in the CanSino vaccine was misdirected; those eggs produced no benefit for Canada, and only once that realization sunk in did the government hastily reach out to other pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. and Britain to sign procurement contracts, at a date much later than other countries in the G7 had seen fit to do, some of whom have their own vaccine-producing installations in place, which Canada did not.

 

Of over one hundred countries on Gavi's COVAX Interim Distribution Forecast list, Canada is present as one of a handful of wealthy participant countries along with New Zealand, South Korea and Singapore. Not all countries capable of producing the funds to enable ordering their own vaccine supplies participated in the Gavi program; Canada participated and expressed interest in the COVAX supply facility; hedging its bets to obtain sufficient vaccines as a late-starter, for its population. Canada is well behind a steady supply of vaccine volumes struggling behind peer countries like the U.S., the U.K. and Israel.

 

Canada garnered criticism from public health authorities elsewhere and human rights groups for vastly over-ordering vaccines in a desperate measure to 'keep up' with other wealthy countries vaccinating their populations, complicated by the fact that the two Health Canada-approved vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna have run into production-and-delivery problems. Canada is now in the position of being the only wealthy country in the G7 hoping to procure vaccines through a fund whose purpose is to provide vaccines to poor nations.

 

Canada continues to lag behind dozens of countries in taking delivery of vaccines and administering them, even to its most vulnerable population demographics. And when the World Health Organization recently begged wealthy countries urgently to begin donating surplus vaccine orders to COVAX for developing countries, the Canadian government responded that it is 'too early' to commit to any such donations where vaccination rates are  among the world's lowest.