Juno News - Why does Canada view COVID-19 differently than other countries？

00:00:00.000 I read a really interesting article in the New York Times the other day with a headline that said

00:00:09.600 for kids and COVID vaccines just one dose for now. I thought wow it was really interesting as

00:00:16.340 I read this article because it was much more I would say nuanced and a much more complex approach

00:00:22.880 to the issue than we have seen here in Canada and with Canadian media. Yes the headline item was

00:00:28.680 about vaccine doses and saying okay maybe we're now going to move towards just one dose for

00:00:33.980 teenagers 12 year olds 13 year olds and so forth and also a bit bit of talking about the 5 to 11

00:00:39.380 year olds as opposed to doing the two doses that we're doing now and it was looking at the different

00:00:43.860 jurisdictions considering that exploring it what some different experts are saying and I feel like

00:00:48.560 here in Canada if someone were to step forward and say why are we giving two doses to teenagers we

00:00:52.820 should only give one maybe that person would be called an anti-vaxxer or something like that that

00:00:57.680 level of nuance is just not really in our discourse right now even if there are pediatricians or

00:01:04.500 epidemiologists and so forth vaccine experts who are actually thinking these very issues it's not

00:01:09.720 kind of getting out there and I found it kind of funny that things that are in the New York Times

00:01:14.480 you know the the U.S.'s I guess paper of record are things that you would not see really in Canadian

00:01:21.160 media because oh no we we can't really talk about that here we don't cover it here. I mean the article

00:01:26.000 was very interesting for offering varying perspectives of individuals there was someone

00:01:30.820 quoted who was on the Britain the British vaccine advisory panel saying look this whole idea of

00:01:36.540 vaccinating a teenager to protect the elderly I mean that's that's immoral that's unethical that was a

00:01:42.680 quote from this gentleman there again something that I feel like wouldn't make its way into the

00:01:48.440 Canadian discussion and the Canadian media coverage and it was kind of refreshing and one thing I saw later

00:01:53.600 I noticed there was a correction at the bottom of this article that they had initially in a first

00:01:57.760 draft vastly overstated by tenfold the number of kids that had been hospitalized in the U.S.

00:02:03.680 with COVID and they issued a correction saying we got it wrong here's what the number actually is

00:02:06.980 and I saw on social media people were making fun of this and saying oh look you know this this

00:02:10.900 article is fear-mongering and so forth I thought well that's funny that it's considered fear-mongering

00:02:15.940 in that regard because my original impression as someone who's just you know mostly used to reading

00:02:20.660 Canadian media is well it was actually the opposite I mean they were saying things that would have been

00:02:26.380 considered risque and it's quite curious to see this phenomenon unfold I've seen it repeatedly where

00:02:32.900 I would say American media that is liberal or centrist or even the left wing is is unpacking things in a

00:02:41.480 very complex way a much more complex way than you're finding here in Canada than even say right-wing

00:02:47.660 politicians are willing themselves to say there was a lot of criticism of various lockdown measures

00:02:53.640 and major prominent American publications all throughout this year really moving towards a

00:02:58.980 much more evolved and balanced and I think mature approach and conversation for everything for

00:03:04.500 lockdowns for what the vaccine rollout strategy really is and well it's really refreshing to see that

00:03:10.600 it's happening there and well I guess it's the opposite it's disheartening to see that it's still

00:03:17.320 not really all that much happening over here

Juno News - October 10, 2021