Heena Sharma Blog

  Canada's chief public health officer says there are cases of the latest COVID-19 variant of interest in the country, but it's too early to know how widespread it is or what impact it could have. Dr. Theresa Tam said Thursday 11 cases of the Lambda variant that was first identified in Peru last year have been reported to Health Canada to date. However, the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec said Thursday it has confirmed 27 cases already, all in March and April. The Public Health Agency of Canada is monitoring Lambda to see how it spreads and how it responds to vaccines, Tam said. We're just trying to gather up some information on who it is that's having the Lambda variant right now, but there's very few cases at this point, she said. Early studies, including one from New York University published July 2, suggest Lambda may be a bit resistant to antibodies produced by the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, but concluded it is not b...

  Canada once was hailed as a success story in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic , faring much better than the United States in deaths and infections because of how it approached lockdowns. But the trade-dependent nation has lagged on vaccinating its population because it lacks the ability to manufacture the vaccine and has had to rely on the global supply chain for the lifesaving shots, like many other countries. With no domestic supply, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government bet on seven different vaccines manufactured elsewhere and secured advance purchase agreements enough to get 10 doses for each of Canada's 38 million people. Regulators have approved the Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines. While acquiring them has proven difficult, that gamble appears to be about to pay off. Although Canada's economy is tightly interconnected with the US, Washington hasn't allowed the hundreds of millions of vaccine doses made in America...