It’s not the vaccine. It’s the vaccination

The NPC Healthbiz Weekly has launched. It's your weekly briefing on topics pertinent to healthcare marketers and executives published in cooperation with Peak Pharma Solutions. From Chronicle Companies, organizers of the National Pharmaceutical Congress. More info at pharmacongress.info

⇒ Issue #153 (In numerology, 153 brings powerful and reassuring energy.)

⇒ Confirmed Covid cases in Canada as of 12/24: 532,506*
⇒ Confirmed Covid fatalities in Canada as of 12/24: 14,616*
⇒ Worldwide Covid cases as of 12/24: 78,837,181*
⇒ Worldwide Covid fatalities as of 12/24: 1,733,347*

December 24, 2020—Good Christmas Eve morning to all you faithful CurveFlatteners. It’s editorial director Allan Ryan here, bringing you the last edition of DCF for this memorable year, direct from "Ice Wine Country," Ontario’s Niagara Peninsula. 

Let’s draw the stage curtains for 2020 (and no encore, please). Events over the last week have indeed created glimmers of hope as some areas of Canada have begun to receive the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines. A timely holiday present indeed for those slated to first receive a vaccination—long term care residents and healthcare workers, especially those on the front lines caring for patients with Covid-19. However, not everyone appears convinced that a vaccine is an answer.

  

A new Ipsos/Radio Canada poll suggests that while more than 60 per cent of Canadians reported they would get vaccinated against Covid-19, many would prefer to wait at least a month or two after a vaccine is approved before getting the shot. (That shouldn’t be a problem, considering the time it will take for the vaccines to roll out across the country.) On the other side of the equation, 20 per cent of the 3,000 people surveyed were undecided, while 16 per cent said they definitely would not get vaccinated.

A survey of healthcare workers reported by the Tampa Bay (Fla.) Times revealed the startling fact that almost half of the Tampa General Hospital system employees want more data about any vaccine before they are willing to be injected. It’s the same story at AdventHealth’s western Florida division and at Moffitt Cancer Center, where 41 per cent of 13,000 staffers said they would initially decline the vaccine.

“A lot of my colleagues don’t want to get the vaccine until it’s tried,” Stephen Quinones, an emergency room nurse at AdventHealth Tampa, told the newspaper. “But some of us are going to have to take a leap and trust that the scientists behind this have our best interests in mind.”

The NPC Podcast is back for another season. The National Pharmaceutical Congress organizers are proud to release our new weekly podcast series, hosted by Peter Brenders. Peter's guest this week is Mike Cloutier. Listen here now, or download the episode and play it at your convenience. The NPC Podcast is presented in cooperation with Impres Pharma

COVID CHRONICLE 12/24/2020

• The new Covid-19 variant identified this week in the U.K. is reported to be 70 per cent more transmissible. According to this release from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and reported by the cable network CNBC, the strain may already have been circulating in North America undetected.
  
• Covid-19 is now infecting Antarctica, according to this report from CTV News. Three dozen people have reportedly contracted the virus at a Chilean research base. Antarctica was for months the only continent that remained untouched by the global pandemic.
  
  
• The results of an Australian study from Monash University Department of Immunology and Pathology indicate that people who have recovered from Covid-19 maintain immunity to re-infection that can last for up to eight months. “These results are important because they show, definitively, that patients infected with the Covid-19 virus do in fact retain immunity against the virus and the disease,” said Associate Professor Dr. Menno van Zelm, who led the study. The research was published on Dec. 22 in the journal Science Immunology.

TODAY CHRONICLE IS WORKING ON

Chronicle is working with the curriculum committee for the upcoming Indigenous Skin Spectrum Summit, including Drs. Gary Sibbald and Rachel Asiniwasis developing the program for the Indigenous SSS and Canada’s first National Close the Gap Day. The event will be held on March 18 and 20, 2021.  

RIGHT NOW WE ARE LISTENING TO...

While some might find this tune on the schmaltzy side (oh, for example, someone with a temperament like our own Jeremy Visser, who established in yesterday’s DCF his casual disdain for Christmas music), I think this video is kind of moving. Fifty years ago (yes, half a century), Jose Feliciano wrote an earworm called "Feliz Navidad." This version of his little song is, in my view, inspiring, with the kids of the Young People’s Chorus of New York City swaying in the breeze off the harbour, the backdrop of the Big Apple, and Jose himself in fine form. Hope you enjoy it (tip: Fast forward through the Jane Pauley interview if you would like, that’s what I do).

HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND BEST WISHES FOR THE NEW YEAR

That’s it for 2020, and what a year it has been. The DCF team wishes you and your family an excellent and invigorating and socially distant holiday season. We’ll return on Jan. 13, 2021.