Officials in the Canadian province of Ontario said on Saturday that they have detected two confirmed cases of the new coronavirus strain that first appeared in the United Kingdom (United Kingdom).
to me Reuters, Officials identified the new surrogate in a southern Ontario couple with no known travel history, exposure, or high-risk contact.
The report comes as the province imposed a new lockdown, with 4,301 new cases of COVID-19 reported over the past two days and more than 2,000 infections per day for 12 consecutive days.
“This reinforces the need for Ontario residents to stay home as much as possible and continue to follow all public health advice, including county-wide lockdown measures starting today,” said Dr. Barbara Yaffe, Ontario’s chief medical officer, in a statement Saturday. Reuters reported.
While experts are still researching the origin and transmission of the new strain, scientists believe the variant is about 40 to 70 percent more transmissible than the original.
a The study was released this week by The Center for Mathematical Modeling of Infectious Diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine put the infection rate at 56 percent more.
Canada last week extended a ban on passenger flights from the United Kingdom until January 6 and expanded screening and monitoring procedures from South Africa due to the rise of the new strain.
It is unclear whether the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech and approved by Canada and other countries earlier this month is effective in preventing this alternative.
modern He said in a statement On Wednesday, its vaccine will likely be able to protect people from the new strain, adding that it plans to conduct tests to confirm the vaccine’s effectiveness.
Canada on Wednesday Authorized use of the Coronavirus vaccine Moderna For widespread use, paving the way for the second vaccine to be distributed across the country.
The vaccine is indicated for use in people 18 years of age or older. Moderna is conducting additional studies in children 12 years of age and older, so guidelines could be revised in the future.
As of Saturday, Canada had nearly 541,000 cases of COVID-19, with more than 14,700 deaths from the virus, according to Data collected by Johns Hopkins University.
Several other countries, including Australia, Italy and the Netherlands have also reported cases of the new infectious strain.
