Canada aims to double variant surveillance
VANCOUVER — A national agency leading a network of labs hunting for variants of COVID-19 is aiming to double its efforts across Canada as part of a global surveillance initiative to keep up with new strains that may become more prevalent.
Viruses naturally mutate over time, and several COVID-19 variants of concern have been identified, including those that were first associated with the United Kingdom, South Africa, Brazil and Nigeria, all of which have been detected in Canada.
New variants, some of which are more transmissible, are identified using equipment that sequences the virus’s genetic material or genome in patients to show that the main variant has developed a group of mutations on what could be considered the family tree of the virus.
Dr. Catalina Lopez-Correa, executive director of the Canadian COVID-19 Genomics Network, which was created in April 2020 as part of Genome Canada, said the emergence of the variant linked to the U.K. led to an increase in capacity last December at six regional centres and public health labs.
“We needed also to develop a strategy to prioritize samples that we would sequence faster,” she said of a greater focus on some samples, including from communities with large outbreaks as well as patients who had travelled or been infected again.
The network involves a seven-days-a-week push to generate sequencing data with the help of a variety of experts, including “bench scientists” who do the sequencing, biostatisticians who analyze samples and others who interpret the “family tree” of the virus as it produces new variants, some that could be concerning, Lopez-Correa said.
She said an average of 5% of COVID-positive samples are currently being analyzed in Canada to determine if there’s a change in the genetic blueprint of the virus, information that scientists in China decoded and shared with researchers around the world over a year ago.
The network’s goal is to sequence 10% of
samples, Lopez-Correa said, adding the United Kingdom is sequencing eight to 10% of its positive cases while the United States analyzes less than 1% due to challenges coordinating efforts across jurisdictions.
“We actually were faster than the U.S. in identifying this (U.K.) variant in December, as soon as we started our sampling strategy. We were immediately able, in almost a week, to report some of those variants present in Canada,” she said.
“Being at 5% is already a good number. We’re trying to push that to be closer to what the U.K. is doing.”
Canada’s national surveillance strategy is to strike a balance between the number of samples that are sequenced and prioritization of those deemed suspicious, she said.
Iceland, for example, is sequencing almost all of its positive samples but Lopez-Correa said that plan in a small country with relatively few cases and “huge capacities” for genomics would not be helpful for Canada because there’s no advantage to sequencing all or even half the samples of hundreds of people that may have been infected in a single outbreak.
Scientists around the world are uploading thousands of sequences of existing and emerging variants into a non-profit international online database that serves as a watch list of mutations so over 100 countries can monitor for concerning variants in the samples they are sequencing.
“From a scientific perspective we are seeing something that’s unprecedented. This is the first time in history that we are able to use these genomic tools at a global scale to see the virus evolving in real time,” LopezCorrea said.
Almost half a million sequences are currently available in the database, to which Canada has contributed 15,000 sequences so far as part of a reserve of information that is also assisting policy-makers in seeing where variants are coming from and where they are moving, she said.
The variant associated with the United Kingdom, for example, has been detected in 70 countries, Lopez-Correa said.
Variants of concern have been identified in every province, and by Feb. 16, a total of 638 cases were detected, the Public Health Agency of Canada said. Of those, 601 cases were of the strain first identified in the U.K., with Ontario and Alberta recording most of them.
The agency said that of the 35 cases of the variant linked to South Africa, British Columbia had the most, at 19, while the province also identified the lone case associated with Nigeria. Ontario has one case of the variant first detected in Brazil.
The National Microbiology Laboratory, along with the Canadian COVID-19 Genomics Network, are working closely with provincial and international partners to investigate and assess the risk of the variants, including the one associated with travel to Nigeria after one case was reported in B.C. last week, the agency said in a statement.
Dr. Bonnie Henry, B.C.’s provincial health officer, said about 10 per cent of COVID-positive samples are being sequenced in B.C., and one of the mutations of the variant linked to Nigeria could be concerning if it transmits the virus faster than the main variant.
“That’s why our lab decided to include it in the ones that we monitor for,” she said.
LONDON — Buckingham Palace confirmed Friday that Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, will not be returning to royal duties, and Harry will give up his honorary military titles — a decision that makes formal, and final, the couple’s split from the royal family.
