Pfizer is about to seek U.S. authorization for a third dose of its COVID-19 vaccine, saying Thursday that another shot within 12 months could dramatically boost immunity and maybe help ward off the latest worrisome coronavirus mutant.
Research from multiple countries shows the Pfizer shot and other widely used COVID-19 vaccines offer strong protection against the highly contagious delta variant, which is spreading rapidly around the world and now accounts for most new U.S. infections.
Two doses of most vaccines are critical to develop high levels of virus-fighting antibodies against all versions of the coronavirus, not just the delta variant — and most of the world still is desperate to get those initial protective doses as the pandemic continues to rage.
But antibodies naturally wane over time, so studies also are underway to tell if and when boosters might be needed.
Hours after Pfizer issued its statement, the FDA and Centers for Disease and Control issued a joint statement saying Americans do not need booster shots yet.
“Americans who have been fully vaccinated do not need a booster shot at this time,” the CDC and FDA said in the statement.
“We continue to review any new data as it becomes available and will keep the public informed. We are prepared for booster doses if and when the science demonstrates that they are needed.”
On Thursday, Pfizer’s Dr. Mikael Dolsten told The Associated Press that early data from the company’s booster study suggests people’s antibody levels jump five- to 10-fold after a third dose, compared to their second dose months earlier.
In August, Pfizer plans to ask the Food and Drug Administration for emergency authorization of a third dose, he said.
Why might that matter for fighting the delta variant? Dolsten pointed to data from Britain and Israel showing the Pfizer vaccine “neutralizes the delta variant very well.” The assumption, he said, is that when antibodies drop low enough, the delta virus eventually could cause a mild infection before the immune system kicks back in.
But FDA authorization would be just a first step — it wouldn’t automatically mean Americans get offered boosters, cautioned Dr. William Schaffner, a vaccine expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Public health authorities would have to decide if they’re really needed, especially since millions of people have no protection.
“The vaccines were designed to keep us out of the hospital” and continue to do so despite the more contagious delta variant, he said. Giving another dose would be “a huge effort while we are at the moment striving to get people the first dose.”
Currently only about 48% of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated — and some parts of the country have far lower immunization rates, places where the delta variant is surging. On Thursday, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that’s leading to “two truths” — highly immunized swaths of America are getting back to normal while hospitalizations are rising in other places.
“This rapid rise is troubling,” she said: A few weeks ago the delta variant accounted for just over a quarter of new U.S. cases, but it now accounts for just over 50% — and in some places, such as parts of the Midwest, as much as 80%.
Also Thursday, researchers from France’s Pasteur Institute reported new evidence that full vaccination is critical.
In laboratory tests, blood from several dozen people given their first dose of the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccines “barely inhibited” the delta variant, the team reported in the journal Nature. But weeks after getting their second dose, nearly all had what researchers deemed an immune boost strong enough to neutralize the delta variant — even if it was a little less potent than against earlier versions of the virus.
The French researchers also tested unvaccinated people who had survived a bout of the coronavirus, and found their antibodies were four-fold less potent against the new mutant. But a single vaccine dose dramatically boosted their antibody levels — sparking cross-protection against the delta variant and two other mutants, the study found. That supports public health recommendations that COVID-19 survivors get vaccinated rather than relying on natural immunity.
The lab experiments add to real-world data that the delta variant’s mutations aren’t evading the vaccines most widely used in Western countries, but underscore that it’s crucial to get more of the world immunized before the virus evolves even more.
Researchers in Britain found two doses of the Pfizer vaccine, for example, are 96% protective against hospitalization with the delta variant and 88% effective against symptomatic infection. That finding was echoed last weekend by Canadian researchers, while a report from Israel suggested protection against mild delta infection may have dipped lower, to 64%.
>Whether the fully vaccinated still need to wear masks in places where the delta variant is surging is a growing question. In the U.S., the CDC maintains that fully vaccinated people don’t need to. Even before the delta variant came along, the vaccines weren’t perfect, but the best evidence suggests that if vaccinated people nonetheless get the coronavirus, they’ll have much milder cases.
“Let me emphasize, if you were vaccinated, you have a very high degree of protection,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious disease expert, said Thursday.
In the U.S., case rates have been rising for weeks and the rate of hospitalizations has started to tick up, rising 7% from the previous seven-day average, Walensky told reporters Thursday. However, deaths remain down on average, which some experts believe is at least partly due to high vaccination rates in people 65 and older — who are among the most susceptible to severe disease.
