Head of Canadian Olympic Committee Floats Idea of Athletes Jumping Vaccine Line

The Canadian Olympic Committee has spoken to the Canadian government about vaccinating athletes prior to leaving for the Tokyo Olympic Games.

David Shoemaker, in an interview with the CBC, COC head David Shoemaker said he told the government that it is the International Olympic Committee’s “desire” to have the team vaccinated before the Tokyo Olympics, which is scheduled to begin on July 23.

“We’ve spoken to the government and relayed the IOC’s desire for us to have our team vaccinated prior to going to Tokyo. They’ve recognized that we’ve got a need,” Shoemaker said.

“Certainly when athletes and all Canadians want to travel internationally under these circumstances, a vaccine would be preferable.”

See the full interview here:

Shoemaker couched his comments via Twitter last week, saying that “as for vaccines, frontline workers and vulnerable individuals must continue to have prioritized access to Canada’s supply. We continue to plan on the assumption that vaccines may not be widely available to our athletes prior to the Games.”

As for vaccines, frontline workers and vulnerable individuals must continue to have prioritized access to Canada’s supply. We continue to plan on the assumption that vaccines may not be widely available to our athletes prior to the Games. 2/2

— David Shoemaker (@DShoemaker_COC) January 28, 2021

Canada sent 314 athletes in 27 sports to the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, where they came away with 22 medals (4 gold, 3 silver, 15 bronze). With support personnel, this only makes up a tiny fraction of the Canadian population that has to be immunized to achieve herd immunity.

But a battle of optics has raged around the world since IOC member Dick Pound, poetically a Canadian, said publicly that he believes that athletes should be prioritized for COVID-19 vaccines.

While the broader impact of a few hundred athletes in a country as big as Canada getting the vaccine won’t dramatically impact the timeline of the virus’ spread, it does provide for challenging optics when, in general, athletes are at a low risk for serious complications for the disease.

The conversation comes in a week where the CDC also reports that the country is having supply issues, with both Pfizer and Moderna under-delivering on early vaccine promises to the country. While Canada is experiencing much-lower rates of coronavirus infections than many other top Olympic nations, their vaccine program is also progressing more slowly. Over the last 7 days, Canada has averaged 15 new infections daily per 100,000 population, as compared to the US, which is averaging triple that rate in the same time period.

According to data collected by Bloomberg, Canada has administered about 2.53 vaccine doses for every 100 residents. That’s far lower than the US (9.30) and UK (12.36), though better than countries like France (2.25), Hungary (2.18), or the Netherlands (1.31).

Other major sporting bodies, like the NBA, have reiterated that they won’t try to find ways for their athletes to jump the line for coronavirus vaccines.

With about 6 weeks required between the first dose and the promised 95% effectiveness, plus needing a second dose, it would be hard math for the Canadian swimmers, specifically, who qualify at the country’s planned trials in late May, to get the full round of vaccine in before departure – unless the COC were to try to push their most probable qualifiers to the front of the line (resulting in a larger number of priority patients).

So far, Swimming Canada has pre-emptively nominated 6 swimmers for the Olympic Games. Individual 2019 World Championship medalists Kylie Masse, Maggie MacNeil and Sydney Pickrem have been nominated by Swimming Canada to the Canadian Olympic team, as have Penny Oleksiak, Taylor Ruck and Markus Thormeyer, all of whom made an individual final in Gwangju.

Tokyo 2020 organizers are expecting about 11,000 athletes for the Games this summer.