Diane and Terry Dick of Fort Erie lucked out. At the age of 72, they're too young to qualify for a Covid-19 vaccination in Ontario, but two weeks ago last Thursday, they heard that the Fort Erie Native Friendship Centre might have some leftover vaccine.
So they went and got their first shot – but they got some bad news along with it. Staffers told them Canada remains so short of Covid-19 vaccines that they might not get their second shot for as long as four months, even though Pfizer recommends that second dose after three weeks.
"There's nothing coming down the pike in the way of a second shot," Diane Dick said.
The Dicks' experience, though unheard of in the United States, is government policy in Canada, and it's all because Canada faces a vaccine shortage. Given that none of the Covid-19 vaccine manufacturers have production facilities north of the United States border, Canada has been relying on imports and taking whatever vaccine it can get, and it's not enough.
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As a result, Canada's overall vaccination rate remains at less than a third of that of the U.S. That means the U.S. will likely reach herd immunity months before Canada will – and that fact, some fear, may prolong the border shutdown that started along with the pandemic a year ago.
"I believe that is one of the main concerns about the opening of the border: that they are behind on their vaccinations," said Patrick Kaler, president and CEO of Visit Buffalo Niagara.
How Canada fell short
Faced with a burgeoning pandemic and hopeful signals about vaccines from pharmaceutical companies worldwide, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau bet big last year. Knowing that all of Canada's Covid-19 vaccines would have to be imported, the Trudeau government struck deals with seven different potential vaccine manufacturers.
While a Chinese vaccine manufacturer pulled out of its agreement with Canada, all six of those other manufacturers came through to deliver vaccine – but in limited quantities. Supplies are so tight, in fact, that Ontario only last week opened up vaccinations to those over age 75.
"It's one thing to make deals with the vaccine companies; it's another thing to actually get enough of them delivered in a timely manner," said Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infections disease specialist at the University of Toronto.
Manufacturers have delivered so little vaccine to Canada that despite a recent bump in shipments, Canada's rate of shots per 100 residents stood at 12.15 as of Friday, according to Our World in Data's Covid-19 Data Tracker. In contrast, the U.S. has delivered 39.86 shots per 100 people.
"There's no question that we're behind other countries – although, like everyplace else, it is starting to ramp up," said Richard Halinda, a Fort Erie lawyer who specializes in serving Americans who own property in Canada.
In terms of shots per 100 residents, Canada also ranks behind the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany and France. Those figures include both first and second shots of the two-shot Pfizer and Moderna regimens.
While the United States is largely delivering second doses on schedule, Canada this month said it would stretch out the time between doses to as long as four months in hopes of getting one shot in the arm of each adult by June – a move that could dilute the effectiveness of the vaccines.
And while Canada's volume of arriving vaccine doubled recently, Trudeau said in Parliament last week that he's worried that supplies could tighten again amid signs that the European Union and India will limit exports to focus on vaccinating their own populations.
"We share the urgency of all Canadians to ensure access to Covid-19 vaccines," said Trudeau, who himself has not yet been vaccinated. "We are concerned with the new reports of restrictions."
To hear Bogoch tell it, a relatively small nation such as Canada didn't have the market power to strike good deals for enough vaccine.
Making matters worse was the fact that the United States barred exports from its Covid-19 vaccine manufacturing facilities. For that reason, Canada's Pfizer vaccine doesn't come from the Pfizer plant in Kalamazoo, Mich. – but from a plant in Belgium.
"I say this with love and respect, but our best friend and neighbor, the United States, did not help us out," Bogoch said.
That is starting to change. With the United States on target to have a glut of Covid vaccines in the coming months, the Biden administration recently announced America's first vaccine export effort, which would give Mexico 2 million doses while sending 1.5 million to Canada.
"Ensuring our neighbors can contain the virus is a mission-critical step ... to ending the pandemic," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in announcing the move.
The shortage and the border
Canada's vaccine struggles matter on both sides of the border for one simple reason. The border has been closed to nonessential travel for more than a year in hopes of limiting the spread of Covid-19, and it's likely to stay that way until the pandemic eases. That being the case, Ron Rienas, the general manager of the Peace Bridge Authority, said the border reopening is inextricably linked to the vaccination rate.
"I think it's all dependent on where we are with vaccines," Rienas said.
Rep. Brian Higgins, the Buffalo Democrat who's been leading the push to reopen the border, agreed.
"Canada lags behind, and that's a problem relative to our operational objective of getting the border opened incrementally and then fully," Higgins said.
It's a problem the United States should try harder to tackle, Higgins said. He suggested that the Biden administration's allocation of 1.5 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Canada should be just the start of an effort to boost Canada's supply. In addition, Higgins said the United States should exert pressure internationally to make sure that vaccine supplies to Canada get increased rather than curtailed.
"We're helping, but it's not enough," Higgins said.
Canada's vaccine shortage is only one of the issues standing in the way of the border reopening. Canadian public opinion stands in the way, too, said Kathryn B. Friedman, global fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center and a member of the research faculty at the University at Buffalo.
"The Canadian government is very, very responsive to public opinion – and Canadian public opinion is such that they do not want the border opened because, rightly or wrongly, they view the United States as really not having its act together" regarding Covid-19, said Friedman, who last year helped develop a series of principles aimed at guiding an eventual border reopening.
A poll released last week by the Canadian polling firm Leger seemed to prove Friedman's point. The survey found that 70% of Canadians said they were either very or somewhat worried about reopening the border with the United States. In contrast, only 31% of Americans surveyed expressed such concern about reopening the border.
Canadian public opinion could shift, though, once enough people on both sides of the border are vaccinated, Friedman added.
When the border finally reopens, it's likely to do so with one big condition, Rienas said. In addition to a passport or a passport card, border-crossers will likely have to show proof of vaccination against Covid-19.
"You don't have an absolute right to cross the border," Rienas said. "There are all kinds of rules. You have to have a passport, you have to have a valid travel document. So this just becomes an additional condition to cross the border."
