Vaccine rollout process requires public trust By: Editorial Posted: 7:00 PM CST Friday, Dec. 11, 2020

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/12/2020 (1379 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“Me first.” “No, ME first.”

Lamentably, this imagined parry-and-thrust of presumed privilege pronouncements could stand as an encapsulation of an attitude that infects far too many discussions in the current era of social-media-fuelled, echo-chamber-abetted and self-gratification-obsessed personal entitlement.

People want what they want, when they want it, unconcerned with how those desires — actually, more like demands — fit into the broader context of the needs of others.

Barely a couple of days after the federal and provincial governments confirmed that Canada has approved the first COVID-19 vaccines for distribution and use, the “me first” approach to public-health prioritization has begun to rear its head.

In announcing that the first very limited supplies of vaccine are expected to arrive in Canada this week and will be shipped, on a per-capita basis of allotment, to the provinces immediately, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister explained that the coveted anti-viral doses will be dispensed first to those judged to be in most urgent need of inoculation.

While no one has taken legitimate issue with the initial list of front-of-line vaccine recipients — health-care workers most directly involved in pandemic response, seniors in long-term care facilities, adults aged 80 and older, and adults at risk in remote or isolated Indigenous communities — it didn’t take long for other interest groups to declare that they, too, should be considered essential to the pandemic fight and therefore deserving of early-jab consideration.

Their arguments are not without merit — individuals employed in such fields as education, transportation, child care and essential-goods retail, among others, play crucial roles in allowing Manitobans to maintain safe and passably “normal” lives during this most unusual, challenging and stressful year.

But not everyone can be first. Which means almost everyone needs to be patient and trust the health expertise that is informing our political leaders’ decision-making.

But not everyone can be first. Which means almost everyone needs to be patient and trust the health expertise that is informing our political leaders’ decision-making.

The first batch of 1,950 doses of the Pfizer vaccine approved by Ottawa is expected to arrive in Manitoba next week. Given that it’s a two-dose vaccination, that modest supply represents enough to protect about 900 Manitobans in the most front-facing and virus-exposed health-care situations. Chief provincial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin said this week the determination of who, exactly, will receive those initial vaccinations will be completed within days.

And then we’ll wait. Manitoba is expected to receive 228,000 doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines — both of which require double-shot inoculation — between now and the end of March. And more supplies will continue to be distributed across the country throughout 2021, with assurances having been given by Mr. Pallister and Dr. Roussin that by the end of next year, vaccination against COVID-19 will be available to every Manitoban who desires it.

We are in the earliest days of what will eventually become the final weeks of this accursed pandemic. It certainly seems interminable, and it has already heaped tragedy upon far too many families. And while the government response to date has not always earned it, what’s required now is public trust in the process and people tasked with rolling out the vaccinations that will bring this most contemptible of seasons to an overdue but merciful end.

Now is not the time for “Me first.” Now is the time for a more level-headed “After you,” until even the least-at-risk among us has been vaccinated and we can all finally get on with our lives.