![\"A](\"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Adam-MacNeil-693x1050.jpg\")
Brock University immunologist Adam MacNeil.<\/p><\/div>\n
The latest COVID vaccine is \u2018bivalent,\u2019 which means the booster targets the original strain plus subvariants arising from the Omicron strain, giving the immune system what MacNeil calls a \u201ccompetitive edge.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Associate Professor of Health Sciences says people often think of COVID-19 as being a \u2018bad flu,\u2019 since COVID and flu symptoms can appear similar, and both are spread through aerosols and droplets.<\/p>\n
But COVID has a more invisible side that can cause problems in other tissues and organs that may persist after infection, he says. This is thought to happen in part by causing inflammation of the blood vessels, or vasculitis, and by frequently finding its way into more places, including the brain and heart.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo give yourself the best possible protection against the expected surge in influenza and SARS-CoV-2 this fall, do yourself and your community a favour and get both vaccines as soon as you are eligible, wear a well-fitting N95 respirator when in crowded indoor locations or when ventilation and air filtration is poor, and practise distancing,\u201d MacNeil says.<\/p>\n
Public health officials, he says, predict that the coming fall and winter will be \u201cvery challenging,\u201d given Omicron\u2019s infectiousness and ability to evade vaccine protection that performed well against the Delta variant last fall, in addition to the return to pre-pandemic behaviours.<\/p>\n
\u201cLayer your protection by wearing a mask,\u201d he says. \u201cLayers are the hottest trend for a healthy fall and winter in 2022 and 2023.\u201d<\/p>\n
MacNeil offers further insights in an article he wrote earlier this year for The Conversation<\/a>.<\/p>\n Associate Professor of Labour Studies Alison Braley-Rattai researches\u00a0the moral and legal aspects<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0policy implications<\/a>\u00a0of childhood vaccination.<\/p>\n Despite constitutional guarantees, Alison Braley-Rattai, Assistant Professor in Brock University\u2019s Department of Labour Studies, says protecting workers\u2019 rights continues to be a struggle.<\/p><\/div>\n She says several recent studies show that, owing to heightened transmission, children\u2019s susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 has been rising over the pandemic, increasing the possibility of severe outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n Braley-Rattai says COVID-19 vaccine uptake among Ontario\u2019s children<\/a> is relatively low compared to adults. She explored the issue in an article in The Conversation earlier this month<\/a>, where she argued that, to increase vaccine uptake, the provincial government should add COVID-19 to the list of \u201cdesignated diseases\u201d in its Immunization of School Pupils Act<\/a>.<\/p>\n Recent research has also been done in \u2018nudge literature\u2019 about how to encourage people toward a particular end, particularly in the areas of childhood vaccination, and, more recently, regarding COVID-19 vaccines, she says.<\/p>\n Braley-Rattai says the \u2018nudge literature\u2019 describes ways of increasing routine vaccine uptake in general, including early intervention, targeted information campaigns, automatic reminders, individualized follow-ups and easier access.<\/p>\n But vaccination alone is not enough, she says, adding COVID-19\u2019s ability to mutate may make vaccination \u201cincreasingly less important than controlling infection itself.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHere\u2019s the rub: It makes little sense to include COVID vaccines under designated diseases without other measures to reduce infections, like air quality standards, masking, and better testing and tracing,\u201d says Braley-Rattai.<\/p>\n \u201cGovernments have abandoned the notion of public health for a \u2018you do you\u2019 approach which is, frankly, unconscionable given the long-term implications of infections for both individuals and society,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With flu season underway and COVID-19 continuing to evolve, there\u2019s a need for action \u2014 both on the part of individuals and governments \u2014 to keep communities safe this fall, say Brock University experts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":81367,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36,7484,7,3319,1,38],"tags":[12110,2149,8791,1696,110,7488,522,12109,11059,2985,3200,10513],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81366"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81366"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81370,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81366\/revisions\/81370"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Alison](\"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Alison-Braley-Rattai-1050x849.jpg\")