In many places, the pandemic seems to be winding down, but governments continue to urge their citizens to “get vaccinated,” with many having approved a fourth dose. This may have something to do with all of those unused vaccine doses. Canada’s federal authorities, for example, are sitting on approximately 82 million unused doses, according to government procurement data.
The price that Canada is paying for each dose is still a secret, but a leaked contract between Israel and Pfizer revealed that the state, with a population of 9.2 million people, is paying $56 per dose. One can begin to imagine what the profit margins might look like for Pfizer and Moderna, much less their CEO’s compensation packages.
What was achieved by mass vaccination? As it turns out, the disease wasn’t eradicated. COVID-19 case rates remained entirely uncorrelated to the vaccination rates, according to a study published in the European Journal of Epidemiology last year. Under President Donald Trump, the United States led the way in the rapid development of the COVID-19 vaccines. Yet America’s most-vaccinated jurisdictions experienced higher hospitalizations and all-cause mortality than before the vaccination campaign began. A counterintuitive result for a safe and effective vaccine, to say the least. From a societal point of view, some might even characterize the vaccination campaign a failure.
It now seems that most governments are reconciling themselves to the reality that the virus will be “endemic,” joining the seasonal mix of respiratory illnesses that afflict us annually. Even the most aggressive efforts at coercing vaccination, such as Italy’s “super green pass,” are winding down. The most determined health bureaucrats, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, are now acknowledging COVID-19 as a fact of life and urging citizens to make their own risk assessments.