Vaccines
The National Advisory Council on Immunizations today advised that AZ can be given to people as young as 30. They did also say, however, that mRNA vaccines were preferred.
I have talked before about how we are going to have SO. MUCH. VAX in the next year. Today, the famous high-tech powerhouse of Kazakhstan, announced that they have started delivering their own vaccine to their populace. We are going to have SO. MUCH. VAX.
Part of me wonders what is going to happen with the glut of vaccine suppliers. I think what’s going to happen is that we are going to enter a golden age of vaccines. We’ll get large-scale production of the new malaria vaccine and all kinds of other diseases — Zika and rhinoviruses and Lyme and Marburg and anthrax dengue fever and Trypanosomosis. Many countries are seeing the potential of mRNA technology; I expect to see mRNA used for vaccines for influenza and RSV and pneumonia and HIV and rabies and different kinds of cancers.
Speaking of gluts, the Canadian federal government has accepted paperwork for the developed-in-Canada 🇨🇦 vaccine Medicago to do a rolling acceptance, yay! (Alas, 90% is manufactured in the US right now. Medicago is building a plant in QC, but it won’t be ready until 2023.)
Vaccinations
One unknown in the Canadian vaccination drive is how many people will end up not taking a vaccine. For comparison, while USA seems to be slowing down a little with 40% having at least one dose, and the UK with 48% having at least one dose, Israel has fully vaccinated 80% of people over 16 (54% with two doses)!
North Dakota is vaccinating Canadian cross-border truckers. It’s probably more because they are afraid of our scary scary P.1 than the goodness of their hearts, but hey, I’ll take it. Thank you, North Dakota!
The world is going to hit one billion (billion with a B) COVID-19 vaccines delivered this weekend. Everyone all around the world likes to bitch about how ducked up the vax rollout in their country has been (well, except maybe Israel and Bhutan), but omg 1 billion doses only SIX MONTHS after the first trials finished? One year and 43 days after WHO declared a pandemic? That’s pretty amazing.