Thread by @sarahjanet

I don't even LIKE Trudeau that much and I got so sick of the Trudeau bashing and fearmongering in the media about Canada's vaccine status that I pulled numbers and did the math on our relative position and looked at who is ahead of us. A THREAD. #COVID19AB #cdnpoli #covid19Canada

First of all, our relative ranking that is causing this hand-wringing is based on vaccines ADMINISTERED, not acquired. Trudeau has no control over the former, and if we calculated on # acquired we'd leapfrog six spots up to 14th in the world per capita. That's on the premiers.

Given that we're 39th in the world for population and second in the world for physical area, (ie not that many people in a whooooole lotta land for vaccines that have considerable transportation logistical factors), 14th is already pretty good, IMO.

But here are the countries ahead of us:

Israel
UAE
Seychelles (fewer people than Red Deer, not a useful comp)
UK (credit to the NHS, their rollout has been incredible, but they have domestic production so not a useful comparison)
Bahrain (1.6m, smaller footprint than #yeg.)

US (the rollout logistics have been a fiasco but they are getting a lot of shots in arms! But again, domestic production, poor comparison)
Malta (500,000 people in an area smaller than Edmonton.)
Serbia (1/6 our population in 1/10 the space)
Iceland (population 356,000)

Denmark (far smaller, 15% as many people as us, and 2nd-best funded public health system in the OECD)
Ireland (population about the same as Alberta in a country 13% of the size of AB.)
Romania (kudos to Romania, they are really punching above their weight here)
Slovenia (ditto!)

THAT'S IT. Which of those countries are useful comparisons for Canada? They're either a *fraction* of our population and size or they're producing their own vaccine. If you want to solve that, take a time machine to 1989 and take it up with the Conservatives.

This is not white knighting for Trudeau. This is NOT A PARTISAN ISSUE. Resist the hot takes from the media. Ignore the bullshit grandstanding from ALL parties. THERE IS NOT ENOUGH VACCINE FOR EVERYONE WHO WANTS IT IN THE WORLD RIGHT NOW. This isn't politics, it's just FACTS.

(I am not an epidemiologist, I am not a data professional, all numbers based on my own math to the best of my understanding, thank you for your time wear a mask stay home if you can tell your elected officials to stop making a fucking VIRUS into a partisan punching bag.) THE END.

Addendum since this is now getting some traction—I also put this on Facebook if your relatives over there are buying into the bullshit whining about this and you'd like the information easily accessible there. facebook.com/sarahmackey/po…