On Vaccinations, the Soviet Union, and Chickens

Don Braid writes in the Calgary Herald:

Only Alberta has been forced to close all vaccination clinics for four full days. It's still a mystery why our authorities decided to go for mass immunization rather than the more controlled approach adopted by most other provinces.

But there is a clue in Health Minister Ron Liepert's comment last week about avoiding "Soviet mode."

He was talking about his distaste for asking people to prove they're high risk in order to get a shot. But the minister soon got exactly what he dreads--a classic Soviet-mode breakdown.

The symptoms are familiar to anyone who spent time in the old Soviet Union.

First, you line up to get something the government controls by monopoly.

Everyone shuffles along in perfect communal equality --the healthy along with the sick, the pregnant, the very young and the very old.

Hours or days later you finally reach the front of the line, only to learn that somebody else got your chicken.

Then they close the line until some undisclosed date when distant central authorities can produce and deliver more chickens.

The swine flu lines went through all those stages last week. Toward the end, parts of Calgary looked like some dreary Moscow street corner in 1975.

As Liberal MLA Dave Taylor put it, Liepert is "sucking and blowing" at the same time.

Meanwhile, the chickens have not come home to roost yet since no one's been fired for the mishandling of this colossal mess.

The Alberta government is set to announce a revised plan for restarting its vaccination program this week after suspending it over the weekend.

Related:

Don Martin asks where those 6 million doses are.

MPs held an emergency H1N1 debate on Monday nite. I'd wager that people interested in medical drama tuned into House on the teevee instead.

Speaking of mass confusion:

Children from 6 months to 9 years old should still get two doses, about a month apart, Dr. Fauci said. But the first dose usually provides partial protection, meaning a child might still catch the flu but would be more likely to have a mild case.

The World Health Organization last week recommended one dose of vaccine for all children, but the United States is ignoring that advice. The organization’s primary goal is to make sure that the world’s vaccine supplies stretch as far as possible among the world’s children. It endorses vaccine-stretching adjuvants and favors one dose per child so more children can get one.

Federal health officials, by contrast, are trying to make sure that American children are fully protected first. They have also decided not to use adjuvants, even though they think they are safe, because anti-vaccine lobbyists have campaigned against them, calling them dangerous, and officials feared that some Americans would be scared away from being vaccinated.

One dose? Two doses? What's right for kids when it comes to H1N1 vaccine?

Update:

Alberta's Vaccinations Will Resume on Thursday, Nov 5

H1N1 High Risk Targeted Immunization

Due to the unexpected national shortage of the H1N1 vaccine, Alberta Health Services and Alberta Health and Wellness announced plans to begin targeted immunization of Albertans at high risk.

* Starting on Thursday, November 5, children aged 6 months to under five years as of November 1st will be targeted. Proof of age (Health Care card, birth certificate or other valid identification) must be provided.
* On Friday, November 6, the program will expand to include pregnant women.

At this time, the vaccine will not be available to other Albertans. When more vaccine becomes available from the manufacturer, the targeted immunization program will be further expanded to include people under 65 with chronic health conditions. Details will be announced as more information becomes available on the vaccine supply.

Alrighty. Well, I still have lupus and I'm still high-risk with no available vaccination in sight. Great.
 

Alberta Suspends H1N1 Vaccination Clinics

This province is run by morans.

Via the CBC:

Alberta health officials said Saturday the province's H1N1 immunization clinics have been suspended immediately because of a national reduction in the number of available vaccine doses.

Officials said they will roll out a plan early next week for targeted H1N1 vaccines, focusing only on those at the greatest risk. Mass immunizations likely will not resume for at least a few weeks.

Targeted recipients are pregnant women, children six months to five years of age, people under 65 with chronic health conditions, people living in remote and isolated communities and health-care workers.

Alberta Health Services' senior medical health officer Dr. Gerry Predy said the details of the targeted immunization clinics will be released Monday.

He said the suspension of mass immunizations is in effect until further notice.

"It is important for the public not to panic and to respect the priorities for vaccination," Predy said.

"Again, we're asking people to be calm. There will be more vaccine and there should be enough vaccine for everybody who wants it."

The announcement comes after H1N1 vaccination clinics in Edmonton and Calgary were overwhelmed Saturday, forcing clinics to close their lineups and turn people away.

Thousands of people showed up looking for vaccines, some lining up as early as 4 a.m.

At the Olympic Oval in Calgary, more than 3,000 people lined up.

By the time the clinic was shut down early Saturday morning, officials said the wait had already reached an estimated eight hours and the lineup stretched about half a kilometre outside the building.

And then they go on to justify not targeting high-risk people first to begin with.

[insert expletive here]

Related:
A quote from the Health Minister Moran:

Liepert, meanwhile, said "Albertans are not getting the message" about prioritizing vulnerable patients for the vaccines.

However, he maintained the government is not going into "Soviet Union mode" where they will have people in lineups prove they're in the highrisk category.

 

Quote du Jour: H1N1 Hysteria

The Tory MLA for Battle River-Wainwright, Doug Griffiths, has been fielding complaints from his constituents after a clinic in Wainwright ran out of vaccine earlier this week.

Griffiths believes both politicians and the public need to settle down.

"This sort of pandemic hysteria is, is — I don't understand why people are doing it. It's the flu," he said.

Gee. Maybe the word "pandemic" and the message from various levels of government that people should be vaccinated has something to do with that - no?

Day 5 of the vaccination program here in Alberta and the handling of the situation is still an absolute mess.

People wanting the swine flu vaccine in Calgary are being turned away as the clinics in Alberta's two biggest cities prepare for an early Friday closure.

Clinics in Calgary and Edmonton have been open every day this week until 8 p.m. But for the next three days, the clinics are set to close at 3:30 p.m. in Calgary and 4 p.m. in Edmonton.