OAKVILLE – A gym in Oakville, Ont., that had been operating using a physical therapy exemption has been ordered to shut down after being linked to a COVID-19 outbreak.
Halton Region Public Health says it is aware of as many as 15 cases of the highly transmissible Delta variant linked to the “Muscle HQ gym.”
Gyms across Ontario are currently not allowed to offer indoor services but Muscle HQ had been operating by allowing members with doctors’ notes that cite the need for physical therapy to train.
Co-owner Ali Siddiqui says in a Facebook video that the gym received a shutdown notice on Saturday, confirming that the Delta variant was found at the facility.
He says more than 400 people could have been exposed to the virus as a result of the outbreak at the gym.
Health Minister Christine Elliott says since the gym remained open during the pandemic, the Delta variant is now “circulating very widely through the population of people that use that.”
On Wednesday, Elliott cited the risk posed by the more infectious Delta variant, which has caused virus resurgences in areas with high vaccine coverage like the U.K. and Israel, and locally in some Ontario jurisdictions that had seen relatively few infections before the variant took hold.
The top doctor in Ontario’s Niagara Region says he wants the U.S.-Canada border to stay closed until the fall despite local businesses and politicians calling for the opposite to support the area’s tourism-reliant economy.
Dr. Mustafa Hirji says the risk of reopening the border this summer is too great, especially with the more transmissible Delta variant spreading in parts of the midwestern U.S.
He says he would recommend extending the border closure for another month and reassessing the situation in the fall so both countries have extra time to vaccinate more people.
His comments come as businesses and political leaders in the city of Niagara Falls call on Ottawa to reopen the border immediately now that COVID-19 trends are improving.
The group says many hospitality businesses in the city that shares a border with New York state earn much of their revenue in the summer months and are in danger of closing.
Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati says border cities are in a dire situation and need an urgent reopening plan.
Mutual travel restrictions between Canada and the United States — which prohibit all discretionary travel between the two countries while continuing to allow the movement of trade, essential workers and international students — are due to expire July 21.
The Montreal Canadiens playoff run came to an end Wednesday when they were defeated by the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final.
Tampa Bay won 1 – 0, securing the championship for the second straight year. Rookie Ross Colton scored the game and series-winning goal.
Tampa Bay’s mayor had suggested the Lightning lose Game 4 on the road so they could win at home, and she got her wish as the team became the first since Chicago in 2015 to hoist the Cup on home ice.
The defeat dashed the hopes of Canadiens fans, who haven’t seen their team in the final since 1993. Goalie Carey Price made 29 saves.
In the playoffs, Montreal looked nothing like the team that closed the season 0-3-2 while missing Carey Price and motivational leader Brendan Gallagher to injuries. This was also a team that had to overcome the distraction of a COVID-19 outbreak to pause its season and a coaching shakeup, with Ducharme promoted from his assistant’s role after Claude Julien was fired in February.
Come the playoffs, the Canadiens were transformed into a focused, four-line, opportunistic team which fed off goalie Price shaking off an inconsistent season and regaining a calm, puck-smothering focus in net.
Montreal was catapulted by overtime wins in Games 5 and 6 against Toronto to knock out the Maple Leafs in Game 7. Dismissed again, the Canadiens then swept the Winnipeg Jets in the North Division final and overcame being outplayed by Vegas in a 4-1 semifinal opener to win the series in six games.
The Canadiens remained defiant when falling behind 3-0 to the Lightning, with Josh Anderson delivering on his “we’re not finished” rallying cry to score twice, including in overtime, in a 3-2 win in Game 4.
With files from The Associated Press
Toronto police have released funeral details for Const. Jeffrey Northrup, who was killed in the line of duty.
The 31-year veteran of the service was struck by a car in the underground parking garage at City Hall early Friday morning and killed.
The general public may pay their respects at a visitation at the Kane-Jerrett Funeral Home in Thornhill Sunday from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
A funeral service will be held Monday afternoon at BMO Field which will be invitation-only.
Northup had been with the Toronto Police Service for more than 30 years. He is survived by his wife, three children and his mother.
Umar Zameer, 31, is facing a single count of first-degree murder in Northrup’s death.
He has been remanded in custody and is scheduled to appear in court next on July 23, 2021.
Police said a publication ban prevents them from releasing any further details but did say there are no outstanding suspects.
Ontario’s top doctor is calling for all eligible people — especially young adults and teens — to get vaccinated against COVID-19 ahead of the planned return to schools in September.
