Interesting.
Evidence of meeting #23 for Health in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was virus.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #23 for Health in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was virus.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:15 p.m.
Liberal
3:15 p.m.
Liberal
Helena Jaczek Liberal Markham—Stouffville, ON
Thank you, Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses for explaining your area of research. It's really fascinating to see all the little pieces hopefully coming together.
I'd like to start with Dr. Tremblay. I was very interested in the cohort that was followed for some 35 years and apparently showed very limited or short-term immunity to coronaviruses. In your view, why would a vaccine necessarily be different in terms of allowing for continued immunity?
3:15 p.m.
Professor, Department of Microbiology, Infectiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal, As an Individual
When you design a vaccine, you design it to produce antibodies that are very specific to the antigen you want to attack. When you test it, you use candidates that will likely generate high levels of antibody and with a very high potency for neutralization. Because you are engineering it, you are developing it, so you can choose what type of antibody response you want to get from that vaccine.
When these researchers looked at the overall duration of the immune responses, it's as I was saying before, the immune response is not equal from one person to the other. Some of them have a very weak immune response. We don't decide what kind of immune response we're going to have. It depends on our genetics and all kinds of virus-host interactions. But, when you design a vaccine, this is what you're looking for and you're engineering it to produce long-lasting....
If you're not successful in producing a vaccine that has a very durable response, you can also boost it—give booster doses. Because it is a virus that does not integrate our host's cells, even if you need to give two or three boosts for the vaccine to be efficacious in the population, it can still be done in a one-year or two-year time frame and then be successful in eradicating the virus.
3:15 p.m.
Liberal
Helena Jaczek Liberal Markham—Stouffville, ON
Do you remain optimistic, essentially, that there is a solution with a vaccine?
3:15 p.m.
Professor, Department of Microbiology, Infectiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal, As an Individual
Yes, I am very optimistic about the vaccine.
3:15 p.m.
Liberal
Helena Jaczek Liberal Markham—Stouffville, ON
Thank you.
Dr. Mossman, I was very interested in reading a little about the research you've done, understanding the interactions between viruses and their hosts.
One of the issues with COVID-19 has been that presentation of symptoms has been quite varied from individual to individual to the extent that, even though there is a national case definition, some provinces have tweaked it as more and more becomes known.
From your perspective looking at host cells, as you have explained to us, what exactly are you learning about this particular virus and the variation of presentations? To give you another little piece of background, we've heard from Genome Canada, in terms of the virus mutating and therefore changing as time goes on, and potentially even that an individual's genome might receive the virus differently.
Could you comment on that?
3:20 p.m.
Acting Vice-President, Research, McMaster University, As an Individual
It's a fascinating field because you have to look at both the evolution of the virus, but also the evolution of the immune response against the virus. In many cases it is that back-and-forth evolution.
We know quite a bit from the original SARS as well about which receptors on the surface of a host cell or human cells allow the virus to bind and get in, but we're also learning that there's more than just one. Now that we recognize some cell types don't express the protein that is normally the receptor, it's becoming more interesting to understand what the other receptors are, what particular cell types that protein is on, and that starts to explain some of the other symptoms we're seeing.
We have indications of gastrointestinal potential—and it's still being tested—but we certainly at McMaster, and I know of others, are looking at the possibility of transmission in live virus, for example, in feces from the gastrointestinal tract.
As we understand more about what cells the virus can get into.... In some cells, the virus can't make copies of itself, but the cell will still respond. The cell can still make certain cytokines that will show symptoms, or that can induce certain symptoms even if that cell doesn't allow for viruses to make multiple copies of itself.
The more we get to understand the biology, the more we're starting to very slowly understand some clinical symptoms.
3:20 p.m.
Liberal
3:20 p.m.
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have a straightforward question.
Witnesses have told us that pooling information, basically, in real time is necessary. Montreal just decided not to make it mandatory for people to wear masks in indoor public places, including public transit.
What do you think of that, Dr. Quach-Thanh and Dr. Tremblay? Does that make sense from a public health standpoint?
3:20 p.m.
