Most of Canada to receive emergency alert test today
The federal government will test its capacity to issue emergency alerts today, with the exception of Ontario, where the test will take place on May 15.
Vaccine makers are racing to update their COVID-19 shots against the newest coronavirus threat even before it's clear a change is needed, just in case.
Experts doubt today's shots will become useless but say it's critical to see how fast companies could produce a reformulated dose and prove it works -- because whatever happens with omicron, this newest mutant won't be the last.
Omicron "is pulling the fire alarm. Whether it turns out to be a false alarm, it would be really good to know if we can actually do this -- get a new vaccine rolled out and be ready," said immunologist E. John Wherry of the University of Pennsylvania.
It's too soon to know how vaccines will hold up against omicron. The first hints this week were mixed: Preliminary lab tests suggest two Pfizer doses may not prevent an omicron infection but they could protect against severe illness. And a booster shot may rev up immunity enough to do both.
Better answers are expected in the coming weeks and regulators in the U.S. and other countries are keeping a close watch. The World Health Organization has appointed an independent scientific panel to advise on whether the shots need reformulating because of omicron or any other mutant.
But authorities haven't laid out what would trigger such a drastic step: If vaccine immunity against serious illness drops, or if a new mutant merely spreads faster?
"This is not trivial," BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin, Pfizer's vaccine partner, said shortly before omicron's discovery. A company could apply to market a new formula "but what happens if another company makes another proposal with another variant? We don't have an agreed strategy."
It's a tough decision -- and the virus moves faster than science. Just this fall the U.S. government's vaccine advisers wondered why boosters weren't retooled to target the extra-contagious delta variant -- only to have the next scary mutant, omicron, be neither a delta descendent nor a very close cousin.
If vaccines do need tweaking, there's still another question: Should there be a separate omicron booster or a combination shot? And if it's a combo, should it target the original strain along with omicron, or the currently dominant delta variant plus omicron? Here's what we know.
COVID-19 vaccines work by triggering production of antibodies that recognize and attack the spike protein that coats the coronavirus, and many are made with new technology flexible enough for easy updating. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are fastest to tweak, made with genetic instructions that tell the body to make harmless copies of the spike protein -- and that messenger RNA can be swapped to match new mutations.
Pfizer expects to have an omicron-specific candidate ready for the Food and Drug Administration to consider in March, with some initial batches ready to ship around the same time, chief scientific officer Dr. Mikael Dolsten told The Associated Press.
Moderna is predicting 60 to 90 days to have an omicron-specific candidate ready for testing. Other manufacturers that make COVID-19 vaccines using different technology, including Johnson & Johnson, also are pursuing possible updates.
Pfizer and Moderna already have successfully brewed experimental doses to match delta and another variant named beta, shots that haven't been needed but offered valuable practice.
So far, the original vaccines have offered at least some cross-protection against prior variants. Even if immunity against omicron isn't as good, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, hopes the big antibody jump triggered by booster doses will compensate.
Pfizer's preliminary lab testing, released Wednesday, hint that might be the case but antibodies aren't the only layer of defense. Vaccines also spur T cells that can prevent serious illness if someone does get infected, and Pfizer's first tests showed, as expected, those don't seem to be affected by omicron.
Also, memory cells that can create new and somewhat different antibodies form with each dose.
"You're really training your immune system not just to deal better with existing variants, but it actually prepares a broader repertoire to deal with new variants," Dolsten said.
How aggressive a mutant is also plays a role in whether to reformulate the vaccine. Omicron appears to spread easily but early reports from South African scientists hint that it might cause milder infections than previous variants.
The FDA has said companies won't need massive studies of tweaked vaccines but small ones to measure if people given the updated shot have immune responses comparable to the original, highly effective shots.
Wherry doesn't expect data from volunteers testing experimental omicron-targeted shots until at least February.
Flu vaccines protect against three or four different strains of influenza in one shot. If a vaccine tweak is needed for omicron, authorities will have to decide to whether to make a separate omicron booster or add it to the original vaccine -- or maybe even follow the flu model and try another combination.
There's some evidence that a COVID-19 combo shot could work. In a small Moderna study, a so-called bivalent booster containing the original vaccine and a beta-specific dose caused a bigger antibody jump than either an original Moderna booster or its experimental beta-specific shot.
And scientists already are working on next-generation vaccines that target parts of the virus less prone to mutate.
Omicron brings "another important wake-up call," Wherry said -- not just to vaccinate the world but create more versatile options to get that job done.
------
AP reporter Jamey Keaten contributed to this report.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
The federal government will test its capacity to issue emergency alerts today, with the exception of Ontario, where the test will take place on May 15.
Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, has made headlines with his recent arrival in the U.K., this time to celebrate all things Invictus. But upon the prince landing in the U.K., we have already had confirmation that King Charles III won't have time to see his youngest son during his brief visit.
An Ontario man found out that a line of credit he thought was insured actually isn't after his wife of 50 years died.
After more than a century, Boy Scouts of America is rebranding as Scouting America, another major shakeup for an organization that once proudly resisted change.
A first-of-its-kind Canadian research study is working towards a major medical breakthrough for a brain disorder, believed to be caused by repeated head injuries, that can only be detected after death.
In March, Indonesian officials and local fishermen rescued 75 people from the overturned hull of a boat off the coast of Indonesia. Until now, little was known about why the boat capsized.
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
An Ontario woman said it would have been impossible to buy a house without her mother – an anecdote that animates the fact that over 17 per cent of Canadian homeowners born in the ‘90s own their property with their parents, according to a new report.
Canadian immigrants threatened by hostile regimes are urging parliamentarians to quickly pass the 'Countering Foreign Interference Act' so they can feel safe living in their adopted home.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
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.