All five of Calgary's H1N1 vaccinations have closed their lines to new people as of noon, Alberta Health Services announced. Those already waiting in line will get the shot.

On Friday morning, new flu assessment clinics opened in Calgary and Edmonton with the aim of easing congestion in hospital emergency rooms.

Before the clinic opened Friday at 8 a.m. in Calgary, about a dozen people shivered in line, eyeing the empty chairs inside the closed building.

"Adding to that frustration is that more than 200 people waiting for the H1N1 vaccine in the very same building are being allowed to wait inside," said CBC News reporter Erin Collins.

What's wrong with this picture?

On top of all of that, Alberta Health minister Liepert is now saying that vaccination clinics may close next week because they're running out of the vaccine.

When I saw my doctor the other day, who was at least able to give me my regular flu shot, he said his office was just placing an order for the vaccine and he held out very little hope that it would actually be delivered. He was not impressed with the government's handling of the situation.

I'm still "high-risk" since I have lupus. Exactly where am I supposed to get the vaccine? And when?

Adding insult to injury - after instituting a hiring freeze for nurses not too long ago - the Stelmach government (tone deaf to the core) picked this frenzied time to ask health care workers to take a 2 year wage freeze. Every Conservative government Alberta has had for the past 40 years has inevitably screwed up the province's finances while pandering to Big Oil and the first place they hit for cuts is always health care. Why the boneheaded majority of voters keep electing these fiscally-challenged clowns is beyond me. Then again everybody knows how scary those "socialists" in the opposition are, right? Dog forbid Albertans should actually try a new ideological regime that might actually improve their lives. No. Conservatism is God - no matter how many times it's been proven otherwise. See: Market, Free - Crash.

Meanwhile, at the federal level, the Minister of Damage Control, John Baird, told concerned opposition members during Friday's QP that his party isn't making this a political issue. That, after weeks - months - of pointing the finger at the Liberal party as if it's the actual party in power in charge of dealing with pandemic preparedness. When all else fails - and it has - send out Mr Pit Bull to provide cover for the Cons.

Related:

Temperatures rise as 'flu rage' explodes across Canada
 

H1N1 Vaccination Hysteria

For months, governments and the media have been sounding the loud alarm bell over H1N1 flu - urging people to get vaccinated ASAP. So, it's not like this is a surprise. In Calgary though, apparently it is.

The Alberta government, in its usual (cheaply-driven) wisdom, set up only 4 public clinic locations in Calgary for a population of some one million people. It doesn't exactly take a monkey with a calculator to figure out that those sites might then be slightly overwhelmed with vaccine-seeking people after they've been pounded with pandemic fear-mongering messages since last spring.

And that's what happened, of course.

People in line for 6 hours. 6 hours.

Edmontonians didn't fare any better.

"The response is certainly good, and we're glad to see that," said Gerry Predy, senior medical officer of health for Alberta Health Services.

"Now we have to find ways to streamline things if we can."

Eventually that might mean extending the hours of some clinics, getting patients to fill in paperwork while waiting in line, or bringing in more staff, but Predy said it's too soon to tell.

In the meantime, he pleaded for patience and suggested people bring books to read while waiting.

I'll tell you what, Dr Gerry Predy: you try waiting in line reading a book for hours on end when you're one of those high-risk people who are sick and sore to begin with and who should have been given quick, exclusive access to the vaccination before the general public and then we'll talk.

Predy actually had the audacity to chastise Albertans this morning, saying that those who weren't high-risk should have let those who are get the shots first.

That's not how these clinics were advertized by your department, Dr Predy. It was come one, come all.

I have lupus. I'm immune-compromized. I've gone back and forth on getting this shot since it hasn't been fully tested. I couldn't get into Calgary to stand in line in the frigid temps on Monday and I don't know when I'll get my shot. I wouldn't have gone in anyway. It was obvious that with so few clinic locations there would be problems. There is a city where when the first snowfall hits every year, Calgarians act like they've never seen snow before and proceed to panic on the streets resulting in a few hundred fender-benders - every single time, guaranteed. It's not a stretch to believe that attitude would apply to this situation as well - and it has. I'll talk to my doctor (who apparently doesn't have the vaccine to give me) about it when I see him on Wednesday.

In the meantime, who knows how many people will end up with the swine flu who looked at those lineups and walked away, unwilling to wait?

Yeah - that's health care you can count on, isn't it?

And don't even get me started on how Steve and the feds have mishandled this swine flu mess.
 

'I'm not dead!' 'He will be soon.'

We may not have death panels in our scary Great White North socialized health care system, but we do offer very strong hints encouraging your impending demise.

Ottawa sends body bags to Manitoba reserves

Aboriginal leaders in Manitoba are horrified that some of the reserves hardest hit by swine flu in the spring have received dozens of body bags from Health Canada.

The body bags — which were sent to the remote northern reserves of Wasagamack and God's River First Nation — came in a shipment of hand sanitizers and face masks.

Grand Chief David Harper, who represents northern First Nations, says body bags send the wrong message and no one can understand why Ottawa would do such a thing.

"It really makes me wonder if health officials know something we don't," he said. "I have a right to speak for my people. I make a plea to the people of Canada to work with us to ensure the lowest fatalities from this monster virus. Don't send us body bags. Help us organize; send us medicine."

Now where have I seen this before....?

Oh, yes...



Meanwhile:

"Is the body bags a statement from Canada that we as First Nations are on our own?" Wasagamack Chief Jerry Knott asked. He said his community's nursing station received about 30 body bags.

Knott flew to Winnipeg with the bags on Wednesday and took them to the Health Canada building on York Avenue.

The office was closed at the time, so he stacked the bags on the doorstep and marked them "return to sender."