Evidence of meeting #21 for Health in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was covid-19.
A recording is available from Parliament.
MGen Dany Fortin
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
For the province of Ontario at the end of March—my apologies, I have to do some math in public—as of today, it has been 1.57 million Pfizer doses, and for Moderna, 703,000 up to now.... In addition, there is a newly approved table of data that is in circulation. Forgive me, I am trying to get my hands on that.
I'll submit this to the committee in writing, if I may.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
Thank you.
We now move to Mr. Thériault.
Mr. Thériault, the floor is yours for six minutes.
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My first question is for you, Dr. Tremblay.
Welcome, and thank you again for joining us.
People are concerned about the arrival of the variants. Modelling by the Public Health Agency of Canada showed that, if the public health measures were relaxed too quickly, we could have up to 20,000 new cases per day. The Institut national de santé publique du Québec, INSPQ, was talking about 2,000 new cases per day in Quebec alone.
Do you believe that those measures must be relaxed, or tightened even more? Some claim that we need to tighten them even more until we have a critical mass of people who have been vaccinated.
Infectious Disease Specialist and Medical Microbiologist, Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal, As an Individual
Thank you for your question, Mr. Thériault.
It is important to be concerned about the variants, because they could completely change the dynamics of the epidemic. Currently, the number of cases and hospitalizations is going down, but everything could change if the variants become dominant.
That being the case, I do not feel that this is the time to relax the precautionary measures we have taken up to now. In Quebec, some loosening during the school break week was allowed, but we are all a little frightened that it may subsequently cause a new spike in cases.
In my opinion, we should not continue in that direction. Instead, we should continue to restrict gatherings as much as possible until we have a critical mass of people who have been vaccinated.
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
From what we know about the effectiveness of vaccines against the first strain of the COVID-19 virus, could herd immunity be threatened by the emergence of variants, even though we are happy with the availability of vaccines?
Infectious Disease Specialist and Medical Microbiologist, Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal, As an Individual
The predominant variants are the one from South Africa and the B117 from England. For those two variants, the vaccine response seems adequate with both vaccines, from Pfizer and from Moderna. The South African strain shows some resistance to the antibodies that the vaccines generate and we know that the AstraZeneca vaccine is less effective for that variant. However, it is not sufficient to impair the effectiveness of vaccination. All the vaccines are effective in protecting people against the severe infections that require hospitalization or cause death.
That is encouraging for now, but it does not mean that other variants will not emerge and possibly turn out to be completely resistant to current vaccines. That should encourage us, therefore, to be even more careful and to take advantage of local and national opportunities to quickly begin producing new vaccines or boosters, because we may well be needing them next year.
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
Some are talking about combining vaccines from different sources in order to increase immunity. The first dose could come from Pfizer and the second from AstraZeneca, for example. Do you have a view on that?
Infectious Disease Specialist and Medical Microbiologist, Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal, As an Individual
No evidence suggests that we should move in that direction. No study on combining vaccines has been conducted. With vaccines available to such an extent, as everyone is telling us, we have no reason to want to combine vaccines.
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
With the appearance of the variants and because extremely few doses of vaccine have currently been given, should we not turn more to rapid testing for certain population groups? If so, which ones? It might mean that we do not have actually have to tighten the rules everywhere.
Infectious Disease Specialist and Medical Microbiologist, Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal, As an Individual
That is an important and interesting question. Until now, we have used rapid tests in a limited way because some, like antigenic tests, are less sensitive than traditional tests. However, there are several types of rapid tests and we must not confuse them.
Rapid tests can still be used, because, if they are administered regularly, they at least allow us to detect the most contagious cases. Additionally, if they are repeated, we will end up detecting all cases. So I am in favour of a strategy that combines rapid testing with comprehensive or random vaccination in the settings where outbreaks are likely.
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
Some are starting to talk about vaccination passports. What is your view on them, in light of the management of the pandemic, the number of infections and the variants?
Infectious Disease Specialist and Medical Microbiologist, Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal, As an Individual
We need to be extremely careful about vaccination passports. I find the idea a little premature. If we give out vaccination passports, what do they show?
We are still not sure about the duration of the immunity that vaccines provide. Some people may have had one dose and others two. Will the immunity last six months, eight months? If you want to use a vaccination passport in order to travel, but you were vaccinated a year ago and you no longer have any antibodies, what significance does it have?
Before we talk about a vaccination passport, I would like to have data about the duration of the immunity that the vaccines provide and about the extent of their effectiveness. That would reassure me that the passport actually means that the person is immunized and protected and will not therefore be spreading the virus in other countries.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
Well done.
We'll go now to Mr. Davies.
Mr. Davies, please go ahead for six minutes please.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
The Prime Minister has repeatedly and publicly said that all Canadians who want a vaccine will get one by September. I noticed that you, today, said by late September. Why the shift in dates?
MGen Dany Fortin
Mr. Chair, there is no shift in date. If I said that, it's by mistake. It's by September, and with the numbers that we're seeing with the approval of the AstraZeneca vaccine, you'll see even more vaccines arrive sooner, and so that date might be revisited at a future point in time.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Okay. Thank you.
The U.S. is currently administering 1.45 million doses per day on average, and they plan to ramp up to a capacity of three million per day by April—
Liberal
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Sorry.
The U.S. is currently administering 1.45 million doses per day on average, and they plan to ramp up to a capacity of three million per day by April. In contrast, Canada has only administered a total of approximately 1.7 million doses to date.
General Fortin, what is the maximum number of doses per day that Canada is currently capable of administering?
MGen Dany Fortin
Mr. Chair, I think this is a question that is best answered by integrating the inputs from the different provinces, but what provinces are telling us is that they can scale up significantly. They see no major obstacles to scaling up with the projections that we issued them. I think that with the efforts over the last few weeks and the culminating point that is the rehearsal on March 9, it's not an end date, but it is a good, important, way point to come together and confirm that we have a good line of sight in our plans and that additional risks are identified. We might be in a better position to answer that in the fullness of time.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
Mr. Davies, the clerk advises me that you need to unplug and plug in again. I'll stop your time.