A Pinch In Time

The vaccines have arrived, with some proclaiming Hallelujah!

They started with a perceived value to that of a Faberge egg. Now, with the potential side effects, their value has somewhat diminished to scrambled eggs.

I’m not an anti-vaxxer, but this feels rushed to me. I’m fine to let someone take my place in queue until I’m more settled with the offerings and the outcomes, and I’m committed to Canadian ingenuity. What makes it confusing is which vaccine will offer the best coverage void of significant side effects. Similar to paint. I’m looking for a brand that will give me full coverage without priming or requiring two coats.

The perceived ultimate goal behind ending this pandemic is the vaccine so we can achieve herd immunity. I’m not in the critical demographic, but I’m not Superwoman either as I soon enter the sixth floor of my life. I was taken aback to discover that the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, which was 64% then 66% reliable, was being saved and considered for those that are 60-64. I’ve not scrolled down a demographic that ever read 60-64. I have seen 50-60, 60-70, 70-80, which begs the question: are they looking to dump what they’ve purchased by jamming it into the arms of mature rockers whose age matches the reliability of their vaccine? Interestingly, no one says how long the current vaccines will last and what happens when we get the next virus. I’m not interested in being jabbed with a vaccine that is closer to 50/50 than it is to 100%.

I’m sure in time, Costco will receive the vaccine because don’t they get everything? It’ll be a Kirkland brand, no less, where instead of one or two shots, you’ll get nine inoculations because Costco does ‘go big’ or ‘go home’ better than anyone else. In the holy grail of box stores where you can buy 10,000 tampons in one box, why not nine shots of wtf to kill not one but a family of variants.

Several vaccines now exist and appear to have issues to some degree, although I’m well aware some would challenge me on that. I’m not interested in a doctor that graduated in the 65 percentile of his class, and I’m not keen on a vaccine that isn’t sure about its job. I want something 100% equipped to tackle the issue, the Marvel Comics superhero of vaccines.

With the dispensing of the vaccines, it’s a given to prioritizing seniors, the medical community, and including all those who work in industries surrounded by people who are vulnerable and can spread the virus. The homeless and young people need also be included.  One segment of the population is vulnerable due to circumstances beyond their control, the other believing they’re infallible and itching to socialize. Those in the middle, without preexisting conditions who practice their due diligence, will be fine to delay their inoculation as herd immunity gathers traction around them. Time to amend the government’s current strategy in how it’s administering vaccines to locations opened 24/7 with some assistance from either the Red Cross or others in delivering the shots.

The topic of vaccines compelled me to do research, and I am groovin’ on the medical vaccines being made right here in this great land of ours. If Covid taught us anything, it’s that as a nation, we need to become self-reliant. Vaccines and PPE are serious business, and I can’t believe that we had to go offshore to get those things with all the brilliant people who live here. Canada always punched above its weight; we’re just quiet about it. What we must realize is that we have to become self-sufficient. What would happen if we were ever in a situation where there was a pandemic, and there were sanctions against us that would disable us from receiving medication? We’d be screwed. There have been many insights gained from Covid, and the fact that there is lots of room for us to become more self-reliant in all kinds of different areas is loud and clear. All government levels need to capture the medicinal, financial, and employment opportunities as they pursue that route.

Vancouver’s adMare BioInnovations is expediting the medical response to the pandemic, recognizing that Canada needs to rebuild its life sciences sector.  I did find a Canadian biopharmaceutical company called Medicago. Their Covid 19 vaccine is made with a weed called Nicotiana benthamiana. It is related to the tobacco plant that is native to Australia. It is plant-based and currently is in the third level of trials. We’d be set if we ever required a vaccine where the primary ingredient was weed, but that’s not the case on this go-round. Medicago was a Canadian contender to produce a vaccine, and they also alerted the federal government for years that a pandemic was coming and Canada was ill-prepared. I find comfort in a firm with that type of fore site and leadership. Medicago’s technology is fast and agile. Able to be stored in a regular fridge and looks like a bright light on the vaccine stage. They lobbied the government for funding but never received what they needed until after Covid hit. What is disappointing is when the government isn’t invested in the same critical vision as it ought to be.

The public will demand self-sufficiency moving forward because no one wants to go through this again, and there are no promises on that front. Anything is possible after Covid, so why not prepare for it and be the country that exports and leads the way with our brilliance while expanding research at home. Instead of bringing it in from elsewhere and watching from afar individuals like the biologist of Moderna, who is a Canadian living and working in the U.S.

The vaccine conversation is loaded. Individuals must take responsibility for their decisions, whatever they may be, and not everyone can participate, leading me to another Canadian company called SaNOtize. Its offering is a nose spray that is 99% effective when taken 72 hours before being in a crowd or travelling and 95% within 24 hours with no side effects. SaNOtize is another Canadian company that is still in the trial phase waiting for regulatory approval. I could see that spray having all kinds of applications. For those who can’t get vaccinated for whatever reason, this might serve as a solid alternative. The point is to protect ourselves and others, and here are two companies amongst others working on precisely that. The Canadian government needs to support all of them.

The vaccines feel like the last stop on a very long road of little leadership during this pandemic. Our small businesses were closed for an unjustifiable long time, the longest in North America. We had ridiculous closures following a pattern no different from a yo-yo diet in our province, where one side of the street is shut down while the other side remains open. A decision not based on data but fear. We had people who weren’t supposed to travel privy to the protocols who did anyway. Hey there Rod, I’m talking about you. We had a federal government that instilled stringent travel precautions close to a year after the fact instead of the month the pandemic started. Add to that the lack of leadership around the spiralling homeless and social issues, and you have another pandemic that requires its own vaccine. We witnessed a pandemic that was overseen and run on ego and fear with a healthy dose of chaos and confusion. I didn’t see any strategic directives that were well thought out or based on reliable data. All of this distilling into distrust in the governnent.

We will get to that herd immunity sooner than later. I’ll be stringent in my management around this pandemic even after I’m inoculated. In the interim, I continue to be focused on keeping my immunity in a stellar state. Eating healthy, sleeping well, eliminating stress and taking my supplements from vitamin C to Zinc, ensuring optimum immunity. Most importantly, staying out of fear which is notorious for lowering our resistance by putting us into a place of stress.

Once Covid is addressed, we need to work on a vaccine for politicians. It needs to be comprised of at least 12 shots to be administered in their posterior, making it mandatory every election year. It would be designed to make them immune to bullshit, remind them they are on the public’s payroll and render their ego null and void. It would infuse them with vision, compassion, eliminate notoriety, whereby they would champion causes in their constituents’ best interests, not their own agenda. They would rely on data to strategically direct things from a place of empirical evidence, not optics and operate with transparency and integrity.

The pandemic of lost leaders in managing Covid is a global virus as widespread as the virus itself.