Dr. Kieran Moore noted on Tuesday that classes in Ontario schools, as well as many colleges and universities, are due to pick up in less than two months, with the goal of holding more classes and extracurriculars in person.
People will need to have received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine before the start of the school year to be fully protected, and Moore noted that vaccine uptake is lower among young people than older Ontarians.
“They are the most social, they’re the most able to propagate the virus back into the communities,” Moore said of the high school and college-aged demographic.
He pointed to the situation in England, where the virus is rapidly spreading among young, unvaccinated people, and said Ontario is also seeing “gaps” among younger adults when it comes to vaccine uptake.
“Time is of the essence now as our schools are planning to reopen fully in the fall,” Moore said.
Moore said approximately 83 per cent of COVID-19 cases reported between May 15 and June 12 were among unvaccinated people, 15 per cent were partially vaccinated and just over one per cent were fully vaccinated.
In Ontario, 78 per cent of Ontario adults have at least one dose of a vaccine and 46 per cent are fully vaccinated.
Vaccination coverage is higher among older Ontarians and the rate lags slightly behind when it comes to young adults.
Sixty-eight per cent of the population aged 18 to 29 has received their first dose and 66 per cent of youth aged 12 to 17 have their first shots.
Moore’s “call for arms,” as he described it, came a day after the province started offering Ontarians aged 12 and older the option of scheduling a second COVID-19 vaccine dose at an interval shorter than four months.
That means everyone eligible for vaccination in the province can now receive their shots as soon as four weeks apart, depending on the vaccine type and if supply allows.
Widespread vaccination is a key aspect of Ontario’s plan to resume in-class learning in the fall — though full details of the plan haven’t been shared. The province has promised that all students and education workers would be offered two shots before September and youth-focused clinics were run last month and into this week to get young people vaccinated.
Education Minister Stephen Lecce said this week that high vaccination rates in the community will help keep transmission down and protect students under age 12, for whom no vaccines have currently been approved in Canada, when classes resume.
Moore said the province saw interest in vaccination drop slightly after the long weekend and it aims to sustain its messaging about vaccination.
Ontario reported 164 new COVID-19 cases and nine deaths from the virus on Tuesday, as well as 80 previously uncounted cases from 2020.
Public health restrictions on businesses and gatherings have gradually been rolling back in light of the positive public health trends, but Moore said the picture can change quickly.
“To sustain our progress, we need to see continued improvement in vaccinations through the summer and into the fall,” he said.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says it’s a historic moment as control over children in care is transferred to a Saskatchewan First Nation for the first time under federal legislation.
Trudeau is visiting Cowessess First Nation, where he is signing an agreement with Chief Cadmus Delorme and Premier Scott Moe.
It is the first time jurisdiction and control of child and family services has been returned to a First Nation under the federal legislation, which was passed in 2019 and came into force the following year.
Trudeau says every First Nation, Inuit, and Metis child should have the opportunity to grow up with their families and in their communities.
The federal government has said the legislation will reduce the number of Indigenous children in care by affirming the inherent rights of First Nation, Inuit and Metis communities.
Cowessess is also the site of a former residential school where, last month, ground-penetrating radar detected a potential 751 unmarked graves.
More to come
More than 200 people are being contacted to repeat their COVID-19 vaccinations because some who attended an immunization clinic in the Niagara region were injected with a saline solution instead of the shot.
Niagara Region Public Health said Tuesday that six people were injected with the harmless saline substance on June 16 at a clinic in Port Colborne, Ont.
An end-of-day audit found six administered doses had not been accounted for and an additional vial of a saline diluent had been used. The diluent is meant to be mixed with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine concentrate and while not harmful, it doesn’t protect against COVID-19.
Dr. Mustafa Hirji, the region’s top doctor, said the health unit wasn’t able to identify the six people who didn’t receive the vaccine.
“Unfortunately, with the size of the clinic going on and the nature of the provincial documentation tool for vaccination, there’s no current tracking of individual doses of vaccine,” Hirji said.
However, he said public health was able to narrow down a timeframe when the doses would have been administered, identifying 205 people out of the 1,148 who received shots that day.
Those individuals were being contacted to book a repeat vaccination after an appropriate dosing interval. The majority will be getting a third COVID-19 vaccine dose, which the health unit said is safe but doesn’t provide additional benefits.
The health unit said a review was conducted to investigate the error that occured, and new dose tracking and training protocols have been introduced to avoid similar situations.
