The waning effectiveness of vaccines to stop the spread of the highly infectious Omicron variant of COVID-19 could mean it’s time for federal policy makers to consider lifting vaccine mandates, some experts suggest.
“It’s hard to really justify our mandates anymore,” said Dr Zain Chagla, an infectious diseases physician at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton and an associate professor at McMaster University.
Toronto’s Pearson International Airport has recently been a scene of snarling air passenger traffic, causing long lineups and major delays.
While government officials have blamed staffing shortages for problems, some industry groups and politicians are laying the blame on COVID-related border restrictions, including vaccine mandates that require travellers to prove their vaccine status using an app before entering Canada.
Prevent severe illness and death
Scientists stress that the vaccines do hold up against what matters — severe illness, hospitalization and death.
And Chagla said that when the Alpha and Delta variants of COVID-19 swept through, data showed that vaccination had a “profound effect” on stopping a significant amount of infections, and that people’s ability to transmit was reduced.
Travellers entering Canada must still upload proof of their vaccinations into the ArriveCan mobile app, above. (Government Of Canada)
But the vaccines’ abilities to prevent transmission of the virus changed with the Omicron variant, he says.
Last month, in a editorial for the Globe and Mail, under the headline: “The logic behind vaccine mandates for travellers no longer holds,” Chagla wrote that with the Omicron variant, vaccine efficacy “wanes significantly” to help prevent transmission. He pointed to data from the UK Health Security Agency that he said showed the effectiveness of two or three doses of vaccine against spreading the Omicron-variant infection over time approaches zero.
“We live in a world now where a lot of people have either been vaccinated or got COVID, that maybe one to two per cent of people isn’t in that category,” he told CBC News. “Are we really working hard to make sure that they’re not able to access a flight?” he said.
“They’re not necessarily at an increased risk of transmission as compared to the fully vaccinated person against the next variant.”
WATCH | Long lines frustrate passengers at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport:
Frustrations mount over delays at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport
2 days ago
Duration 10:30
Extremely long wait times affecting arriving and departing passengers at Toronto’s Pearson airport are likely to continue until Labour Day, a former Air Canada executive says.
Proof-of-vaccine certificates to enter public places have been largely removed in all provinces Canada. The remaining proof-of-vaccination policy requirement applies to federally regulated employees and for travel, especially by air overseas and to enter Canada.
However, the Public Health Agency of Canada recently announced that COVID-19 restrictions at the border will remain in place for at least another month. Those restrictions include vaccine mandates, which require travellers to use the ArriveCan mobile app to download proof of their vaccination before entering Canada.
Those who do not are subject to testing and quarantine.
Even as Omicron dominates, the vaccines are holding up against what matters — severe illness, hospitalization and death, experts say. (Ted Aljibe/AFP/Getty Images)
Conservative motion shot down
The Canadian Airports Council and the Canadian Travel and Tourism Roundtable, an industry group formed during the COVID-19 pandemic, are among the industry organizations calling for vaccine mandates to be dropped.
WestJet Airlines has also called for the removal of mandates. Meanwhile, a federal Conservative motion calling for the removal of pandemic-related restrictions, including vaccine mandates, was shot down last month.
But Dr. Nazeem Muhajarine, professor of community health and epidemiology at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, said that some research does indicate that vaccine booster doses do protect people from transmission of the virus.
“This last remaining vaccine policy should remain a little longer because the threat of COVID-19 and the harm it causes in terms of long COVID, deaths and hospitalization particularly in vulnerable people, elderly and in some cases in children hasn’t entirely disappeared,” he said.
Yet, Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore, Md., questioned the value those mandates now serve in light of the Omicron variant and population immunity.
“I think that increasingly it’s become less valuable than it was in the earlier eras in the pandemic, because the vaccine in the face of Omicron isn’t very great at protecting against infection, he said.
‘Much less value’ for travel
Because the vaccines hold up against severe illness, hospitalization and death, Adalja said there is still great value for employers to insist their workforce be vaccinated from a work-safety standpoint.
As for vaccine mandates for travel, “I think it has much less value,” he said. “I don’t think the ArriveCan [app] serves the same value that it once did.”
Appearing before a House of Commons health committee earlier this week,Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam said the mandates were first implemented when there was a strong resurgence of the Delta variant and two doses of vaccines were very effective.
Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam said the mandates were first implemented when there was a strong resurgence of the Delta variant and two doses of vaccines were very effective. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)
But Omicron was the “game changer,” she said.
“Given the reduced vaccine effectiveness, even with three doses against the Omicron variant, vaccines cannot prevent all transmissions alone,” she said.
“So, a layered approach has to be considered, including layering mask wearing, for instance. But these are the things that the relevant ministers need to consider.”
