Ontario finds Canada’s first cases of the COVID-19 variant of Omicron. This is what we know | The Canadian News

Canada has detected its first two cases of the Omicron COVID-19 variant.

TO Ontario Ministry of Health statement confirmed that cases of the variant, recently declared the fifth worrisome variant of the new coronavirus by the WHO, have been identified in Ontario.

“Today, the province of Ontario has confirmed two cases of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 in Ottawa, both reported in people who had recently traveled from Nigeria. Ottawa Public Health is conducting case and contact management and patients are isolated, ”the statement read.

“In addition to the recently announced measures, we continue to urge the federal government to take the necessary steps to require testing at the point of arrival for all travelers, regardless of their origin, to further protect against the spread of this new variant. . “

South African scientists first identified the heavily mutated variant earlier this week after an exponential increase in cases, prompting a number of nations, including Canada, to impose new travel restrictions on a wide swath of southern countries. from Africa.

Experts and public health officials were alarmed by the high number of mutations in the variant, and preliminary data initially showed greater potential for transmissibility, a reduction in the effectiveness of the vaccine, and greater reinfection.

Other experts were quick to point out South Africa’s low vaccination rates, which currently account for less than 30 percent of the total population, as well as the lack of evidence to suggest that the variant is more lethal than current dominant strains of the virus.

Canadian public health officials previously said that getting vaccinated was still the best way to prevent the most serious outcomes of contracting COVID-19, and that there was no definitive evidence yet of its ability to completely circumvent the protection offered by vaccines.

Trend stories

• 

  ‘Today is critical’: Abbotsford area evacuated as city braces for more flooding

• 

  Ryan Reynolds Received the Governor General’s Award with a Tribute Song That Makes Him Cry

A handful of vaccine manufacturers recently announced that they were also developing or examining ways to improve or create new versions of their vaccines to combat Omicron.

The most recent was that of Moderna, whose medical director, Dr. Paul Burton, told the BBC that a new vaccine could be produced by “early 2022” if necessary.

“The remarkable thing about mRNA vaccines, the Moderna platform, is that we can move very fast,” he said, noting that the company began work on an Omicron vaccine on Thursday.

Canada’s vaccination rates are also among the highest in the world, with nearly 80 percent of the country’s eligible population already vaccinated against COVID-19.

Public health experts told Global News on Friday, shortly before Canada’s announcement of new travel restrictions, that they wouldn’t be surprised if the variant was “already here” and spread within Canada’s borders.

On Sunday, the Netherlands, Denmark and Australia became the latest countries along with Canada to discover the new variant among their cases.

The variant has already been found in Belgium, Botswana, Israel, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy.

More to come …