Ontario’s [partial] Rollback of AstraZeneca is Disturbing and an Enormous Embarrassment

It has to be called out what an embarrassment it is for Ontario to have rolled out the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, only to [partially] roll it back again. This needs to be remembered as the colossal blunder it is. 

Although not out of keeping with Ontario’s pitiful handling of COVID-19 so far, the rollout/rollback of AstraZeneca is a new low point for the embattled government. All this said, the most disturbing part of this vaccine debacle is that the media seems to be running damage control for the government, which is the exact opposite of their jobs.

I’m sure most of you reading this will understand this point right away, however, let’s go over the timeline again for those who aren’t familiar: 

Back on May 11, when Ontario ‘paused’ distribution of the 1st AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine shot, and at least from my perspective this barely made headlines. 

This is just a personal anecdote, but it took me more than a week to confirm AstraZeneca distribution had indeed been halted by more than one media source, and quite a few people in my circle of contacts had a similar experience. The point is, this story was not widely discussed in the media. 

There was some information out there of course, but for a debacle of this level it’s surprising to see the media essentially covering for Ontario’s government, especially when you consider the mainstream Canadian media has been bitterly opposed to the Ford, PC government. Apparently the Canadian MSM is staving off criticism in this case, though. 

In reality, of course, the Canadian federal government deserves part of the blame for the AstraZeneca debacle, considering as it is the government that approved the AstraZeneca purchase, although we don’t expect the media to be critical of anything Trudeau does now do we.

To be totally fair, there were some stories in the MSM leaking out that some of these vaccines particularly, the AstraZeneca offering, were confirmedly causing blood clots in some rare cases. 

After these initial reports, however, almost nothing has been said in a high-profile manner that’s critical of Ontario’s decision to cancel AstraZeneca, aside from Canada’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Tam coming out for and claiming bizarrely that Ontario’s cancellation of administering the AstraZeneca vaccine had nothing to do with health concerns. 

But is that really true, Dr. Tam? 

Because I remember plenty of articles stating the opposite; that AstraZeneca was pulled in Ontario due to blood clot concerns. 

Additionally, Dr. Tam recommended that while AstraZeneca is ‘paused,’ those patients who ended up (unfortunately, apparently) taking their first dose of the AZ vaccine can substitute their second dose with an mRNA vaccine. 

I’m not a doctor and have no medical degrees, but that sounds about as unscientific as anything I’ve heard since the start of this ‘pandemic.’ It’s not logical, but this is Canada. 

So we have Dr. Tam running cover for the AstraZeneca screw up, as well as the Canadian media barely reporting on it critically, and Canada had a pretty good roadmap in the example of how the United States regards the AZ vaccine. 

While the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is manufactured in the U.S., the AZ offering is the only one of the big four that didn’t receive authorization by the U.S. FDA for emergency use (the others being Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson).

To reiterate: the Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines received emergency use authorization within the U.S. by their FDA, whereas AstraZeneca did not.

That being said, AstraZeneca was approved for export to other countries, so thank you for your garbage, Joe Biden.

But seriously, although Biden deserves some criticism for hypocrisy on this, Canada wasn’t forced to buy this vaccine at gunpoint: despite the FDA non-approval, the Canadian government decided to purchase AstraZeneca and has no one else to blame in that area. The U.S. is an extremely similar country to Canada in many respects, so if the US didn’t approve AstraZeneca that should’ve been a massive red flag for Canada. 

This is really all I wanted to get at with this piece. We cannot be gaslighted into forgetting just how incompetant these governments are, and the situation regarding AstraZeneca is especially important because this is an issue where incompetence is physically dangerous.