Quote:
Originally Posted by sea2ocean
It's about as smart as your leader signing up for ONLY the Chinese vaccine. They've been so open and trustworthy about things so far.
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That was true,
back in May, of 2020.
An agreement, between the Canadian government, and CanSino Biologics Inc., would have made the latter the first company to conduct clinical trials for a COVID vaccine in Canada. It was also the first deal through which Canada could have secured a vaccine supply.
The National
Research Council (NRC), the federal government’s scientific
research organization, signed a deal with CanSino on May 6, 2020, to conduct Phase 1 and 2 clinical trials of its COVID vaccine. Trials were meant to take place at Dalhousie University’s Canadian Center for Vaccinology. CanSino’s product, called Ad5-nCoV, was considered one of the world’s top vaccine candidates, at the time. It was made with the help of the Chinese military’s research arm.
Under this agreement, CanSino was to provide candidate vaccine doses and transfer their vaccine technology, free of charge, for Phase 1 and 2 clinical trials in Canada, and grant the NRC a non-exclusive right to use, produce, and reproduce the vaccine for
emergency pandemic use.
On May 19, the federal government learned that the shipments of the vaccine candidate were being held, by China’s
customs agency, at Beijing Capital International
Airport. China’s State Council, the country’s cabinet, refused to issue the approval letter, allowing the vaccine to ship to Canada. Around the same time, Chinese-made vaccine candidates were permitted to ship to other countrie,s for trials similar to those CanSino had agreed to with the NRC.
The failed vaccine collaboration came in the middle of diplomatic tensions, between Canada and
China, which continue.
Two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, have been in jail in
China for more than two years. Officials from both countries’ governments have linked their imprisonment to the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, whose trial in Canada will determine whether she’s extradited to the U.S., to face charges of violating American
trade sanctions against Iran.