Hirji said the changes include involving more staff members in double-checking others’ work, more detailed documentation in clinics and a plan to track each dose from the freezer to the patient who received it.
“The goal here is, of course, that there won’t be another time, by having these double checks to make sure we stop the error before it happens,” Hirji said. “If unfortunately there is another error we would be able to narrow it down much closer to just six people.”
Hirji said he doesn’t believe similar situations could have happened at other Niagara Region clinics based on the checks and balances that helped identify the problem by the end of day at the Port Colborne clinic.
At least one other such incident has been reported in Ontario since the vaccination campaign began.
Mackenzie Health, which is running vaccination clinics in York Region, advised the public of a similar error in April, saying it contacted the six people who were injected with saline by mistake instead of a COVID-19 vaccine.
“Our internal quality assurance processes allowed us to identify this issue in a timely manner and contact the impacted individuals to disclose the issue, offer support and have them tested for antibodies to identify those who needed to be re-injected with vaccine,” Mackenzie Health said in a statement at the time.
For the last 34 years, Alex Zilberberg’s mornings have begun with a lineup of customers so strong that his The Bagel Stop locations do 70 per cent of their business before 10 a.m. even hits.
But since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the hustle and bustle has disappeared from Toronto’s financial district and underground PATH system his franchisees occupy.
“I used to say I’ve seen it all,” said Zilberberg, who co-founded the bagel chain with his brother-in-law Felix Zonenberg in 1987.
“We’ve lived through the good times and the bad times, but by far these are the worst times that I’ve ever seen.”
Business at The Bagel Stop’s dozens of locations has been down by up to 90 per cent some weeks and like many businesses in the area, he has little hope that it will return quickly.
While Ontario’s reopening plan has returned customers to businesses in most corners of the city, office towers in the financial district and connected to the PATH — a more than 30-kilometre stretch of underground shops and restaurants —are still largely unoccupied as companies allow their staff to keep working from home.
Business owners fear the lack of foot traffic and appetite to get back to offices could mean a recovery will take months or even years and put them well behind companies operating in other areas that are less dependent on the work crowd.
“The best real estate in Canada suddenly became the worst real estate in Canada, literally overnight,” said Zilberberg, who has locations in Commerce Court, Brookfield Place, Scotia Plaza and the TD Centre.
On top of the locations seeing diminished food traffic, he said the spots have also made food delivery models too tough to pursue because most couriers won’t take the time to navigate the PATH to pick up orders and few want to leave their bikes or cars parked outside.
Still, some of his franchisees prepare to greet customers every day.
“The ones that are open say, ‘I probably can make as much money being closed as I am being open because all I’m doing is just turning over inventory, making literally a pittance,”’ he said.
“But they say, ‘I’d rather sit in the store and have my face out there and see whatever customers that I can.”’
Penny Simmons, the owner of Penny Loafers Shoe Shine Company, has kept her Fairmont Royal York Hotel, First Canadian Place and the TD Centre locations closed since the pandemic sent most people home to work.
Summer is always a slow season in the shoe shine business, but the pandemic has caused traffic at her locations to grind to a halt and staff to seek work elsewhere.
“I had a complement of 12 to 14 part-time and four moved back home. Home being the likes of St. John’s, Newfoundland, Halifax and a couple have got full-time jobs,” said Simmons who started her company in 1994 and has been on the PATH since 1995.
“I’m down to only four people right now.”
She imagines she won’t be able to reopen until September or October and thinks it will be at least a year and a half until her business is fully back on its feet.
Zilberberg is hopeful that some people will return to work and bring back their coffee-and-bagel habits in the fall, but he’s not confident everyone will flood back to the area.
“Franchisees…haven’t made a penny in the last year and a half, and they can’t do it for the next year and a half,” he said.
“No one can not bring home a living for three years straight, so that in itself is going to become an issue.”
Zilberberg doesn’t expect business to bounce back to pre-pandemic levels until at least 2022.
Even when people do return to the area, he worries some won’t visit as often as they once did because they’ll have more flexible work arrangements and others will shy away from enclosed spaces where the virus can spread more easily.
Police say a man has been seriously injured following a shooting in a North York neighbourhood Monday evening.
Police said they were called at around 8:02 p.m. for a report of a shooting in the Keele Street and Finch Avenue West area.
When officers arrived they said they found a man in his 40s suffering from gunshot wounds.
He has been transported to the hospital with serious injuries, Toronto Paramedic Services said.
No other information has been released by the police at this time.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the police directly. Tips can also be left anonymously with Crime Stoppers.
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