Under Big Pharma, The Pandemic Prevails

Pharmaceutical company and creators of one of the biggest COVID-19 vaccines, Moderna, is opening a production facility in Montreal. This will secure both Montrealers and Canadians with more jobs and Canadian-made vaccines.

Canada has one of the highest vaccination rates worldwide, yet our government is allowing for patents to continue on vaccines, preventing worldwide access to the COVID-19 vaccine. Local 514 investigates how capitalism prevents the pandemic from ending.

The first of May marked International Workers Day – as many Montrealers took to the streets, an annual occurrence, to push for workers rights. Montreal nurses called for international access to the vaccine and denounced Trudeau limiting global access to patented vaccines.

Sasha Dyck, a vaccination nurse, took part in mobilizing for a people’s vaccine and an end to patents.

He said Canada a vaccine villain, holding priority for vaccines to only first-world countries instead of sharing them world-wide. Dyck said vaccines that are given away are almost near expiry. He said that behind the scenes, the Minister of Innovation has been blocking legal mechanisms to allow developing Countries from developing their own vaccines – but now its time to share the vaccine with the rest of the world.

Burundi, Congo, Haiti and Yemen have the lowest vaccination rates in the world – with 0.1% Burundi's having received at least one dose and 2.3% of Yemenis receiving at least one dose. In comparison, 87% of Canadians have at least one dose and 84% of Canadians have their first two doses (or one full dose, such as the Johnson & Johnson's vaccine). 

Angella MacEwen, Chair at the Trade Justice Network has been involved in mobilizing the Canadian government to end patents on vaccines. 

MacEwen said the Canadian, United States and United Kingdom governments are being lobbied by pharmaceutical companies and these companies are influential.

So say you’re not concerned with infection rates in another country across the world – you should be, as this can still affect you. Since we’re such a global community, outbreaks that occur in places across the world can infect travellers entering Canada, thus infecting our population.

Let’s look at the Omicron variant BA.2, for example. This variant started becoming the dominant variant in Europe in early March, by mid-March, BA.2 became half of all COVID-19 cases in Canada.

The wealth inequality isn’t only apparent country-to-country, but neighbourhood-to neighbourhood. 

Early on in  the pandemic, data showed how Montreal's poorest and most racially diverse neighbourhoods were hit hardest by COVID-19.

In Montréal-Nord, from the start of the pandemic to June 2020, 222 people died from COVID-19— more deaths occurred in this neighbourhood than all of British Columbia during the same time period.

Are you happy Canada’s first vaccine facility is opening in Montreal? What do you think about patents preventing many countries from vaccinating their population? Let us know below in the comments