COVID-19 is starting to make a comeback and the country is falling slightly.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise, said Jesse Shapiro, an evolutionary genomics biologist at McGill University. Forget for a moment all the alphanumeric subvariants, new and old, that scientists observe. it’s been since the average user had their last infection or booster, an expected wave,” Shapiro said.
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In peak provinces, immunity isn’t as good as it could be, so the Public Health Agency of Canada is asking others to “catch up” on their vaccinations. New bivalent vaccines that target the original SARS-CoV-2, as well as the original Omicron strain BA. 1, are being rolled out, Health Canada has not yet approved bivalent boosters targeting BA. 4 and BA. 5, which, along with BA. 2, are lately the main circulating strains in Canada.
Infections and hospitalizations are expanding in Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia, but sewage signals are dropping in Saskatchewan. Public Health Ontario said Friday it is seeing a slow increase in cases and that the number of tests is coming back positive over the past year. beyond two weeks. Ottawa is already on a “new wave” of COVID-19, the city’s public fitness branch said last week.
COVID-19 persists with a peak infection rate across the country, Mavens said. “Here in British Columbia, it’s estimated that we underestimate cases a hundredfold,” said evolutionary biologist Sarah Otto of the University of British Columbia. like Shapiro, he is a member of Canada’s National Rapid Response Network for Coronavirus Variants, or CoVaRR-Net.
Based on the network’s knowledge-sharing, Shapiro predicts that, one by one, the provinces will recognize the wave. “As usual, it’s hard to say, will it be a big wave?Will it be a small wave? Of course, it is a type of wave.
Should we be worried? The journal Science published an article last week warning that one or more of the highly immune elusive strains of SARS-CoV-2 (BA. 2. 75. 2, BQ. 1. 1, BF. 7) “may well cause significant new waves of COVID-19 this fall and winter. ” What this in terms of serious illness and death, Science said, is a very open question.
What we’re seeing is a big convergent evolution,” said Shapiro, an associate professor in McGill’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology and Center for Genomics. Many variants have the same mutations, or combinations of mutations, at key sites in the viral genome that allow them more easily in a highly immunized population.
The natural variety favors the same mutations, over and over again, Shapiro said. “Clearly they are doing anything, and that is probably to evade immunity. Therefore, they are even better at reinfecting people.
“They are less easily identified through the antibodies that are discovered only recently in most people,” Otto said.
The news is that none of the subvariants are completely unique. If they were, “it would be worrisome, in another sense,” Shapiro said. Omicron appeared out of nowhere, a deep branch of the SARS-CoV-2 biogenetic tree. . The new lineages or subvariants are descendants of Omicron.
“I don’t need to minimize what this virus has done to us; obviously, it’s able to evolve on all sorts of other instructions and from us unexpected,” Shapiro said.
“But it’s encouraging to see the same mutations repeatedly. This suggests, at least for now, a limited source of adapted mutations. “
“It’s a bit like the virus is limited. It’s kind of hampered,” Otto said.
Another positive, according to Otto, is that even as the antibodies circulating in the blood decrease, “COVID now, for all of us in Canada, is a disease that our immune formula recognizes. “
“So when we’re inflamed, if we don’t have antibodies in our bloodstream right now, we have memory cells that that virus, SARS-COV-2 and take action. “These memory immune cells can produce new antibodies, as well as kill inflamed cells, shorten the course of infection for many people, and protect against serious disease.
The threat of hospitalization, due to infection, is low. “The bad news is that COVID is still raging right now,” Otto said. People are still hospitalized; other people are still COVID for a long time. “So that first wave of coverage, having antibodies that recognize you and save you from swelling in the first position, is still the one we need to go through. “
None of the new variants are circulating at the highest levels in Canada. Some worry that BQ. 1. 1, which Otto says has a surprising constellation of changes that develop the ability to evade antibodies, could sweep populations, as if no one has immunity. “I don’t think that’s going to be the case, from what I’ve noticed so far,” Otto said. “It’s just helping the virus spread a little bit, not in game-changing amounts. “
“But it’s too early to know for sure. “
Ontario and BC have begun pulling other people out of the hospital in the event of an outbreak of COVID, flu or either, a sign that the provinces are sufficiently involved in hospital capacity to make room, Otto said. for long-term care to care homes they have not selected and up to 150 kilometers away.
Shapiro knows the risks of waiting long-term with a virus as cunning as SARS-CoV-2. “My crystal ball is my other colleagues at CoVaRR-Net. All the credit goes to all the other people I know and analyze it.
But, “if it’s a few months before you get over the infection or the vaccine, pass, get your booster,” he said. “The more immunity we can get in the population, the less bad this wave will be in terms of overall transmissions and hospitalizations and poor outcomes that we need to avoid. “
The organization of immunization advisors of Canada recommends that other people over the age of 12 get a booster dose in the fall, regardless of how many they have already received, 3 to 6 months after their last vaccine or infection.
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