Vaccine choice: A first world dilemma

A few eyebrows raised this week when Nova Scotia’s trusted source on all things COVID said the MRNA vaccines — Pfizer and Moderna — are “better” than Astrazeneca’s, although in the same breath Dr. Robert Strang added, “all of our vaccines are good vaccines.”

At a regular COVID briefing, Nova Scotia’s chief medical officer of health was drawn into the flap of the week, which started when the National Advisory Council on Immunization (NACI) said the MRNAS “are the preferred vaccines.”

That implies that the viral vector vaccines — AZ and Janssen — are not preferred, or maybe just less preferred, although that seems a distinction without much difference.

Strang’s characterization of the MRNAS as “better” is merely a more direct way of saying that same thing NACI said.

At any rate, by week’s end most of the experts had found their way back to the message we’ve heard longest and loudest, i.e., “take the first vaccine offered.”

But the advice now comes with the qualifying addendum, “unless it’s safe to wait for an MRNA vaccine,” or words to that effect.

The qualifier is, or should be, irrelevant in Nova Scotia, at least in the central (Halifax) region where the variants of dread appear to be running rampant, as they are in most of Canada to our west.

With that much virus around it is foolhardy to wait. The risk of blood clots from the AZ vaccine — at most, one in 100,000 — is far less than the risks that come from catching the now-dominant strains of COVID.

For the record, AZ pretty much saved the UK where millions of doses were administered and are credited with reducing COVID hospitalizations by almost 90 per cent and deaths by much more than that.

Strang also pointed out this week that Nova Scotians have always had the choice to take the first vaccine offered — for many of us, Astrazeneca — or wait until their age-determined number comes up and get a MRNA vaccine.

Lost in the (hopefully) fleeting controversy over the hierarchy of vaccines, is the remarkably fortunate reality that Canadians have a choice at all. If ever there was a first world dilemma, which vaccine to take is it.

For people across much of the globe — the poorest parts — there’s no choice because there’s no vaccine.

I’m as keen as the next guy to see all Canadians get vaccinated, but a pandemic, by definition, is a global crisis which demands a global solution and surely a measure of fairness should be integral to that solution.

(The above brush with vaccine nationalism is intended to save my inbox from a flood — well, a few — emails calling me stuff like a virtuesignalling libtard. Virtue may not be a strong suit, but I am dangerously near to qualifying as a libtard, if I have the meaning right.)

Vaccines offer the world some light at the end of the terrible tunnel, but in most of the underdeveloped world, where the pandemic’s death grip is growing almost unabated, vaccines are either in short supply or non-existent.

In those same nations, health care — where it is available at all — isn’t near what we’ve come to expect and demand in the wealthy west.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) reported last week that new COVID infections in the preceding 14 days surpassed the total number of cases recorded worldwide during the first six months of the pandemic. This thing is a long way from going away and it won’t be gone until it’s gone everywhere.

The world, WHO said, is on the brink of “catastrophic moral failure.” In the west, most nations expect 50 per cent or more of their citizens to be vaccinated by the summer. In sub-saharan Africa the corresponding number is one in 100.

If moral responsibly won’t move the wealthy western world, self-interest should.

More transmission of the virus means more variants will emerge, increasing the chances that one or more will come along that can evade vaccines.

Sure, we can close the borders against the unvaccinated poor, but as we’ve seen, customs agents don’t make for a certain defence against the mutating coronavirus.

When G7 leaders meet in June, they’ll talk some more about vaccine distribution to the Third World — a politically safe topic after most of their own citizens have had at least one shot.

Leaving developing nations behind also bodes ill for global co-operation in the fight against the bigger crises that haven’t gone anywhere during the pandemic.

The only hope against climate change and the extinction crisis is a truly global response, but the wealthy west hasn’t exactly modelled a "we’re all in this together" posture during the pandemic.

The problems that beset humanity are increasingly shared, worldwide problems that won’t get fixed until and unless the world works together.

The west’s "me-first" approach to vaccines won’t surprise poor nations, but it will give them pause when the west seeks co-operation on other matters of global importance, and who could possibly blame them.