More than 115 cases of eye damage reported in Ontario after solar eclipse
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
U.S. regulators told COVID-19 vaccine makers Thursday that any booster shots tweaked for the fall will have to add protection against the newest omicron relatives.
The Food and Drug Administration said the original vaccines would be used for anyone still getting their first series of shots. But with immunity waning and the super-contagious Omicron family of variants getting better at dodging protection, the FDA decided boosters intended for fall needed an update.
The recipe: Combination shots that add protection against the Omicron relatives named BA.4 and BA.5 to the original vaccine. Those mutants together now account for just over half of new U.S. infections.
It's still a gamble as there's no way to know if an omicron relative still will be a threat as cold weather approaches or if a newer mutant will take its place. And the current Pfizer and Moderna vaccines still offer strong protection against COVID-19's worst outcomes as long as people have gotten already recommended boosters.
But the combination approach, what scientists call "bivalent" shots, would allow the boosters to retain the proven benefits of the original vaccine while adding to its breadth of protection. It's a common vaccine strategy: Flu shots, for instance, can protect against four influenza strains and are tweaked annually depending on what's circulating.
The FDA's decision comes after its scientific advisers earlier this week recommended that any boosters for a fall campaign should contain some version of Omicron -- but left undecided whether it should be the Omicron mutant that caused last winter's surge or the genetically distinct relatives that have replaced it.
Pfizer and Moderna already were brewing and testing boosters updated against the first Omicron mutant in anticipation of an October rollout. They found adding the extra protection was safe -- and spurred production of more omicron-fighting antibodies than just getting another dose of today's vaccine.
Pfizer had begun work on another experimental dose to target the newer strains the FDA ultimately settled on.
"We're continuing to collect more data from our study on BA.4/5 and will be in touch as soon as we are ready to submit," Pfizer spokeswoman Jerica Pitts said in an emailed message.
Moderna told FDA's advisers that switching to the even newer strains now circulating might delay its booster update another month. Moderna didn't immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.
The FDA's order doesn't guarantee that those combo shots would be offered in the fall. Manufacturers still have to provide key data before the agency decides whether to authorize modified boosters -- and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention then would have to decide how they're used.
For now, an all-important first booster of current vaccine already is urged for all Americans age 5 and older. People 50 and older are eligible for a second booster. With Omicron, authorities say the shots' protection against COVID-19 hospitalization, while still robust, has slipped some in older adults and a second booster can help restore it.
------
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.
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
A Sherwood Park family says their new house is uninhabitable. The McNaughton's say they were forced to leave the house after living there for only a week because contaminants inside made it difficult to breathe.
A man has been handed a lengthy hunting ban and fined thousands of dollars for illegally killing a grizzly bear, B.C. conservation officers say.
The B.C. NDP has asked the federal government to recriminalize public drug use, marking a major shift in the province's approach to addressing the deadly overdose crisis.
The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) says it's investigating an interaction between a uniformed officer and anti-Trudeau government protestors after a video circulated on social media.
An emergency slide fell off a Delta Air Lines jetliner shortly after takeoff Friday from New York, and pilots who felt a vibration in the plane circled back to land safely at JFK Airport.
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau says there is 'still so much love' between her and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as they navigate their post-separation relationship co-parenting their three children.
George Mallory is renowned for being one of the first British mountaineers to attempt to scale the dizzying heights of Mount Everest during the 1920s. Nearly a century later, newly digitized letters shed light on Mallory’s hopes and fears about ascending Everest.
A loud explosion was heard across Hamilton on Friday after a propane tank was accidentally destroyed and detonated at a local scrap metal yard, police say.
As if a 4-0 Edmonton Oilers lead in Game 1 of their playoff series with the Los Angeles Kings wasn't good enough, what was announced at Rogers Place during the next TV timeout nearly blew the roof off the downtown arena.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”