COVID-19 VACCINATIONS HAVE BEGUN…NOW WHAT?
- Provincial roll-out plans:
- Alberta will receive 3,900 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, to arrive next week, this will cover 1,950 of acute care staff. Shots will be given at 1 location in each of Edmonton and Calgary.
- Expects to immunize up to 435,000 Albertans who are most at risk by the end of March
- Ontario will receive 6,000 doses, delivered at 1 location in each of Toronto and Ottawa
- Manitoba will receive 1,950 doses for health care workers and expects to vaccinate 100,000 by March 31, 2021
- BC plans on immunizing 400,000 people by March 31, 2021 with priority given to staff and residents of long-term care facilities and health care workers
- Quebec will receive 4,000 doses, designated for long-term care workers and residents
- Alberta will receive 3,900 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, to arrive next week, this will cover 1,950 of acute care staff. Shots will be given at 1 location in each of Edmonton and Calgary.
- On a per capita basis, Canada leads the world with enough vaccine reserved to cover 153.9 million people or 410% of our population.
- US ranks 32nd per capita in the world in purchasing vaccine doses. (455 million covered or 139% of population).
- Pfizer had offered an additional 100 million doses for delivery in the spring, but the US declined
- Moderna has started a study focused on adolescents aged 12 to 18 and aims to have data ahead of the 2021 school year.
- Businesses are grappling with how to encourage employees to get inoculated. Ideas include:
- Free COVID shots (In the US, citizens must pay for the vaccine)
- Receive a cash bonus
- If employees refuse to get inoculated, they could be reassigned
- Ontario will provide proof of immunization and those without this proof may have access to travel and communal spaces like cinemas restricted
- Pew Research Poll showed 60% of Americans are likely to get the vaccine and 21% are firmly opposed.
- General feeling is that the process has been rushed
- Walmart has entered into agreements with US states to administer COVID-19 vaccines.
- Both Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline have delayed advance trials of their experimental vaccines as they did not produce a strong enough response in older people. This pushes potential availability to end of 2021.
ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT
- Loblaw, Metro, Save-on Foods and Maple Leaf Foods have signed a global pledge alongside other large retailers and manufacturers promising to redesign plastic packaging and make it more recyclable.
- Alberta is offering Rocky Mountain coal leases even though the province will move off coal power by 2023.
- Hydro-Quebec has entered the market for storing renewable energy; they will design, sell and operate storage systems aimed at other utilities, commercial and industrial markets.
- 1 in 4 homes in Australia have rooftop solar panels; the country is now looking at changing the power grid so that they can harness the excess power generated more efficiently.
- Trump administration is developing a plan to open oil drilling off Alaska, Southern California and the mid-Atlantic states before inauguration day, January 20, 2021.
TIDBITS
- EU is warning that a “No-Deal” Brexit is the most likely outcome.
- President Trump has raised $207.5 million to support challenging the election outcome…he has spent $8.8 million.