Variants boost urgency for second doses: expert

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This article was published 27/05/2021 (1772 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

IN less than six weeks, Manitoba went from having no official cases of the highly contagious P.1 variant to detecting 99.

The variant of concern that spread rapidly across Brazil arrived in Manitoba in mid-April.

Over the May long weekend, the province recorded its first death linked to the strain: a woman in her 70s from the Winnipeg health region. P.1 is now present in almost every region (minus the north).

Early international studies indicated P.1 was much more contagious than other strains of COVID-19, and the existing vaccines were less effective against it.

Staying ahead of variants of concern and emerging strains of COVID-19 makes the provincial rollout of second vaccine doses more urgent, said epidemiologist Souradet Shaw, an assistant professor at the University of Manitoba who holds the Canada Research Chair in program science and global public health.

“The evidence illustrates that having two doses is still pretty effective against them. That’s really the best tool that we have,” Shaw said.

Provincial data updated Tuesday listed 84 P.1 cases as recovered. In total, there have been 9,104 COVID-19 cases involving highly contagious variants of concern in Manitoba; 54 people who contracted them have died.

It’s important for Manitoba to keep track of the impact of P.1 and other variants of concern as part of its planning, Shaw said, because they’re going to be around for the foreseeable future.

“I think we should definitely be concerned about what the impact of the new variants might be, at least in the medium term. We’ve seen how quickly B.1.1.7 has been able to become the dominant strain in many places, but I think it’s also important to contextualize when it comes to these new variants of concern,” Shaw said.

Manitoba’s high infection rate is still being driven by the dominant B.1.1.7 (first detected in the United Kingdom), rather than the variants that caused devastation in Brazil or India, he added.

Shaw said investments in the machinery of public health, including labs, public health nurses and analysts, is necessary to stay on top of these variants, which he describes as an “ever-changing threat.”

“What this illustrates is that we’re in this for the long haul. So what our future holds is a bit unclear at this point. Are we going to need booster shots for these new variants? There could be vaccine passports (and other unknowns),” Shaw said.

“But what this clearly points to is that investments in public health need to be made — and I can’t stress that enough.”

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay