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Toronto, April 5: Marc-Andre Langlois, a virologist at the University of Ottawa who is in charge of the Coronavirus Variants Rapid Response Network in Canada, said the variant would remain for a long time like influenza and require annual vaccination. He made the remarks on CBC’s ‘The House’ on April 3. “It may even become endemic, which means that every year when we get our flu shot, we’ll be getting our coronavirus shot for whatever variants are circulating at that specific time”, he said.
This virologist has now formed a team of experts from across Canada, and their joint task is to study the science behind these variants, and how to manage their spread as much as possible. The good news, there are about 30 experts on the team who are preparing to respond to the questions of the Canadian government.
Speaking about his team, Marc-Andre Langlois said, “They want to know if there’s a variant that is more resistant to one type of vaccine rather than another, which would prompt redirection of the supply chain of the vaccines to send a vaccine that is more effective against a certain variant in one region and redeploy the other vaccines in another. So there are huge implications surrounding these variants.”
Currently, the third wave has begun of corona pandemic which exists in Canada for a year, and lockdowns have been imposed in various provinces to prevent infection. Lockdowns have already been imposed across the provinces of British Columbia and Ontario and three cities in Quebec to prevent the spread. Because the intensive care beds of the hospital are filling up quickly with the patient flow. Doctors say the whole family is infected with variants, which has not been seen in the previous two waves.
In a tweet about this, the doctor of the emergency room of Scarborough Health Network, Dr. Lisa Salamon-Switzman sadly said, “Saw a patient this week in ER. Kids and grandchildren all had Covid. One of her kid’s in-laws was in ICU in another hospital. Index case didn’t know how they got exposed. Ripped through 3 generations of this family. 10 people infected. VOCs are nothing like I’ve ever seen.”
As it turns out, not only are many people getting infected, but they are also getting sick because of the variants. In addition, doctors are reporting more cases of infection in young people than in the previous wave of infections, where severe types of symptoms exist.
In this Dr. Salamon-Switzman said, “The sooner that everybody follows the rules and not gathers, the sooner we can return to our normal way of life.”
That’s why I want more people to get vaccinated as soon as possible, said Marc-Andre Langlois. According to him, three vaccines existing in Canada are working against the variants. But more variants will emerge. However, his team continues to search one might be detected first in Canada about COVID-19 cases to identify not only the mutations of the virus but how they might combine. “Besides, viruses every time they replicate, they acquire new mutations. It’s very likely that all the vaccines that are deployed right now will need to be modified in the future.”
