Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, has never exactly been popular among the mainstream journalists, commentators and public intellectuals I follow on social media. But nor has she come in for a huge amount of criticism — certainly nothing like her retiring-on-Friday colleague at Queen’s Park, Dr. David Williams.
But Tam’s luck may have run out this week at a press conference on Tuesday. With remarkable and frankly inexplicable speed, the Canadian media narrative recently swerved from “will the inevitable fourth wave be the worst yet?” to “what’s taking so long to reopen?” We have surpassed the benchmarks Tam herself established in April for loosening restrictions: 75 per cent with a single dose, 20 per cent with two. Why, reporters demanded to know, has Tam not issued guidance on what vaccinated Canadians can and cannot do?
Tam did not seem prepared for that. The third time she was asked, she began as follows: “I’m sure you’ve heard that vaccinated people can get infected, so even the most effective vaccines are not absolutely perfect.”
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