- Canada is the only G7 country that should receive vaccines in the first deliveries of the COVAX scheme.
- COVAX is focused on the poorest countries, and most wealthy nations are purchasing vaccines separately.
- Canada had a difficult deployment and countered critics by saying that its “top priority” is to vaccinate Canadians.
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Canada does not give up after being criticized for receiving a portion of vaccines from the COVAX program, which distributes vaccines to the poorest countries.
COVAX gathers funds from richer countries for vaccines to be distributed around the world, including to poorer countries, many of whom have yet to vaccinate anyone.
The plan for the first round of distribution of these vaccines was announced on Wednesday, including the allocation from Canada.
COVAX plans to deliver more than 330 million doses of the AstraZeneca / Oxford and Pfizer vaccines in the first half of 2021.
Vaccines are to be distributed among 145 nations, including 92 low- and middle-income countries. This number of doses is sufficient to cover about 3.3% of the population in these countries.
By Friday, Canada had already vaccinated about 2.7% of its population, according to data from Our World in Data.
This pace is far ahead of most COVAX beneficiaries, but it is behind countries with national wealth similar to Canada, including the USA, the United Kingdom and most of the EU.
Ultimately, COVAX aims to deliver doses to at least 20% of the populations in recipient countries, but supply problems mean it will take many months to deliver on that promise, and wealthier nations are guaranteed to reach that level much sooner. .
Other wealthier countries, such as New Zealand, will also receive vaccines from COVAX. But Canada is the only G7 member listed to receive the COVAX vaccine in this first round of vaccine distribution.
Canada is expected to receive 1.9 million doses of the AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine in total.
Speaking to Canadian network CBC News on Wednesday, Karina Gould, Canada’s international development minister, defended the move.
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She said that Canada contributed $ 440 million to COVAX, and that half was earmarked for the purchase of doses for Canadians. The other half of the money went to low and middle income countries, she said.
“This was part of the strategy from the beginning,” she said. “Our top priority is to ensure that Canadians have access to vaccines.”
The move comes after concerns have been raised about “vaccine nationalism”, by which the richest countries are accumulating vaccines, while the poorest countries struggle to get their own stocks.
On Tuesday, President Joe Biden’s government said the United States would join COVAX, although the scope of its contribution was unclear.
Oxfam criticized Canada’s decision to use the first COVAX vaccines, which it said was motivated by domestic political pressure. Canada has faced some problems accessing vaccines quickly, despite having ordered 40 million doses of Modern vaccine and 76 million doses from Pfizer.
Dr. Jason Nickerson, a humanitarian affairs consultant at Doctors Without Borders, told Yahoo! on Wednesday that Canada was “skipping the line”.
He said the effect of his decision is that low-risk people in Canada will receive vaccines before high-risk ones elsewhere, a situation he called “frankly indefensible”.