Canada's chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, says results from COVID-19 vaccinations so far are encouraging enough that she thinks the need for massive lockdowns could be over before the end of the summer. But Tam says some of the more personal measures, like wearing masks and limiting close contact outside our households, may be with us longer.
The Canadian Press
Canada’s chief public health officer says results from COVID-19 vaccinations are so encouraging that she thinks the need for massive lockdowns could be over before the end of the summer.
“It will it even (be) before September, I think, depending on a number of factors, such as vaccine uptake, ongoing monitoring of other variants, and how vaccine coverage is provided,” Dr. Theresa Tam said Tuesday at a news conference in Ottawa.
She said personal protective choices like masks and limited in-person contacts could be with us longer. That will depend on how well vaccines prevent not just serious illness and death, but also the spread of the novel coronavirus. Data on transmission is still being analyzed, said Tam.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson laid out a plan for restoring life in the United Kingdom Tuesday that predicted the worst of its lockdowns could be over by June 21. The U.K. is far ahead of Canada on vaccinations, aiming to have every adult receive their first dose by the end of July.
Canada’s current goal is for that to happen by the end of September, with interim goals to vaccinate at least three million people by the end of March and more than 14 million people by the end of June.
COVID-19 is caused by a virus called SARS-CoV-2, and as it spread around the world, it mutated into new forms that are more quickly and easily transmitted through small water droplets in the air. Canadian health officials are most worried about variants that can slip past human immune systems because of a different shape in the spiky protein that latches onto our cells. The bigger fear is that future mutations could be vaccine-resistant, which would make it necessary to tweak existing drugs or develop a new “multivalent” vaccine that works against many types, which could take months or years.
Not all variants are considered equal threats: Only those proven to be more contagious or resistant to physical-distancing measures are considered by the World Health Organization to be “variants of concern.” Five of these been found in Canada so far. The WHO refers to them by a sequence of letters and numbers known as Pango nomenclature, but in May of 2021, it also assigned them Greek letters that experts felt would be easier to remember.
ALPHA (B.1.1.7)
- Country of origin: Britain
- Traits: Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are still mostly effective against it, studies suggest, but for full protection, the booster is essential: With only a first dose, the effectiveness is only about 66 per cent.
- Spread in Canada: First detected in Ontario’s Durham Region in December. It is now Canada’s most common variant type. Every province has had at least one case; Ontario, Quebec and the western provinces have had thousands.
BETA (B.1.351)
- Country of origin: South Africa
- Traits: Some vaccines (including Pfizer’s and Oxford-AstraZeneca’s) appear to be less effective but researchers are still trying to learn more and make sure future versions of their drugs can be modified to fight it.
- Spread in Canada: First case recorded in Mississauga in February. All but a few provinces have had at least one case, but nowhere near as many as B.1.1.7.
GAMMA (P.1)
- Country of origin: Brazil
- Traits: Potentially able to reinfect people who’ve recovered from COVID-19.
- Spread in Canada: B.C. has had hundreds of cases, the largest known concentration of P.1 outside Brazil. More outbreaks have been detected in Ontario and the Prairies.
DELTA (B.1.617 AND B.1.617.2)
- Country of origin: India
- Traits: Spreads more easily. Single-dosed people are less protected against it than those with both vaccine doses.
- Spread in Canada: All but a few provinces have recorded cases, but B.C.’s total has been the largest so far.
LAMBDA (C.37)
- Country of origin: Peru
- Traits: Spreads more easily. Health officials had been monitoring it since last August, but the WHO only designated it a variant of concern in June of 2021.
- Spread in Canada: A handful of travel-related cases were first detected in early July.
If I’m sick, how do I know whether I have a variant?
Health officials need to genetically sequence test samples to see whether it’s the regular virus or a variant, and not everyone’s sample will get screened. It’s safe to assume that, whatever the official variant tallies are in your province, the real numbers are higher. But for your purposes, it doesn’t matter whether you contract a variant or not: Act as though you’re highly contagious, and that you have been since before your symptoms appeared (remember, COVID-19 can be spread asymptomatically). Self-isolate for two weeks. If you have the COVID Alert app, use it to report your test result so others who may have been exposed to you will know to take precautions.
Need more answers? Email audience@globeandmail.com
As of Tuesday, 1.1 million Canadians have received at least one dose of the vaccine. To hit the first goal in March, an average of about 52,000 people must get their shots each day.
That is well above the average daily injections done so far, but vaccine deliveries are much bigger than they were, with more than one million doses delivered since Feb. 15.
On Monday, provincial and territorial governments delivered a one-day high of nearly 62,000 injections.
Procurement Minister Anita Anand said there are 3.5 million doses being shipped in March, which is enough to vaccinate more than 112,000 people every day.
Canada’s vaccine program slowed between Jan. 18 and Feb. 14 when production issues limited shipments to fewer than 350,000 doses. But most provinces have now completed vaccinations in long-term care, or are close to doing so, and many are expanding to seniors living independently.
Quebec announced Tuesday people over the age of 85 can start being vaccinated next week. Nova Scotia is opening vaccinations to people over 80 this week, and Alberta to people over 75. Ontario and British Columbia both aim to expand to people over 80 by the middle of March.
There have been very positive data from Canada, Israel and the U.K. in the last week showing the effect that even a single dose of COVID-19 vaccine is having to reduce deaths and serious illness among seniors and health-care workers.
Tam wouldn’t give a specific date for when lockdowns will no longer be needed, but this is the closest Canadian officials have ever come to putting any kind timeline on when wide-scale restrictions will actually end. Tam however warned that the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 is tricky and prone to sudden turns.
“I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of what it might deal us in terms of surprises,” she said.
Those surprises include the variants of the virus that are believed to be more contagious, and might not be as susceptible to all the vaccines approved.
COVID-19 cases continue to decrease countrywide, with an average of 2,908 new cases confirmed daily over the last week, down five per cent compared to a week earlier. The daily death toll fell almost 30 per cent to 54 deaths per day, while hospitalizations averaged 2,400 per day, down 11 per cent from a week earlier.
However, the number of cases tied to variants of concern is creeping upwards. In the last week, there were 220 new cases of the B.1.1.7 variant, first identified in the U.K. In total, 780 B.1.1.7 variants have been confirmed. There have also been 39 cases of B. 1.351, first identified in South Africa, and one of P. 1, which first emerged in Brazil.
Saskatchewan reported its first variant cases not linked to travel Tuesday, in three cases all from late January. It took several weeks to confirm them.
But Canada has stepped up its screening efforts against COVID-19 variants in recent weeks, said Tam. She said several provinces including Ontario, Nova Scotia, British Columbia and Alberta are now screening every positive case for the main virus mutation found in the three variants of concern. Any cases that screen positive are then fully sequenced to confirm the result.
Tam said Canada is also aiming to sequence 10 per cent of all cases, with more than 5,000 sequences done so far in February. The full sequences can confirm the presence of known variants but also identify any new ones.
Anand said Canada’s vaccination goals could be moved up if Health Canada approves any of the three vaccines being reviewed at the moment.
Anand said Tuesday Canada is getting 20 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine from a U.S. facility between April and September, but is negotiating with the Serum Institute of India to get new doses of that vaccine from there too.
Health Canada has been in the final stages of its review of AstraZeneca’s vaccine for several weeks now.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is set to decide about the Johnson and Johnson vaccine later this week, and Health Canada could be not far behind. Anand said Canada is to receive 10 million doses of that vaccine between April and September but delivery dates won’t be confirmed until it is approved.
Johnson and Johnson is the only single-dose vaccine expected in Canada for now.
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