Of the top 10 countries in the world on a doses per capita basis, six of them are using vaccines from Russia, China or India. Canada is 42nd in the world on a doses per capita basis according to Bloomberg News Service’s vaccine tracker. News reports and information from government websites show 16 of the countries ahead of Canada are using shots from one of those three countries.
While Western nations, including Canada, scramble to get doses for their citizens, the governments in Beijing, Moscow and New Delhi are shipping vaccine abroad to make new friends, even as their own national vaccination efforts lag behind the rest of the world.
This week, China’s ambassador to Canada, Cong Peiwu, said his country always planned to help the world.
(Sidebar: what a lying sack of crap.)
“China stated in the early stages that once vaccines were developed and deployed they will become a global public good, so we are just honouring our commitment to help people, especially in developing countries,” he said. “We know the virus knows no borders.” …
Guy Saint-Jacques, a senior fellow at the University of Alberta’s China Institute and a former Canadian ambassador to Beijing, said China is clearly using the vaccines to help its image.
“This is part of their efforts to burnish their reputation abroad because they know that it has been tarnished with all the mistakes they made handling the pandemic and also they want to contrast themselves with Western countries,” he said.
