Sudbury immunologist encourages third COVID vaccine to fight off Omicron variant

As 2022 gets underway, COVID-19 cases continue to skyrocket across Ontario and the country and a Sudbury immunologist says more needs to be learned to help get a handle on the latest variant.

Since late November, the Omicron variant has been causing case counts to rise. In December, the province reintroduced capacity limits at restaurants, bars and retailers.

On Monday, the Ontario government implemented new restrictions in an effort to slow the spread of the virus. Those restrictions include further capacity limits at retail stores, closing indoor dining at restaurants and delaying the start of in-person learning for students by two weeks.

Almost two years into the pandemic, Alain Simard, an immunologist with the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, said he understands the public is frustrated still to be in this.

"We're all tired but at the same time, very discouraged that we're still talking about this and things seem to start over and over again," he said.

Simard said there is still lots of unknown information at this time.

"A few things that we do know, obviously, is that the number of cases are skyrocketing at record rates," he said.

"What we are not 100 per cent certain of is what explains it now."

Simard said the variant is more transmissible than previous ones, but added there are other reasons why cases are going up.

"There have been a few studies recently that show that the virus, it's incubation period, is a lot shorter than previous variants," he said.

"For Delta, for example, it was around five days."

With the Omicron variant, he said that the incubation period is around three days.

"That means a day or two after you were infected, you're already contagious and already passing it on to people."

'Too early to tell'

Early reports have suggested that the Omicron variant can cause less severe infection in people. Simard said so far, data is showing that the Omicron variant is impacting people who are fully vaccinated less severely than those who are not vaccinated.

"That's the main reason why our hospital burden hasn't gone up quite as much as it would have if we had been in the first wave of the pandemic," he said.

"What we're not sure, however, is if the virus is less severe in non-vaccinated people. I think it's still too early to tell that."

He said at this point, a third COVID-19 vaccine is important to prevent infection.

"What happens is if you only have two shots, compared to three, with two shots, our antibodies don't recognize this Omicron variant very efficiently," he said.

"Whereas if you have your third shot, then you start generating more antibodies that can help protect you against infection."

He said if you only have two shots, that will still help protect against being admitted to hospital with COVID-19.

"That response seems to be long term," he said.

'Things will get better'

Simard said cases will likely continue to rise, with the holiday season just ending.

"It might get worse. We don't know. We do think and hope it's going to crash back down fairly quickly but time will tell whether that's true or not."

He added it's unclear what course the pandemic will take next or when the Omicron variant wave will be over.

"It's impossible to tell at this point," he said.

"A lot of people have hypothesised that this will be the end of the pandemic, but we've said that in the past waves, and we should learn not to say that."

Simard does anticipate we will be living with COVID for a long time.

"Is it going to be as bad as it is now? I don't think so. I do think things will get better," he said.

"At some point, we will have to start thinking about how we do live with this and what reasonable precautions we can take on a regular basis to avoid lockdowns."