Netflix (NFLX) stock slid as much as 9.6% Friday after the company gave a second quarter revenue forecast that missed estimates and announced it would stop reporting quarterly subscriber metrics closely watched by Wall Street.
On Thursday, Netflix guided to second quarter revenue of $9.49 billion, a miss compared to consensus estimates of $9.51 billion.
The company said it will stop reporting quarterly membership numbers starting next year, along with average revenue per member, or ARM.
“As we’ve evolved our pricing and plans from a single to multiple tiers with different price points depending on the country, each incremental paid membership has a very different business impact,” the company said.
Netflix reported first quarter earnings that beat across the board on Thursday, with another 9 million-plus subscribers added in the quarter.
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Subscriber additions of 9.3 million beat expectations of 4.8 million and followed the 13 million net additions the streamer added in the fourth quarter. The company added 1.7 million paying users in Q1 2023.
Revenue beat Bloomberg consensus estimates of $9.27 billion to hit $9.37 billion in the quarter, an increase of 14.8% compared to the same period last year as the streamer leaned on revenue initiatives like its crackdown on password-sharing and ad-supported tier, in addition to the recent price hikes on certain subscription plans.
Netflix’s stock has been on a tear in recent months, with shares currently trading near the high end of its 52-week range. Wall Street analysts had warned that high expectations heading into the print could serve as an inherent risk to the stock price.
Earnings per share (EPS) beat estimates in the quarter, with the company reporting EPS of $5.28, well above consensus expectations of $4.52 and nearly double the $2.88 EPS figure it reported in the year-ago period. Netflix guided to second quarter EPS of $4.68, ahead of consensus calls for $4.54.
Profitability metrics also came in strong, with operating margins sitting at 28.1% for the first quarter compared to 21% in the same period last year.
The company previously guided to full-year 2024 operating margins of 24% after the metric grew to 21% from 18% in 2023. Netflix expects margins to tick down slightly in Q2 to 26.6%.
Free cash flow came in at $2.14 billion in the quarter, above consensus calls of $1.9 billion.
Meanwhile, ARM ticked up 1% year over year — matching the fourth quarter results. Wall Street analysts expect ARM to pick up later this year as both the ad-tier impact and price hike effects take hold.
On the ads front, ad-tier memberships increased 65% quarter over quarter after rising nearly 70% sequentially in Q3 2023 and Q4 2023. The ads plan now accounts for over 40% of all Netflix sign-ups in the markets it’s offered in.
Netflix reported first quarter earnings after the bell on Thursday. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File Photo (REUTERS / Reuters)
Alexandra Canal is a Senior Reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X @allie_canal, LinkedIn, and email her at alexandra.canal@yahoofinance.com.
Oil prices initially spiked on Friday due to unconfirmed reports of an Israeli missile strike on Iran.
Prices briefly reached above $90 per barrel before falling back as Iran denied the attack.
Iranian media reported activating their air defense systems, not an Israeli strike.
Oil prices gave up nearly all of early Friday’s gains after an Iranian official told Reuters that there hadn’t been a missile attack against Iran.
Oil surged by as much as $3 per barrel in Asian trade early on Friday after a U.S. official told ABC News today that Israel launched missile strikes against Iran in the early morning hours today. After briefly spiking to above $90 per barrel early on Friday in Asian trade, Brent fell back to $87.10 per barrel in the morning in Europe.
The news was later confirmed by Iranian media, which said the country’s air defense system took down three drones over the city of Isfahan, according to Al Jazeera. Flights to three cities including Tehran and Isfahan were suspended, Iranian media also reported.
Israel’s retaliation for Iran’s missile strikes last week was seen by most as a guarantee of escalation of the Middle East conflict since Iran had warned Tel Aviv that if it retaliates, so will Tehran in its turn and that retaliation would be on a greater scale than the missile strikes from last week. These developments were naturally seen as strongly bullish for oil prices.
However, hours after unconfirmed reports of an Israeli attack first emerged, Reuters quoted an Iranian official as saying that there was no missile strike carried out against Iran. The explosions that were heard in the large Iranian city of Isfahan were the result of the activation of the air defense systems of Iran, the official told Reuters.
Overall, Iran appears to downplay the event, with most official comments and news reports not mentioning Israel, Reuters notes.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said that “there is no damage to Iran’s nuclear sites,” confirming Iranian reports on the matter.
The Isfahan province is home to Iran’s nuclear site for uranium enrichment.
“Brent briefly soared back above $90 before reversing lower after Iranian media downplayed a retaliatory strike by Israel,” Saxo Bank said in a Friday note.
The $5 a barrel trading range in oil prices over the past week has been driven by traders attempting to “quantify the level of risk premium needed to reflect heightened tensions but with no impact on supply,” the bank said, adding “Expect prices to bid ahead of the weekend.”
At the time of writing Brent was trading at $87.34 and WTI at $83.14.
