Stamp prices rise for the third time in five years amid financial woes for Canada Post
Canada Post is increasing stamp prices for the third time since 2019, a move the Crown corporation says is a "reality" of its sales-based revenue structure.
The co-founder of Moderna says a regular booster shot will ‘almost certainly’ be needed to increase protection against COVID-19.
Canadian stem cell biologist Derrick Rossi told CTV News Channel on Wednesday that the body’s immune system is "primed by vaccination or primary infection," however that immunity wanes over time if those systems are not challenged.
"I think boosters are most likely going to be in the cards and evidence is pointing towards that so this is the evidence emerging out of Israel that a booster is almost certainly the way," Rossi said.
The comments come after an analysis done in Israel showed that Pfizer-BioNTech's coronavirus vaccine appeared to be less effective against infections caused by the Delta variant compared to other strains of COVID-19.
In a statement issued Monday, the Israeli government said the mRNA vaccine provided 64 per cent protection against COVID-19 infection. In May, when the Delta strain had not yet spread widely in the country, it found that the Pfizer shot was roughly 95 per cent effective against all infections.
The Israeli government did not release underlying data or other details about its analysis and Pfizer said it could not comment on unpublished data.
In a lab study, Moderna says its mRNA vaccine showed to work against the Delta variant first identified in India with a modest decrease in response compared to the original strain.
Rossi said variants are inevitable with a pandemic of this scale.
"With an endemic virus, it might not be surprising that we need a booster shot every year," Rossi said. "Immune systems do what they do, they're great at it in the short term, but immunity does diminish with time, and especially with the emergence of more transmissible and potentially more deadly variants."
However, Rossi said he believes the booster shots will be "variant specific." Rossi explained that mRNA technology can tailor a vaccine to a specific pathogen.
The technology uses messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA), which is a molecule that provides cells with genetic instructions for making proteins that are needed for numerous cellular functions in the body, including for energy and immune defence.
In a lab, scientists develop synthetic mRNA that is able to instruct the body’s cells to develop that same distinctive spike protein from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. After the piece of protein is made, the cell breaks down the genetic instructions and gets rid of them.
The immune system then identifies the foreign spike proteins produced by the cells and initiates an immune response by building antibodies against them.
Moderna began developing a booster shot in February and announced in May that early human trials showed that a third dose of either its current COVID-19 vaccine or an experimental, variant-specific shot increased immunity against the Beta and Gamma variants, first found in South Africa and Brazil, respectively.
The company said the booster shots also increased antibodies against the original version of COVID-19.
"It's for sure going to be variant specific boosters which will of course be great for variants," Rossi said. "New [variants] will emerge but again, the technology like this will be able to really pivot quickly to address it I think."
While Rossi is hopeful that regular booster shots will help to end the COVID-19 pandemic, he said it will only work if everyone continues to roll up their sleeves.
"We need to get our vaccines, and we probably in all likelihood need to get our boosters," Rossi said
With files from CTVNews.ca's Jackie Dunham
Canada Post is increasing stamp prices for the third time since 2019, a move the Crown corporation says is a "reality" of its sales-based revenue structure.
Defence lawyers for Jeremy Skibicki have told the court the accused unlawfully caused the death of four women, but argue he is not criminally responsible due to mental disorder.
H5N1 or avian flu is decimating wildlife around the world and is now spreading among cattle in the United States, sparking concerns about 'pandemic potential' for humans. Now a health expert is urging Canada to scale up surveillance north of the border.
Italy's mafia rarely dirties its hands with blood these days. Extortion rackets have gone out of fashion and murders are largely frowned upon by the godfathers.
After his adopted parents died, Dave Rogers set out to learn more about his birth mother. DNA results and a little help from friendly strangers would put him on a path to a small town in England.
The judge presiding over Donald Trump's hush money trial fined him US$1,000 on Monday for violating his gag order once again and sternly warned the former president that additional violations could result in jail time.
As Canadians brace themselves for summer temperatures, forecasters say a weakening El Nino cycle doesn’t mean relief from the heat.
Researchers in Israel are turning to artificial intelligence to comb through piles of records to try to identify hundreds of thousands of Jewish people killed in the Holocaust whose names are missing from official memorials.
Russia plans to hold drills simulating the use of battlefield nuclear weapons, the Defense Ministry announced Monday, days after the Kremlin reacted angrily to comments by senior Western officials about the war in Ukraine and Moscow warned that tensions with the West are deepening.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.