In North America, we seem to have a fascination -- or perhaps fixation -- with private industry being more efficient than the public service when it comes to doing "stuff". Whatever we want done, we think that private industry will make it happen faster and more efficiently than government could ever do.
Bollucks.
Note: I thought I might take this post into territory where I discuss the takeover of the elites (a.k.a. Oligarchy), or globalization, or some other angle on our fascination with the assumption that the wealthy have it all figured out. But the reality is that this is just a distraction from the topic I would rather discuss, and so instead I urge you to read this excellent New Yorker article that discusses the book Hillbilly Elegy. It thoroughly discusses the plight of us normal people and how the elites look at us. Think about it a bit before automatically rejecting the value of government intervention where it is needed.
Now, we've recently been treated to the news that our vaccine shipments have been interrupted for at least a week. We also know that we have only managed to vaccinate 1% of the population in the time that the Americans have vaccinated over 3%. So what gives? Well, here is a clip from a McLean's article regarding the recent aggressive mutation and what it might do in light of our embrassingly poor vaccination plan. This clip explictly discusses why we are suffering the difficulties in supply.
How widespread or common is such sequencing of COVID samples in Canada?
Canada has been conducting viral genome sequencing through the Canadian COVID Genomics Network (CanCoGen), which was started in April 2020—though many public health labs and research labs had started sequencing to some extent prior to this. As of Dec. 22, more than 25,000 viral genomes have been sequenced as part of this (roughly five per cent of confirmed cases in Canada at that time.)
Some countries are doing more sequencing than we are in more of a “real-time” fashion; e.g., the U.K.’s sequencing network, with whom CanCOGen is partnered, has sequenced ~10 per cent of all their cases. Part of this relates to infrastructure and years of ongoing investment. The U.K. is one of the world leaders in using genome sequencing for public health surveillance, with capacity they have built over the course of the last decade for enteric pathogens and tuberculosis.
How much sequencing would Canada need to be doing in order to know how B.1.1.7 and other variants are spreading here?
This is difficult question. The higher our sequencing and analytic capacity, the more we will be able to detect B.1.1.7 and other variants are they arise. However, there are substantial challenges to increasing this in the middle of a pandemic. Investments need to be made to continue to build infrastructure, fund sequencing, hire skilled scientists who can lead and conduct analyses, and support those already working long hours on this, etc. It’s not as clear cut as just “sequencing more,” unfortunately.
So that's depressing. We don't have the ability to create a vaccine, nor to produce one. We lost all the researchers at some point. And here is an article from the Hamilton Spectator explaining how the last Conservative federal government (a.k.a. Stephen Harper) drastically cut research dollars that had the inevitable knock-on effect of researchers saying goodbye to Canada along with all those partnerships that get shit done. Resulting in the fact that we don't have a single Pharmaceutical partnership to lean on and thus we are automatically at the back of the line to those who do.
Bummer.
Let's all try to remember then that government funding of pure and applied research is a good thing and ultimately benefits the population in ways not understood when the hack and slash of austerity raises its ugly head to the benefit of cronies and other relationships but to the obvious (now, at least) detriment to the population being governed.
Yes, people rarely do learn this lesson since each candidate for government pays attention to controversial issues that can galvanize their base to kick those bastards out! But that does not make for good government (see USA 2017-2021), and maybe we should also remember to factor in all those unnecessary deaths in both countries. After all, we have "business first" governments at the head of most provinces and of the USA and many states. The coelescence of these governments in a time of hyper-partisanship could not have been worse given the presence of a deadly pandemic and all ...
My bottom line -- the federal government in Canada should be ensuring that we have the capacity to resist the next pandemic, and that we revive at least some areas of our manufacturing capability so that we are not trying to fight the entire planet to get in line for factories in other parts of the world. Surely it is worth paying a bit more for goods when that also means more jobs for our own population. The elites have a whole world to plunder. The elites shift profits around to avoid paying taxes in Canada. These are very good reasons to none get too bent when the worst of them bugger off somewhere else to pillage the population.
