The Harper Government Continues to Confuse us Over H1N1 Vaccine

The Harper spin machine has been working overtime to deflect attention away from their mishandling of the H1N1 crisis.

They have also consistently lied. We were told that everyone would be vaccinated, but now the message is that there is only enough vaccine for everyone if a great many Canadians ignore the advice of our government, and don't get the shot.

Is it any wonder we're confused?

Feds can't promise H1N1 shot for all Canadians by Christmas
Top health official also announces 36 serious reactions to vaccine
By Meagan Fitzpatrick,
Canwest News Service
November 17, 2009

OTTAWA — If every Canadian heeds the advice of public health officials to get the H1N1 shot, there will not be enough vaccine available by Christmas as the federal government has been promising, the chief public health officer acknowledged Tuesday.

Dr. David Butler-Jones and Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq have consistently said there will be enough vaccine for every Canadian who needs and wants it by Christmas, but "enough" doesn't mean sufficient supply to cover the entire population.

"We should have enough by the end of the year for close to certainly 60 to 75 per cent of the population," Butler-Jones said in an interview with Canwest News Service. "If 33 million wish to be immunized, then that may take us into January."

While the federal government has ordered more than enough vaccine for the entire population — 50.4 million doses — it is basically counting on thousands of Canadians ignoring their advice to be vaccinated when it says there will be enough for everyone by the end of December.

And we are far from being out of the woods yet:

H1N1's true toll not shown by death tally, picture may take months to come clear
By Helen Branswell

(Dr. Kumanan) Wilson is, however, seeing the destructive power of this strain of influenza.

"Nobody has seen a flu season like this on the ground level," he says. "If you talk to any frontline worker, they've never seen anything like this. And we keep getting told this is nothing."

"Emergs (emergency departments) are filled. All the children's hospitals are filled. Family docs I talk to say 'Oh my God, I've never seen so many flu cases."'

Wilson says it is "disingenuous" to criticize the response to this pandemic by comparing the low death toll to the substantially higher estimates of seasonal flu deaths. "I feel it under plays the significance of this."