Health officials in Ontario said on Saturday that two confirmed cases of the new coronavirus variant first detected in the United Kingdom have appeared in the province — the first confirmed instances in Canada.
The new variant is believed to spread easier and faster than the original version of the virus, but it is not believed to be more deadly.
Scientists say there is no evidence that COVID-19 vaccines currently being deployed — including those approved for use in Canada — will not protect against this variant.
Here is what Canadians should know about the new variant.
What makes this variant different?
This variant is not the first new strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to emerge since the pandemic began. The main worry is that the variant seems to be more transmissible than the original. It has 23 mutations in its genetic code — a relatively high number of changes — and some of these could be affecting its ability to spread.
“While early data suggests that these new variants may be more transmissible, to date there is no evidence that they cause more severe disease or have any impact on antibody response or vaccine effectiveness,” the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) said in a statement Saturday.
The agency said more research is needed to confirm these findings.
Where were the Canadian cases found?
The Canadian cases, identified in a couple in southern Ontario, came as the province went into a lockdown on Saturday.
Dr. Barbara Yaffe, Ontario’s associate chief medical officer of health, said the couple from Durham Region, just east of Toronto, had no known travel history, exposure or high-risk contacts.
WATCH | Coronavirus variant identified in Ontario:
A couple was found to be carrying the virus, but neither had travelled or been in contact with a known case, officials say. 2:45
“This further reinforces the need for Ontarians to stay home as much as possible and continue to follow all public health advice, including the provincewide shutdown measures beginning today,” Yaffe said in a statement issued Saturday.
According to the statement, both individuals have been informed of the diagnosis and are now in self-isolation as per public health protocols. It noted the discovery of the variant was “not unexpected” due to inbound international travel.
How should Canadians approach this new variant?
Dr. Zain Chagla, an infectious disease physician and associate professor of medicine at McMaster University in Hamilton, told CBC News Network’s Natalie Kalata on Saturday that people should take the same precautions with this variant that they would for the original virus.
“It’s important that everyone adheres to the public health rules now a hundred times better than they were before, given that it is more transmissible,” Chagla said.
Those include physical distancing, wearing masks, practising good hand hygiene, avoiding going out when feeling unwell and seeking a COVID-19 test when appropriate, he said.
WATCH | What is known about the new coronavirus variant:
The new variant of coronavirus is not showing itself to be more severe, but it is spreading exponentially faster, which is a serious concern in the middle of a pandemic. At this point, doctors believe the vaccines that have started rolling out around the world will protect people. 1:57
Although the Canadians with the variant had no known travel history, Chagla said it was likely brought into Canada from somewhere else — particularly as the mutations in the U.K. variant match the Canadian cases.
Last week, Canada extended to Jan. 6 a ban on passenger flights arriving from Britain and expanded enhanced screening and monitoring measures for travelers arriving from South Africa, citing the rise of the more infectious variant.
“It just is another reinforcement that we do have quarantine and border controls, but they’re not perfect. And we’ve seen in many countries around the world, we can still see transmission from international travel,” Chagla said.
Will COVID-19 vaccines be effective against the variant?
Several drugmakers expect their COVID-19 vaccines will be effective against the new fast-spreading variant of the virus, including those whose vaccines are currently approved for use in Canada.
Ugur Sahin, chief executive of Germany’s BioNTech — which partnered with Pfizer to create a vaccine — said on Tuesday he expects its messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine to still work well.
“Scientifically it is highly likely that the immune response by this vaccine can also deal with this virus variant,” Sahin said. He added that it will take another two weeks or so of study and data collection to get a definitive answer.
“The vaccine contains more than 1,270 amino acids, and only nine of them are changed (in the mutated virus). That means that 99 per cent of the protein is still the same.”
WATCH | Comparing the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines:
The two COVID-19 vaccines approved in Canada, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, both use new mRNA technology, but they differ on timing for the second shot, as well as storage and transportation requirements. 2:30
Moderna said on Wednesday it expects the immunity induced by its COVID-19 vaccine would be protective against the variants reported in the U.K. The U.S.-based company said it plans to run tests to confirm its mRNA vaccine’s effectiveness against any strain.
“We have already tested sera from animals and humans vaccinated with the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine against a number of previous variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that have emerged since the first outbreak of the pandemic and found our vaccine to remain equally effective,” the company said in a statement.
In the event that the variant presents vaccine developers with an unexpected challenge, an advantage of mRNA is that scientists can quickly re-engineer genetic material in the shot to match that of the mutated protein, whereas modifying traditional vaccines would require extra steps.
“In principle, the beauty of the mRNA technology is we can directly start to engineer a vaccine which completely mimics this new mutation,” Sahin said. “We could be able to provide a new vaccine technically within six weeks. Of course, this is not only a technical question. We have to deal with how regulators… would see that.”
Canada began rolling out the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine earlier this month and started distributing Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine across the country last Thursday.
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador‘s chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says that so far this year, the province has recorded 230 confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable respiratory tract infection, also known as pertussis.
Late last month, Quebec reported more than 11,000 cases during the same time period, while Ontario counted 470 cases, well above the five-year average of 98. In Quebec, the majority of patients are between the ages of 10 and 14.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick has declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province. A total of 141 cases were reported by last month, exceeding the five-year average of 34.
The disease can lead to severe complications among vulnerable populations including infants, who are at the highest risk of suffering from complications like pneumonia and seizures. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, then progress to severe coughing accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.
“The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Department said in a statement.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective way to control the spread of the disease. As a result, the province has expanded immunization efforts this school year. While booster doses are already offered in Grade 9, the vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students as well.
Public health officials say whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s acting chief medical officer of health expects the current case count to get worse before tapering off.
A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere. The Pan American Health Organization issued an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
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