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TORONTO — Canada is poised to lose its international status as a measles-free country now that an outbreak that began in New Brunswick and spread to other provinces has hit the one-year mark.
The country eliminated measles in 1998 and maintained that status for more than 25 years, meaning there was no ongoing community transmission and new cases were travel-related.
But since Oct. 27, 2024, the virus has spread to more than 5,000 people in Canada, including two infants in Ontario and Alberta who were infected with measles in the womb and died after they were born.
Public health and infectious disease experts attribute the return of measles to declining vaccination rates, stemming from misinformation-fuelled vaccine hesitancy and distrust of science, as well as the disruption of routine immunizations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
I contracted measles in grade one, shortly before I was to receive the scheduled vaccine. Despite being healthy, I became really ill. It was the only time my mother called a doctor (house calls back then). It’s really sad that Canada was a measles-free country—and now we’re not. Misinformation, lack of education.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Perhaps we forgot that after changing to grams and kilograms.
Don’t pin this on the metric system when the misinformation is largely coming from Uncle Sam.
You have a point, but to be faaaaaair, the quote is attributed to Benjamin Franklin about fire prevention in Pennsylvania towns.
another usian peanut gallery but since we don’t have anything I have been like. Man the least we can do is make vaccines free as a way to encourage thier use. The return on investment is huge and it just makes sense. I also feel covering twice or at least once a year dental cleanings would pay off big time. I really feel a lot of health starts in the mouth. Yeah other dental care would be good but it would be easy to have a contracted cleaning rate and there are no worries about a provider trying to do unnecessary things since its preventative. Heck add in any blood tests that are good bang for the buck price wise. I think the thing is that since its like once a year in most cases its easy to know the costs and estimate the benefit.
Friendly reminder that Canada was a global leader in various vaccines until Mulroney privatized Connaught labs in the 80’s. Profits over public health has been the MO for the last 40 years
I’m in BC. I just got a Covid and Flu shot last week free of charge. My grandchildren are getting all vaccines free.
Mulroney, Thatcher, and Reagan were all cut from the same cloth.
Where are you in Canada where you aren’t getting free vaccines???
They were talking about vaccine development, not distribution:)
were all “shat” on the same cloth
if anyone is paying for a vaccine other than for travel it should be free for all canadians of all backgrounds.
I’d rather travel vaccines be free than people bringing diseases we aren’t vaccinated against back here.
If you choose to travel to another country, it’s on you to vaccinate.
the reason i say that is because vacationing is not a right its a privilege so people should pay for those.
Because I am AMAB and had a M on my healthcare at the time the HPV vaccine cost me money. I was one of the first if not the first person with the M on my health card in Canada who was not in the study run by health Canada. It cost me something north of $100, I wish it would have just been in the schedule of vaccines given out but since then every few years I make sure that I am up to date on my vaccines. I have gotten the flu shot every year for the past 15 or so years because I do not want to be the reason someone else gets sick, I wish everyone could think like that.
What does having an “M” on your healthcare mean??
M, F, and X are the general standard for legal gender identification in the world right now, standing for male, female, and non-binary respectively.
That this person is AMAB means they were assigned male at birth, and so they were given male as their legal gender until choosing to update their documents.
There have been huge breakthroughs in cancer research that point to the HPV virus as the culprit no matter the gender. Several throat and tonsilar cancers in males (AMAB) have been responding to some interesting trial treatments with HPV mRNA vaccines in conjunction with the standard treatment and with great results. The fact you got the vaccine early in life (assuming you are under 45?) Is providing you some great prevention to things you might not of even considered.
Should it have been free? Yes. Should you still enjoy some peace of mind for protection against a long list of nasty things for the price of about $100? Also yes.
Yeah I asked to get that vaccine too after I realized an ex girlfriend was cheating. Had to pay out of pocket as well because I’m male. So dumb
And now in Québec they make you pay for the COVID vaccine. It’s 150$. It’s insane. Flu shot is free though? Like, what’s the reasoning?
Covid still free in B.C., for now…
Free in Québec if you have any special health conditions that could worsen due to COVID. Like respiratory/pulminary problems.
But COVID has so many other side effects and long-term problems, it should be free for everyone.
The COVID-19 pandemic was a mass disabling event that made the inadequacies of our system obvious even to those who are not critical of it.
COVID-19 is dangerous to the state because it shatters the idea that disability is inherent or only afflicts the unproductive. It can just happen to you randomly, last forever, and because this thing is an exceptionally infectious airborne disease, it demands a community consciousness that supercedes profit imperatives and progressive growth in order to be addressed effectively. Since we live in a neoliberal shithole that wants you to thank your lucky stars every day you aren’t left destitute, COVID is a dangerous reminder to the masses that their value is determined by the profit they produce for the wealthy and that the wealth extracted from them in the form of taxes has infact not been used to facilitate a support network that would protect them should they ever become disabled. UBI came up in parliament almost instantaneously when it became apparent that this was going to disrupt productivity and that was terrifying to neoliberals.
That’s why COVID is politicised so heavily, but it’s also a vascular disease that is significantly more likely to cause harm than influenza. It is classified at biosafety level 3 (the same as tuberculosis, West Nile, and HIV), which means it is also significantly more expensive for the state to allocate funds to address it specifically. The pandemic arrived in a period where neoliberalization has successfully eroded public medical funding as well as public trust in social welfare policies, so that politicization is easily directed into apathetic dismissal to protect the status quo. Quebec has also infamously gone through a few scandals involving the misallocation of public funds over the past few years, which certainly effects decisions like these.
Generally that effects of COVID are much lower now, particularly since most the population has been vaccinated and had covid.
