TORONTO —
While the leading vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna appear to be highly protective against COVID-19, it’s still unclear how effective they will be at curbing the spread of the virus and, therefore, how long people will have to wear masks.
On Tuesday, the U.K. began vaccinating its oldest citizens with a COVID-19 shot developed by U.S. drugmaker Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech. The vaccine is expected to be approved for use in other countries, including Canada and the U.S., in the coming weeks and other vaccine candidates, such as the one from Moderna, are not far behind.
According to clinical trials from both Pfizer and Moderna, their coronavirus vaccines have been shown to be about 95 per cent effective in preventing infections of COVID-19 with no serious side effects.
As promising as these results are, they were only able to show if people who were vaccinated became sick with the disease and not whether vaccinated individuals could still be infected, but they don’t have any symptoms.
This means there is the possibility that vaccine recipients could still unknowingly spread the virus to others because they’re asymptomatic.
“We don’t know,” Dr. Zain Chagla, an infectious disease specialist and associate professor at McMaster University, told CTVNews.ca during a telephone interview on Tuesday.
“There’s nothing there [in Pfizer’s data] that suggests that people are less transmissible. All we know is individuals who got the vaccine had less symptomatic disease than people who didn’t get the vaccine.”
Chagla added the trials also showed that individuals who received the vaccine tended to have less severe disease than those who weren’t vaccinated or received a placebo.
Dr. Mario Ostrowski, an immunology professor at the University of Toronto and an infectious disease consultant at St. Michael’s Hospital, said vaccine developers won’t be able to tell if vaccinated individuals can still transmit the virus until the vaccine is distributed on a large scale.
“The only way you’re going to tell that spreading is not occurring is by looking at the incidence rates,” he explained during a telephone interview on Tuesday.
“You have to wait until a majority of the population has been vaccinated. So really you can’t answer that question until the vaccine has been rolled out.”
Chagla said that if they start to see disease transmission go down significantly after the first groups are immunized, that will be a pretty good indication the vaccine is affecting person-to-person transmission.
On the other hand, Chagla said that if a lot of people are still getting sick, but not being hospitalized or dying, that would likely indicate the vaccine is only effective at reducing the severity of the disease.
“Even if it’s the worst-case scenario, and this vaccine only reduces the severity of disease, if you see death rates plummet, and you see hospitalizations plummet, and you just see mild disease circulating in the community, that’s still not bad,” he said.
Ostrowski agreed that preventing severe illness and death should be the first priority for vaccine developers.
“Right now we have a pandemic, people are dying. In the United States, over 2,000 people are dying a day,” he said. “So I think right now, the most important question people want to know is there any vaccine that will prevent people from dying.”
DO YOU STILL NEED TO WEAR A MASK AFTER BEING VACCINATED?
Because the leading vaccine makers don’t know yet if their vaccines will prevent transmission of the virus, infectious disease specialists said it’s important for people to continue to wear face masks and follow public health advice even after they’ve been immunized.
Dr. Rob Kozak, a clinical microbiologist at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto who helped isolate the SARS-CoV-2 virus in March, said health officials won’t be able to lessen restrictions until they can see the results of these mass immunizations campaigns.
“It’s going to take time for everybody to get vaccinated, not just in Canada, but across the world,” he said. “The masks probably aren’t going anywhere. I don’t think that we’re going to be back to normal by next April.”
Chagla said data released on Tuesday by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on the Pfizer vaccine showed that it can take some time before a vaccine will be protective against the disease.
“You see some of the divergence between people who weren’t vaccinated and who were around day 20 to 28 after the first dose, so it does take some time, meaning you can get COVID the day after you get vaccinated,” he said.
Ostrowski said the length of time people will be required to wear masks will also depend on how quickly countries are able to vaccinate their populations.
“It’s going to take a while to vaccinate everyone, especially since these new vaccines are very difficult to both distribute and keep stable,” he said.
Although there are still many questions surrounding these vaccines, such as how they will be able to provide protection, if they prevent transmission, and how they affect different groups, Kozak said they are a great first step in the fight against COVID-19 and scientists will only continue to improve upon them.
“These vaccines are protective, they will work,” he said. “The question now is, can we continue to optimize them so they’ll become even better so that we potentially need fewer doses, or it protects against transmission, or it completely provides sterilizing immunity? These are the bigger questions, but once we have these first generation ones in place, that gives us a little more time to think about that kind of stuff.”
TORONTO – Canada Goose Holdings Inc. says it has signed a deal that will result in the creation of its first eyewear collection.
