How Canada’s vaccination rate surged by 46 per cent in only two months

A few months ago, just three per cent of Canadians had been vaccinated against COVID-19.

But, in only two months, that figure has jumped to 49 per cent of residents fully vaccinated, and Canada is now reopening its borders to fully-vaccinated international visitors.

For comparison, only 11.3 per cent of Australia’s population is fully vaccinated against the virus, putting Australia in 38th position out of the 38 OECD countries.

Infectious disease expert at the Australian National University, Professor Peter Collignon, says Canada had a head start on Australia, but there’s no reason why we can’t catch up.

“Their big advantage over Australia is they border the US, because one of the reasons we’ve got a lack of vaccine in Australia is our biggest supplier is all the US companies,” he told Dee Dee.

“Initially they didn’t allow much export at all, then they allocated firstly to the countries on their border.

“I will be surprised if we don’t end up matching the rates of Canada … which are higher than the US.”

Professor Collignon says he expects Australia’s vaccine rollout to speed up rapidly, and we’ll be in a “much better position come October”.

“Come September we’re supposedly having two million doses of Pfizer, Moderna and another one called Novavax arrive. That’ll put us in a position where we will be like Canada.”

Press PLAY below to hear about the vaccine rollout in Canada and how Australia can emulate it