a preprint by a canadian research network estimates that, by late summer, 60 to 80 per cent of the canadian population will have some immunity to covid, but that’s still insufficient to stave off a fall resurgence. how severe a rebound depends on the rate of waning immunity, the transmissibility of the hyper-contagious delta, relaxing of distancing and other public health measures, and how well the vaccines hold up against infection and severe disease, they said. “to prevent large-scale resurgence, booster vaccination and/or re-introduction of public health mitigation may be needed,” the authors wrote.
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a year and a half into covid and there’s still so much unpredictability. still, “uncertainty is part of covid,” toronto infectious diseases specialist dr. andrew morris wrote in his weekly covid emails.
to recap this past week alone: quebec advised employers that it would be “prudent” not to bring office workers back just yet, given a rise in confirmed covid cases and schools reopening, and that it would be left to employers to decide whether to require employees present vaccination passports for those wishing for a physical return to the office.
air canada introduced a mandatory vaccination policy for all employees and new hires. no, testing won’t be an alternative, the company said in a release, and, except for those with a valid exemption, failure to be fully vaccinated by oct. 30 will carry consequences “up to and including unpaid leave or termination.”
after rejecting a vaccine certificate system, b.c.’s dr. bonnie henry introduced just that, alberta announced plans to make proof of vaccination cards available (though a province-wide vaccine passport like quebec’s remains a no-fly zone) and ontario medical officers of health, weary of ontario’s dithering, agreed to create their own vaccine certificates as the number of businesses and organizations requiring proof of vaccination swells.
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a huge new study from israel appearing in this week’s issue of the new england journal of medicine found that while the pfizer vaccine increases the risk of heart inflammation (about three events per 100,000 people vaccinated) the risk is several-fold higher among people infected with the sars-cov-2 virus (11 cases per 100,000). infection with covid was also associated with a substantially increased risk of other seriously bad things, like heart attack, blood clots and bleeding inside the skull or brain.
while a preprint paper published this week suggests immunity, including protection against a breakthrough infection with delta, lasts longer after a natural infection than immunity after two doses of pfizer, no one is suggesting covid parties. “what we don’t want people to say is: ‘all right, i should go out and get infected, i should have an infection party,’” michel nussenzweig, an immunologist at rockefeller university told science magazine.
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