Wo-oah, we're halfway there Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered weekday mornings. On Saturday, Canada celebrated a heartening milestone: more than half of all Canadians have received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine, a remarkable achievement for a country that faced a paltry 20-per-cent rate one month ago. The halfway mark pushes Canada past the United States, which sits just a couple percentage points behind. While more Americans have been fully vaccinated, experts fear anti-vax sentiments are part of what's slowed down that country's trajectory—so Canada could swing into the lead there, too, over the summer. If nothing else, it's a psychological victory. The last hundred days? Optimistic vaccination rates bring Canada into what could be considered the endgame of this nightmarish saga. But if history has taught us anything, it's that the end of a global crisis isn't necessarily the easiest part. In Maclean's, Patricia Treble reflects on the human cost to this pandemic—and how society often overlooks individuals in lieu of statistics. So far, in our conflagration with COVID-19, more than 1.3 million Canadians have contracted the disease and 25,000 have died. If what we’ve endured since early 2020 is a public health war, then this spring is perhaps our version of the Hundred Days, those last three months of the First World War when Canadians, at the spearhead of the Allied advance, pushed German forces back again and again. Each gain came with a price: in all, 6,800 died with another 39,000 wounded, meaning that those last 100 days of the Great War accounted for nearly one quarter of all Canadian and Newfoundland casualties in the entire war. With an end barely in sight, political and health leaders are eyeing another frontier: borders, both foreign and domestic. Even though American officials confirmed last week the border would remain closed until at least June 21, Democratic congressman Brian Higgins of Western New York has been vocal about reopening the border to anyone fully vaccinated. Meanwhile, in Detroit, some random American guy, who owns a second house on Vancouver Island, paid US$2,700 to air 130 TV commercials urging Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to open the border. But Canadians bummed about not being able to cross international borders can take heart: you can now visit Yukon. Not over til it's over: Experts are warning that the pandemic could rage on, even if a majority of Canadians get vaccinated. One epidemiologist from the University of Saskatchewan points to Seychelles, a small African island nation, which opened up to tourists after 60 per cent of its population had been fully vaccinated. The result? Variants surged. Normalcy, reopened borders and thriving economies will be contingent on herd immunity, which is itself contingent on at least 75 per cent of Canadians getting fully vaccinated. That may not be easy, given the populist rise in antivax protests. For Maclean's, Stephen Maher spoke with Rupen Seoni, of Environics Analytics, who in March completed a study of attitudes towards vaccines across different social segments. Environics took data from a national survey of 10,000 collected in March and cross-referenced it with their geoprofiles and looked for correlations with vaccine resistance and social attitudes. The strongest correlation was with belief in conspiracy theories. The vaccine resistant are more likely to believe that the pandemic is a hoax, or a scam designed to make money for big pharma and hospitals, and the people who believe that are concentrated in rural areas. Ask and ye shall receive: Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister got on the horn with Trudeau on Friday to ask for help. Specifically, the premier asked for 50 critical care nurses, 20 respiratory therapists and up to 50 contact tracers from Statistics Canada, as the province spirals into a third wave that has politicians pointing fingers at one another. On Saturday, Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne responded to the call by agreeing to send 50 contact tracers, while on Monday night, the feds sent out a press release announcing they would send in human resources, Red Cross medical staff and Canadian Armed Forces personnel, but did not divulge specifics. And now, something not about the pandemic: Last week, the 76-year-old Liberal MP for Hamilton East-Stoney Creek, Bob Bratina, announced he would not be running for re-election, precisely because of one single issue taken up by his own party. Bratina disapproved of the federal plan to spend $1.7 billion on a proposed 14-kilometre-long transit line, which, he says, will serve at most 20 per cent of Hamiltonians while upping taxes citywide to pay for the maintenance. On Friday, Bratina doubled down on his stance to the Hill Times by saying he'd reconsider his decision—only if the feds reconsidered theirs. —Michael Fraiman | 
