BY THE MATH | Page 2 | Your stories | Discussion forum

It doesn't matter whether one gets the vaccine this week on Monday or later on Friday. It's not like one becomes protected an hour after the shot. It will be still weeks afterwards before one becomes immune.

However, it does cost a lot more to get the same number of people vaccinated in one day than over seven days.

Bill said
Weeks after Monday is still earlier than weeks after Friday, you remain unprotected for another 4 days no matter how you cut it, and so could contract it during those 4 days. That means more deaths. Mr Trudeau has repeatedly said cost is not an issue re our response to this virus and re saving lives, haste is utmost importance, his supporters (most of Canadians) agree, so there's no rationale for cost-cutting now. Plus lots of overtime pay for hard-working nurses, another reason to do it asap.  

Totally agree and valid points. If I have a choice to receive it Monday vs Friday. I will take the Monday slot. Norman can wait till Friday 🙂

Either its a cost issue or it is not. Since I have heard multiple times savings life is the top priority and not $, put your money where your mouth is. Thats all I am saying to Trudeau and the general. Lives saved equals money saved at the end.

I know or know of a few nurses, and at least in my town they have worked pretty much as little or as much as they've wanted to since April or so. Some don't, some do, some have made very nice bank during this time.

I agree, to "some of us" there's no hurry, but every day counts to institutionalized very old folks. In Canada we're losing about 100 of them a day at this time, 4 days earlier immunity nationwide means 400 lives saved (I think).

I have never once heard our PM say money is an issue re this pandemic. And he's the one in charge, so I'm listening to him.

Norman1 said
Well, some of us are not worried about getting it on Friday instead of Monday this week. I'm likely waiting months and not days for my turn!

So, 5 months + 5 days versus 5 months + 1 day is not significant.

It is not those four days one needs to worry about. The people who do get the vaccine Monday are still cooked along with those who get the shot on Friday if they get infected in the weeks before they are protected.

It is nice to say that money is no object. But, it always is. I don't think any of the medical people care for more overtime right now.  

This sounds like some of the same kind of illogic that Norman has been applying to his view of stock market investing lately. I really don't know what is going on with him.

We don't know what the future holds, be it the market or the virus. Six weeks down the road those extra four days could very well save a lot of lives. It depends on whether the situation is under control by then. Doesn't look like it will be from what we can see now.

I can't believe we're even having this discussion! And I'm willing to bet none of you have ever been a health care professional.

And saving lives has never been the first priority of any government in this country during this pandemic. At every turn , they have weighed that against impact on the economy and made judgment calls about which one deserved more saving. This pandemic could have been prevented or at least substantially curtailed if that had been the priority. Decisions were made to keep any number of facilities open when they should not have been, to not enforce rules around private gatherings, to not introduce curfews and so on, all of which would have been done if saving lives were the priority. In addition, earlier decisions were made which hampered the response - cutting back on regulation of LTC homes and staffing, failure to maintain emergency preparedness, entrenched sloppy infection control procedures, and so on.
The only thing I can say in their defense is that I think they really didn't appreciate what was going to happen if they did not prioritize health. The impact on the economy has been far worse than if they'd acted swiftly in the first place. Instead, we got weeks and weeks of "the risk is low; don't panic; carry on with your lives" until it was clear that this was no longer the case. I remember in the Spring when the Ontario MOH said on TV that he hoped to keep the new cases per day at under 200 so as to avoid lockdowns. Well, we no longer hear from him directly, the decisions are made by politicians, and now we're over 3,000 new cases a day, and still the premier would not close the stores during the Christmas rush. The priority was shopping, not saving lives. They have been hoping the vaccines will be their salvation, but there are going to be a significant number of people who refuse the vaccines.