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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

>> Canada dragged its heels on pre-ordering vaccines.

No. Canada made some bad bets on where they would be getting vaccine. Canada assumed that a particular person would still be in the white house and that early US vaccines would not be available for export. So Canada threw in largely with European suppliers. That gamble was wrong. The certain person lost and US vaccination rates were lower then expected. US vaccines were available for export earlier than predicted. Canada had not pre-ordered sufficient US vaccines. A mistake? Yes, but still a reasonable judgement call given the US political situation at the time.

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The US was no more willing to export vaccines under Biden than Trump, the media were just less interested in criticising the new president. Same with border restrictions: Biden attacked Trump's as counterproductive in his campaign, then got into office and immediately insisted on reimposing them unchanged and keeping them way beyond the point they made any kind of sense, but the media lost interest in criticising those as well.

people like the softer version of the same thing, in all actuality more people have died when biden got into office, i am not talking about covid here, the air strikes on civilians, the pulling out of afghanistan only to re-enter through the back door is a new kind of okie doke, but hey at least the guy with the spray tan is gone.

>> The US was no more willing to export vaccines under Biden than Trump

That may be true in hindsight, but at the time Canadian officials prediction that a second Trump term would be less friendly to vaccine exports. That wasn't an unreasonable estimation of the US political landscape at the time.

Canada's two biggest suppliers by far have been Pfizer and Moderna. Canada doesn't dictate where they supply the product from.

The US nationalized production in that government decree made it illegal to ship to anyone else unless US contracts had been satisfied in full (NOTE: I am not judging this at all. The merits of it are arguable, but it does point out a weakness in a reliance on free trade). The change of government didn't change this an iota.

The defense production act dictated that 100% of production was for the US until the government said otherwise. Moderna and Pfizer were both forced to supply Canada from the European factories as a result, even long after US vaccine manufacturing far exceeded consumption.

How did Israel gets enough vaccine by April then? Canada had barely started receiving doses then?

I see an awful lot of whitewashing to cover mistakes going on.

a) Canada has 4x the population of Israel

b) Israel agreed to the extraordinary term of sharing their data with Pfizer, in exchange for getting doses early, something Canada almost surely won't be willing to do

c) The Israeli PM Netanyahu was facing significant electoral challenges and desperately needed a win, so there was a lot of political will

I wouldn't place too much weight on C. Even under the new Bennett-Lapid government, the country has been willing to go all out on booster shots.

There's just a lot of willingness to go for "good enough" solutions in emergency situations, and forget the rules for the duration.

Civil defense culture also helps, in that it's trained people to reason about countermeasures that are not 100% ("hermetic" in the local lingo) - you still get in the stairwell to protect from shrapnel, even if a direct hit will kill you anyway. People don't have the gut reaction of betrayal when a 90% countermeasure fails sometimes.

In terms of B that’s called a “patient registry” which is quite common and done in Canada as well. It’s basically a clinical trial post-approval where you aim to capture every patient on the drug. I’d argue Canada’s lack of interest has more to do with capability and overall interest in early access.

Israel was paying something like $65/dose, which is way, way ahead of what other nations were going to pay.

Bibi's career at this point was up against a wall, and he was willing to do anything to 'be first'. Israel has a cagey foreign policy apparatus, I have no doubt they went 'all in' on this, calling in favours, applying pressure in addition to the regular negotiations.

Short story: they put in a higher bid and agreed to actively participate in studies, something that vaccine producers were looking for. But I would not discount the money aspect.

"The first question is how Israel was able to get that many vaccines when supply is short? It is not because—according to reports—Israel paid about $30 per dose, almost double what other nations did. [...] The answer: Israel is a great pilot country for the pharma companies—small and able to put together a massive vaccination program quickly and effectively." https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2021/01/05/the-secre...

Exactly. Israel was willing to play the game. Other countries like Canada decided to wait for more info. That proved to be a bad move.

And Canada isn’t the only one: Australia, New Zealand, Singapore. Vietnam really screwed itself over trying to get domestic production going (homegrown and in-licensed). Once Delta got hold they saw a 400x increases in cases. Once it dawned on them vaccines were the only out, then acquired whatever they could by begging and borrowing. Now they are looking at a loss of foreign investment and a possible recession.

>> And Canada isn’t the only one: [...] are looking at a loss of foreign investment and a possible recession.

Except that, now, Canada (78%) has a higher vaccination rate than most western nations, including the US (65%). And there is zero talk about loss of foreign investment.

You are revisioning history. Contracts were with companies. Not governments. Canada didn’t order US vaccines. It ordered Pfizer, Moderna, Etc. They were free to ship from wherever they wanted as long as national governments allowed it. Yes once Biden authorized it it accelerated shipment. But there was no gamble, Canada never ordered from US government.

Yes, the US didn't ever have an explicit export ban. But the US government had passed the Defence Production Act, then went to the vaccine manufacturers and made priority contracts with them. What did you think would have happend if the vaccine manufacturers had say no, we'll supply the highest bidder from our US plants first?

The only other production locations were in Europe, so guess where the vaccine manufacturers thought Canada's doses would come from?

Please don't fall for the obvious obfuscation from the US government.

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