Vulnerable people (young and old) still get free vaccines.
$150 is an administered cost, a vial is $115 wholesale. Since non-vuneable populations have limited negative health outcomes; is it worth $1,350,000,000 / year for one shot, or $2,700,000,000/yr for two shots?
A doctor in Québec has a salary of $200,000. Lets call it $500,000 to account for benefits and other associated costs.
Is giving every québécois a covid shot every year a better or worse health outcome than having 2,700 more doctors? Or 5,400 more doctors for two shots?
Why is it a zero sum game instead of raising taxes on the rich?
I dont disagree, but this is the reality of public health decisions.
It…really isn’t. You have discounted political and ideological influences on healthcare funding and assume that the resources are already allocated with healthcare prioritized over efficiency and state interests.
Can you show us how you would explain to disabled people that they are not worth the resources to support them; care for them?
COVID is a danger to everyone, and will become more dangerous with sustained apathy. Refer to my other comment on why COVID is politicised and minimized, but the fact that it is minimized makes the world much more hostile to people who have disabilities. It’s important to remember that repeat infections make it more likely that you would count yourself among them and you are currently advocating for the goodwill of others to be the primary barrier to COVID spread. They tell you “vulnerable” people are the only ones effected by COVID because they know a great deal of you are afraid enough to suspend your concern if you think it will only effect the people who are supposed to die easily.
That’s all of course besides the point that this is not how our world works. Budget withdrawal from vaccine programs does not magically produce x number of doctors equal to the reduction in spending. Healthcare is under attack all over Canada, and any chance you give them to unjustly reduce its support will be used as an opportunity to starve it even further.
Of course it’s not a magic one resourceinto another; but public health exists in a resource and public actions constrained environment.
If you want to have optimal health outcomes, literally just ban cars overnight. That will be a massive reduction in direct injury and death, mammoth reduction environmental illness, and huge boon to indirect health benifits; to a scale that dwarfs COVID. And that’s before we talk about climate effect. Plus it evens out transportation for people with disabilities (who can’t currently drive) with those without (who can drive).
This is incoherent. Could you explain the connection more clearly? Why are you making this comparison to dismiss the observation that your initial comment was ableist?
I think its mean to be hyperbolic like, “well if you dont want to recognise disabled people, why dont we just make the whole world better?” Like, yeah dude, car dependency is a major problem that created a lot of needless harm to people and the living world.
Also, there are disabled people who drive and able-bodied people who don’t? Car dependency stratifies public space along the lines of class as well as ability. I genuinely just think you thought a eugenicist argument made sense and now you’re having a hard time rationalising it, but it’s possible I have not understood the message behind this second comment.
I’m saying there are
easiersimplier ways to get health outcomes than covid vaccines for everyone.I’m not sure I follow the logic on COVID vaccines only being offered to vulnerable populations as a eugenicist argument. Those who need the vaccines get them free. Those who don’t need them don’t get them for free.
I’m fully aware I’ll probably get COVID for a third time. I’m equally aware I’ll probably just be sick for a couple days again. I’m not fully aware of what the impact of my 7th COVID booster will be on my personal health outcomes, or the health outcomes of others.
While not equal, it seems equitable to me. Perhaps I’m missing a key population who isn’t getting the vaccine who should be?
And to fully kill COVID, we don’t need a vaccine; we just need everyone to stay the fuck home for 3 weeks, but we’ve proven time and time again we’re incapable of that.
There is so much misinformation and conservative talking points in this comment I’m having a hard time taking you as an honest person.
It is eugenicist to assert that this thing is not a problem because only the right kinds of people die from it. You are arguing that it is acceptable to devalue particular lives because you view them as physically defective relative to you. COVID-19 infection has caused disability in millions of “healthy” adults who were not “vulnerable” peoples. At one point, the CDC designated corrective lenses as a comorbidity because they were so desperate to make people think it only impacts disabled people.
We do know how different impact from infection vs. booster is because literally hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent researching it (infection is worse, full stop). We also know that your immunity diminishes quickly and that multiple infections absolutely fucks your immune and circulatory systems. We continue to experience an increase in deaths related to heart disease represented by groups who do not usually experience it, I.e. younger, “healthy” people.
Nobody cares about what is equitable “to you,” what the sweet fuck do you know about public health or equitability? You didn’t even know how the funding works let alone what the best decisions to do with that funding is. Nobody anywhere in this thread has said the vaccine is the sole solution, I even pointed out that COVID-19 is politicised so heavily because it is only effectively addressed by community consciousness that prioritizes human life over profit. No, not “people are too morally flawed to stay home and because of the original sin we can’t mitigate death from COVID.” It is impossible for that to even be an option when medical leave and necessity costs are not subsidized in this country. That wouldn’t work anyway, as many people do not show symptoms and are not currently required to mask to access spaces where “vulnerable” people receive medical treatment. Individualism is not a worldview that is compatible with reality.
I will not be responding to you again, you’ve shown that you are an apathetic and dangerous person who feels no responsibility for what they say.
Ever since 2018 I have been getting a flu shot every year, too. Why? In 2018 I had the worst flu ever. It was BAD. Arguably worse than even the one time I got covid in 2022 (despite being twice vaccinated for that at the time). The horror of that flu made me never want to get the flu again.
I did… but it was never that bad.
I never used to get the flu shot, either. My older brother contracted Influenza A, and it was BAD. I get my flu shot now, every year.
despite
Vaccines don’t keep you from getting sick with either the flu or COVID, they reduce the symptoms, reduce the risk of re-transmission and significantly reduce the risk of long term effects of these illnesses. Your system still has to fight the intruder.
That’s why it was manageable and not debilitating.
