Health Canada told CBC News they'll finish reviewing updated COVID vaccines by "early autumn" on the heels of the U.S. approving two updated vaccines to protect against hospitalizations and deaths.
As COVID looms over the Paralympic Games in Paris that start Wednesday following outbreaks among Olympic athletes , new subvariants of Omicron continue to ebb and flow and make people ill. Doctors and public health experts want people to consider getting immunized as part of their fall plans. Mandy Cohen, director of the U.
S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters on Aug. 22 why officials think the updated vaccines are important.
"While the COVID virus continues to mutate and change faster than the flu virus, our underlying immunity from prior vaccines and prior infections provides some protection," Cohen said. "But we know that protection decreases over time, and certain groups continue to be at higher risk from COVID and other viruses, and we need to continue to protect ourselves and our loved ones." Dawn Bowdish, an immunology professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont.
, said COVID activity tends to peak every three to six months, such as in this coming winter. What variants are in the upcoming vaccine? Along with the Omicron subvariants currently circulating in Canada and the U.S.
, KP variants which are offshoots of Omicron, started spreading rapidly around the world in late 2021. Vaccine makers and regulators like Health Canada are now gearing up to .