Health Canada has approved Moderna’s updated COVID-19 vaccine for all Canadians who are six months of age and older — while two other options for fall shots remain in the regulatory pipeline.
Federal officials announced the approval on Tuesday morning, more than two months after Moderna submitted its new formulation. The mRNA-based shot is monovalent, targeting just the Omicron XBB.1.5 subvariant, which means the vaccine is more tailored to the virus strains currently circulating.
The company told CBC News that its first newly approved doses should arrive in Canada “by tomorrow” and will continue to arrive over the course of the month, while Canadian officials expect deliveries to the provinces will start in October.
“I know we all wish COVID-19 no longer existed, but people are still getting infected, and vaccination continues to be one of the most effective ways to protect ourselves against serious outcomes,” said Dr. Supriya Sharma, chief medical advisor at Health Canada, during a technical briefing.
Health Canada said Canadians age five and up should receive one dose, regardless of their COVID vaccination history. Meanwhile children from six months to four years old should receive two doses if they have not been previously vaccinated with a COVID vaccine, or one dose if they’ve previously had at least one dose.
Not boosters
Notably, federal officials aren’t calling the shots boosters but instead stressed that these are updated options more similar to an annual flu shot. The COVID situation hasn’t stabilized quite yet, Sharma said.
“The idea is we’ll get to a place where it will be much more like the flu vaccines where people may be on a regular schedule, getting an updated vaccine,” she said.
As for the best time to get another COVID shot, the department suggests waiting six months after your last dose since protection against infection does wane over time — though scientists say protection against serious illness is longer-lasting.
Why isn’t the updated COVID-19 vaccine called a booster?
Dr. Supriya Sharma, chief medical adviser at Health Canada, explains the newly approved COVID-19 shot.
Extra caution for vulnerable, essential workers
On Tuesday, Canada’s national vaccine advisory body also reaffirmed its advice from earlier this summer, stressing that vaccination is particularly important for anyone at an increased risk of severe disease, including seniors age 65 and up, residents of congregate living settings such as long-term care facilities, pregnant individuals and anyone with underlying medical conditions who may heightened their risk.
The guidance also applies to people who provide essential community services and members of racialized, First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities.
Health Canada is still reviewing submissions on a “priority basis” for updated shots from other drugmakers as well, including Pfizer-BioNTech’s Omicron XBB.1.5 vaccine for Canadians age six months and up and Novavax’s shot for people age 12 and up.
“We will have enough supply of the updated COVID-19 vaccines to support immunization programs across Canada,” said Canada’s chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, at the federal briefing.
Why federal health officials wore masks at their latest COVID-19 briefing
Several federal health officials wore masks at their Tuesday technical briefing on updated COVID-19 vaccines. Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam explains why they’ve brought them back.
Officials expect ‘improved immune response’
Dr. Lynora Saxinger, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, said even if Canadians have “booster fatigue,” these types of updated vaccines will be important shots to get this fall.
“The original strain now is kind of irrelevant to what’s circulating,” she said. “But the XBB booster covers most of the important mutations that we’re seeing in the alphabet soup of variants that everyone’s watching right now.
“So it stands to provide significantly increased protection against infection again.”
Tam said preliminary clinical data has shown promising immune responses from the XBB.1.5 vaccine against various Omicron sublineages, including EG.5 and BA.2.86.
She said there are no signals of increased disease severity from these subvariants.
“This improved immune response is expected to better protect against the strains that are circulating in our communities.”
Wait for updated COVID-19 booster this fall, experts suggest
Despite an expected fall wave of COVID-19, health experts recommend most people wait for the next, updated vaccine — still a few weeks away — to get a booster for the most protection.
Case, hospitalizations climbing
The push for new COVID shots comes amid a rise in cases heading into the fall, as country-wide hospitalizations are also climbing, hitting more than 2,000 by early September — though the number remains far lower than the highest peaks of the pandemic.
Physicians are hopeful that a fall booster campaign could further suppress virus transmission during what’s expected to be another busy respiratory virus season.
“You have this kind of undulating risk going on depending when you were last infected or boosted,” said Saxinger. “This will provide a real jump — hopefully — on the immunity against infection as well.
“And that could actually make a bigger difference for reducing transmission and kind of flattening the curve for the fall.”
Tam stressed that it’s difficult to predict what will happen this fall and winter regarding the co-circulation of multiple viruses, including influenza and RSV, given that it is still early in the season.
“But the good news is we can get prepared and protect ourselves in case simultaneous surges of respiratory viruses occur,” she said.
Canadians can safely get both their flu and COVID shots during the same appointment, Tam said.
U.S. has approved both Moderna, Pfizer shots
The first COVID vaccines in 2020 were monovalent, or single-target vaccines, aimed at the original strain of the virus. They were followed by bivalent COVID vaccine booster shots that targeted both the original virus and an Omicron strains. The latest shots, again, are monovalent.
Canada’s approval of the Moderna shot follows the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorizing updated COVID vaccines from both Pfizer and Moderna the day before, with an advisory panel also set to recommend today whether the shots should be given broadly, or just to specific at-risk populations.
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Mandy Cohen will make the final decision some time after the committee’s vote and may or may not follow the panel’s advice.
Much like here in Canada, COVID infections and hospitalizations have been rising in the United States, Europe and Asia but remain well below previous peaks, in part thanks to widespread global immunity developed through several years of prior infections and vaccinations.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
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