The deal announced on Thursday by the Toronto-based luxury apparel company comes in the form of an exclusive, long-term global licensing agreement with Marchon Eyewear Inc.
The terms and value of the agreement were not disclosed, but Marchon produces eyewear for brands including Lacoste, Nike, Calvin Klein, Ferragamo, Longchamp and Zeiss.
Marchon plans to roll out both sunglasses and optical wear under the Canada Goose name next spring, starting in North America.
Canada Goose says the eyewear will be sold through optical retailers, department stores, Canada Goose shops and its website.
Canada Goose CEO Dani Reiss told The Canadian Press in August that he envisioned his company eventually expanding into eyewear and luggage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
Almost seven years since news broke of an alleged conspiracy to fix the price of packaged bread across Canada, the saga isn’t over: the Competition Bureau continues to investigate the companies that may have been involved, and two class-action lawsuits continue to work their way through the courts.
Here’s a timeline of key events in the bread price-fixing case.
Oct. 31, 2017: The Competition Bureau says it’s investigating allegations of bread price-fixing and that it was granted search warrants in the case. Several grocers confirm they are co-operating in the probe.
Dec. 19, 2017: Loblaw and George Weston say they participated in an “industry-wide price-fixing arrangement” to raise the price of packaged bread. The companies say they have been co-operating in the Competition Bureau’s investigation since March 2015, when they self-reported to the bureau upon discovering anti-competitive behaviour, and are receiving immunity from prosecution. They announce they are offering $25 gift cards to customers amid the ongoing investigation into alleged bread price-fixing.
Jan. 31, 2018: In court documents, the Competition Bureau says at least $1.50 was added to the price of a loaf of bread between about 2001 and 2016.
Dec. 20, 2019: A class-action lawsuit in a Quebec court against multiple grocers and food companies is certified against a number of companies allegedly involved in bread price-fixing, including Loblaw, George Weston, Metro, Sobeys, Walmart Canada, Canada Bread and Giant Tiger (which have all denied involvement, except for Loblaw and George Weston, which later settled with the plaintiffs).
Dec. 31, 2021: A class-action lawsuit in an Ontario court covering all Canadian residents except those in Quebec who bought packaged bread from a company named in the suit is certified against roughly the same group of companies.
June 21, 2023: Bakery giant Canada Bread Co. is fined $50 million after pleading guilty to four counts of price-fixing under the Competition Act as part of the Competition Bureau’s ongoing investigation.
Oct. 25 2023: Canada Bread files a statement of defence in the Ontario class action denying participating in the alleged conspiracy and saying any anti-competitive behaviour it participated in was at the direction and to the benefit of its then-majority owner Maple Leaf Foods, which is not a defendant in the case (neither is its current owner Grupo Bimbo). Maple Leaf calls Canada Bread’s accusations “baseless.”
Dec. 20, 2023: Metro files new documents in the Ontario class action accusing Loblaw and its parent company George Weston of conspiring to implicate it in the alleged scheme, denying involvement. Sobeys has made a similar claim. The two companies deny the allegations.
July 25, 2024: Loblaw and George Weston say they agreed to pay a combined $500 million to settle both the Ontario and Quebec class-action lawsuits. Loblaw’s share of the settlement includes a $96-million credit for the gift cards it gave out years earlier.
Sept. 12, 2024: Canada Bread files new documents in Ontario court as part of the class action, claiming Maple Leaf used it as a “shield” to avoid liability in the alleged scheme. Maple Leaf was a majority shareholder of Canada Bread until 2014, and the company claims it’s liable for any price-fixing activity. Maple Leaf refutes the claims.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
Companies in this story: (TSX:L, TSX:MFI, TSX:MRU, TSX:EMP.A, TSX:WN)
TORONTO – TD Bank Group, which is mired in a money laundering scandal in the U.S., says chief executive Bharat Masrani will retire next year.
Masrani, who will retire officially on April 10, 2025, says the bank’s, “anti-money laundering challenges,” took place on his watch and he takes full responsibility.
The bank named Raymond Chun, TD’s group head, Canadian personal banking, as his successor.
As part of a transition plan, Chun will become chief operating officer on Nov. 1 before taking over the top job when Masrani steps down at the bank’s annual meeting next year.
TD also announced that Riaz Ahmed, group head, wholesale banking and president and CEO of TD Securities, will retire at the end of January 2025.
TD has taken billions in charges related to ongoing U.S. investigations into the failure of its anti-money laundering program.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
