Doctor speaks on emergence of new COVID variant subtypes in Sask.

As the COVID-19 virus passes on to more people, the chance of it mutating into a different variant grows.

This makes Health Canada’s approval of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for kids aged five to 11 even more important.

That’s according to microbiologist Dr. Joseph Blondeau.

“With the potential introduction of the vaccine in kids between five and 11, that could be enough to get us closer (to and) possibly over 90 per cent,” Blondeau said Friday.

“I think when we get to that particular point, we may still see breakthrough infections that occur, but what we’ve come to learn about breakthrough infections is that they tend to be quite mild and most people don’t require hospitalization and certainly most people don’t die as a result of a breakthrough infection.

“So I think kids are going to become an important component going forward.”

Two new Delta variant subtypes have become the dominant strains of COVID-19 throughout Western Canada and here in Saskatchewan.

The subtypes are called AY.25 and AY.27, according to information released during a Saskatchewan Health Authority physician’s town hall meeting Nov. 4.

Blondeau says it’s normal to see mutations occur.

“As this virus continues to pass through people, then the opportunity for minor variations or more mutations to occur (and) will occur,” he said. “That’s what’s happened in regards to the two sort of sub-lineages of the current Delta variant that’s circulating in Saskatchewan and Canada.

“We don’t have any evidence to suggest at this point that they are more transmissible or more lethal, or whatever the case may be. All we know is that we have these variants or these sub-lineages of this variant that have been detected and time will tell what their importance will be.”

The most important thing to Blondeau is that a variant mutation impacting the efficacy of the vaccines does not happen.

“We don’t want to see a Delta variant emerge that has a spike protein that wouldn’t be neutralized by an antibody that people now carry as a result of vaccination,” he said. “That would be a bad scenario and we don’t have any evidence at this point in time that it has occurred.”