Canada’s chief public health officer recently said everyone eligible for a booster dose should get their third vaccine before new and more contagious variants of COVID emerge
As we enjoy summer after two years of COVID restrictions, should Algoma residents be worried about a resurgence of COVID in the fall?
Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, recently said that everyone eligible for a booster dose should get their third vaccine before new and more contagious variants of COVID emerge in the near future. future.
As previously reported, Algoma Public Health officials and board members have expressed concern that another wave of COVID is coming this fall.
Does this mean a return to mask mandates, lockdowns, lines at grocery stores and adults and students working and learning from home?
“It depends on what we see in the fall,” said Dr. John Twinema, acting chief medical officer for Algoma Public Health, speaking to SooToday on Thursday.
“What we’ve seen with COVID so far is that in the fall and in the winter when it starts to get colder, we really see an increase in transmission of the disease. It’s probably because people congregate indoors a bit more than in the summer.
“If there was a new variant that was very severe and very contagious, then there may be a need to go back on some of those measures, but hopefully if it’s just an increase (in COVID cases), what we can to do is to adapt measures, either locally or as a province, to address this concern. If it’s a small increase, then maybe masking in public might be all that’s needed to keep things at bay, whereas if it’s a very large increase, then we might have to look at some of these other concerns, but it’s very hard to know,” Tuinema said.
“It’s just a question of how much the increase will be.”
A resurgence of COVID in the fall may not necessarily be a return to the dark early days of the pandemic.
“There are currently some new vaccines that are in development and may be available at that time that may be able to help.” This will depend on the options that may or may not arise at the time. Right now we’re seeing the BA.5 variant starting to get bigger and it’s a bit more portable, but we don’t know if it’s heavier or not, so there’s a number of factors that will decide how big the wave is and how much of the impact it has. How big that is remains to be seen,” Tuinema said.
As Dr. Theresa Tam urges Canadians to get booster shots, does APH envision another vaccine mandate in development?
“If we have newer vaccines that are more effective and we’re dealing with a new serious variant, then they may be mandatory in some situations, but it’s really going to depend on the situation because it’s developing in the fall, but it’s too early to know if that will be necessary,” Tuinema said.
SARS has come and gone.
The H1N1 virus has come and gone.
Will we ever get over COVID?
Is it possible for the medical community to come up with a one-time vaccine against COVID?
“There are things about COVID that are different compared to other diseases that made them much easier to eliminate than COVID,” Tuinema said.
Comparing COVID to measles, Tuinema said that “once you get through it, you have lifelong immunity. The measles vaccine is effective… in which the COVID has mutated, evading the vaccine and becoming more transmissible and harder to control with a single-shot vaccine.”
In the meantime, the conditions for the third and fourth booster doses can be found on the APH website.
Booster doses are available at the vaccination clinic and local pharmacies.
The fourth dose is recommended by public health authorities for people 60 and older, as well as for people with weakened immunity.
There are currently no problems with the delivery of the vaccine to those who wish to receive it in the APH region, Tuinema said.
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