2021-04-05 from theglobeandmail.com

Because of Canada’s rickety vaccine rollout, it was important for national morale (and for saving political face) that governments got as many first doses of the two-shot vaccines into people as quickly as possible.

Now that we’re sort of hitting our stride – 6.3 million doses have been administered to date, with more than 2 million more vaccines arriving this week – we need to refine our approach.

Quantity matters, but so does using vaccines as effectively as possible. That means not only getting shots into arms, but into the right arms at the right time.

Prioritizing the vaccination of elders in institutional care and front-line health workers, as most provinces did, was the right move. Of the more than 23,000 pandemic deaths Canada has recorded to date, more than 16,000 have occurred in institutional settings like nursing homes, a number that is likely an under-estimate, according to new research.

The carnage has stopped abruptly thanks to vaccination. Yet for the most part, residents of long-term care homes have received only one dose so far.

Is that good enough?

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