Full Professor, Department of Microbiology, Infectious Diseases and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal, Medical Microbiologist and Epidemiologist, CHU Sainte-Justine, As an Individual
As I've always said, people should wear masks inside. I'm not sure what led to that decision, but there's no doubt that, on a bus or subway, where people might be only a foot apart, everyone should wear a mask to reduce the virus's spread. A mask protects other people, not the person wearing it. That means that, if we want everyone to be protected, everyone should wear a mask.
I don't agree with the decision, and I can't tell you what motivated it.
3:20 p.m.
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
The argument is that they don't want to turn into a totalitarian state.
Dr. Tremblay, what do you think?
3:20 p.m.
Professor, Department of Microbiology, Infectiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal, As an Individual
I don't think that's a valid argument. Masks should be worn in public places, especially on subways and buses.
People had already started wearing them, so I'm disappointed with the change in position. The reality is that it's not possible to make masks available to everyone. They don't want to make something mandatory when it can't be enforced because of resources. That's what I've heard.
Governments sometimes have to implement public health measures, but that doesn't make them totalitarian states. Public health authorities have the power to impose certain things in order to protect society, so I think it's dangerous to use an argument like that.
3:20 p.m.
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
A faulty ventilation system may be to blame for the virus spreading in a residential and long-term care centre on Montreal's West Island.
In the greater Montreal area, do you think every school's ventilation system should automatically be inspected?
3:20 p.m.
Full Professor, Department of Microbiology, Infectious Diseases and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal, Medical Microbiologist and Epidemiologist, CHU Sainte-Justine, As an Individual
First, it must be shown that the virus can spread in aerosol form, and those studies are under way. That will tell us whether aerosolization of the virus occurred in residential and long-term care centres.
Most schools don't have a ventilation system. They rely on natural ventilation, which means opening the windows. I'm not convinced that schools have actual air exchangers, but I could be wrong.
3:25 p.m.
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
Some high schools, and general and vocational colleges have no windows at all.
3:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
Thank you, Mr. Thériault.
Mr. Davies, you have two and a half minutes, please.
3:25 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you.
Again, to anybody who feels competent to answer this, I'm starting to read about a connection between COVID-19 and a new multisystem inflammatory syndrome observed in children. Can anybody comment on that potential connection?
3:25 p.m.
Full Professor, Department of Microbiology, Infectious Diseases and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal, Medical Microbiologist and Epidemiologist, CHU Sainte-Justine, As an Individual
New York has reported some cases; Montreal has seen some as well. We know that this Kawasaki-like disease exists with what we think would also happen with other viruses. We're currently looking to see if children with Kawasaki-like syndrome have been exposed to the virus before.
What we know so far is that, out of the children we tested in Montreal, the vast majority were PCR negative, and only one had a positive serology. It's a little bit early to say, but there seems to be at least a temporal association. We now need to know if this association is causal or not.
3:25 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Again, to anybody who cares to answer, I think Canadians are very curious about this. What is it about SARS-CoV-2 that is making it so much more serious than any similar coronavirus? Is it its propensity to spread, its contagious capacity or its virulence? What exactly is it, if anybody can help?
3:25 p.m.
Professor, Department of Microbiology, Infectiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal, As an Individual
One of the things that makes it the most dramatic is its capacity to create severe illness in elderlies. We were expecting pandemics like influenza, where you know what type of population the virus is going to attack, which is broad, and, of course, more at the extremity of ages. This particular virus, first of all is sometimes more contagious than influenza, but for some unique reason that is still not understood, it kills elderly. In our nursing homes and long-term care facilities, it's a hecatomb.
It's this interaction between host and virus that we still don't understand, because that would be the explanation for why elderly people are so fragile to this virus.
I think this is why we need to do more research on that, because this is unique.
3:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
That ends round two. We will start round three at this point, with Ms. Jansen.
Ms. Jansen, please go ahead, for five minutes, please.
3:25 p.m.
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Thank you so much.
I would really like to thank all of the presenters for all of the fantastic information we're receiving today.
I would like to direct my questions to Dr. Quach-Thanh.
The SARS vaccine took 20 months to get to human testing phase, but was never developed. Now we have human trials beginning at Dalhousie in the next two weeks.
Does that seem too fast for you? Do you think there should be concerns about safety?