When Harry and Meghan stepped away from full-time royal life in March 2020, unhappy at media scrutiny and the strictures of their roles, it was agreed the situation would be reviewed after a year.
Now it has, and the palace said in a statement that the couple, also known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, have verified “they will not be returning as working members of the Royal Family.”
It said Queen Elizabeth II had spoken to 36-year-old Harry and confirmed “that in stepping away from the work of the Royal Family, it is not possible to continue with the responsibilities and duties that come with a life of public service.”
The palace said Harry’s appointment as captain general of the
Royal Marines and titles with other military groups would revert to the queen before being distributed to other members of the family.
Harry served in the British army for a decade, including on the front line in Afghanistan and retains a close bond with the military. He founded the Invictus Games competition for wounded troops, which first was held in 2014 at London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
He will also have to relinquish positions as patron of the Rugby Football Union, the Rugby Football League and the London Marathon Charitable Trust.
Meghan, 39, will be stripped of her role as patron of Britain’s National Theater and the Association of Commonwealth Universities.
“While all are saddened by their decision, the Duke and Duchess remain much loved members of the family,” the palace statement said.
American actress Meghan Markle, a former star of the TV legal drama “Suits,” married the queen’s grandson Harry at Windsor Castle in May 2018. Their
son, Archie, was born a year later.
In early 2020, Meghan and Harry announced they were quitting royal duties and moving to North America, citing what they said were the unbearable intrusions and racist attitudes of the British media toward the duchess, who identifies as biracial.
The couple agreed to no longer use the title “royal highness” or receive public funds for their
work, although it was unclear at the time if those decisions would stand.
They retain their titles of duke and duchess, and Harry is still sixth in line to the British throne. Harry and Meghan now live in Santa Barbara, California and are expecting their second child. The couple recently announced they would speak to Oprah Winfrey for a TV special to be broadcast next month.
They continue to have a tense relationship with sections of the British media. Earlier this month, Meghan won a legal victory in a lawsuit against the publisher of the Mail on Sunday, when a British judge ruled the newspaper invaded her privacy by publishing part of a letter she wrote to her estranged father.
News of their break with the palace comes as Harry’s grandfather, 99-year-old Prince Philip, is in a London hospital, where he was admitted on Tuesday after feeling unwell.
A spokesperson for the couple hit back at suggestions that Meghan and Harry were not devoted to duty.
“As evidenced by their work over the past year, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex remain committed to their duty and service to the U.K. and around the world, and have offered their continued support to the organizations they have represented regardless of official role,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
“We can all live a life of service. Service is universal.”
WASHINGTON — The lawyer who killed a federal judge’s son and seriously wounded her husband at their New Jersey home last summer also had been tracking Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the judge said in a television interview.
U.S. District Judge Esther Salas said FBI agents discovered the information in a locker belonging to the lawyer, Roy Den Hollander. “They found another gun, a Glock, more ammunition. But the most troubling thing they found was a manila folder with a workup on Justice Sonia Sotomayor,” Salas said in an interview with CBS News’ “60 Minutes.” The segment is scheduled for broadcast Sunday, but a portion of the interview aired
Friday on “CBS This Morning.”
Both the Supreme Court and the FBI declined to comment Friday. “We do not discuss security as a matter of Court policy,” court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said in an email.
Authorities have said Den Hollander, a
men’s rights lawyer with a history of anti-feminist writings, posed as a FedEx delivery person and fatally shot 20-year-old Daniel Anderl and wounded his father, Mark Anderl, in July. Salas was in another part of the home at the time and was not injured.
Den Hollander, 72, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound the day after the ambush. Authorities believe he also shot and killed a fellow attorney in California in the days before the attack at Salas’ home.
The AP has previously reported that when Den Hollander was found dead he had a document with him with information about a dozen female judges from across the country, half of whom are Latina, including Salas.
Salas has been calling for more privacy and protections for judges, including scrubbing personal information from the internet, to deal with mounting cyberthreats. The U.S. Marshals Service, which protects about 2,700 federal judges, said there were 4,449 threats and inappropriate communications in 2019, up from 926 such incidents in 2015.
Legislation named for Salas’ son that would make it easier to shield judges’ personal information from the public failed to pass the Senate in December, but could be reintroduced this year.