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Still COVIDing Canada Posts

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A surprise bonus from COVID-19 vaccines: bolstering cancer treatment

The innovative messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines that thwarted the ravages of COVID-19 may also help fight tumors in cancer patients, according to a new analysis of medical records and studies in mice.

People with cancer who coincidentally received the mRNA shots before starting drugs designed to unleash the immune system against tumors lived significantly longer than those who didn’t get vaccinated, a research team announced yesterday at the European Society for Medical Oncology Congress in Berlin. Laboratory experiments by the group suggest the vaccines rev up the immune system, making even stubborn tumors more susceptible to treatment.

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P.E.I. hospitals bring back mask mandates as experts warn of viral surge across Canada

Mandatory masking is back at health facilities across Prince Edward Island as public health officials work to reduce the spread of respiratory illnesses.

The newest numbers from Canada’s respiratory virus surveillance report show that during the week ending Oct. 4, COVID-19 activity was increasing on the Island, with about 20 per cent of tests coming back positive. Nationally, the average was under 10 per cent.

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Ontario School Safety Calls on Province for an Immediate Vaccine-PLUS Strategy to Tackle Current Measles Outbreak

Toronto, Ontario – [April 24, 2025] – In an urgent appeal to protect the health and safety of Ontario’s students, education workers, and families, Ontario School Safety (OSS) has issued an open letter asking the Ontario Provincial Government and Public Health Ontario for an immediate vaccine-PLUS strategy, which includes the essential role of healthy indoor air, to curtail the spread of measles. This critical request comes in the wake of concerning measles infection rates – as of April 17th, 2025, Public Health Ontario is reporting 925 measles cases in the province, more than five times the number of cases than the total number of cases over the last 12 years. Encouraging a vaccine-only strategy is insufficient due to barriers to access, and because measles spreads not only through direct contact with secretions or contaminated surfaces, but through the air we breathe.

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Volunteers needed to test no-needle COVID vaccine made in Hamilton

A made-in-Hamilton COVID vaccine that requires no needles is moving to the next stage of testing and researchers are looking for volunteers to take part.

The vaccine that is inhaled instead of injected will be studied by McMaster University researchers with $8 million in funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).

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Federal cuts threaten to close Pennsylvania lab that certifies N95s and other respirators in June

The Pennsylvania laboratory that certifies all of the country’s NIOSH-approved respirators is on the chopping block. HHS is stonewalling employees who raise questions.

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BC patients, health advocates slam removal of healthcare mask protections

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DoNoHarm BC, Protect Our Province BC and the Canadian Covid Society warn the province’s decision endangers patients, healthcare workers, and the healthcare system

March 31, 2025 (British Columbia) – BC patients and health advocates are speaking out against the provincial government’s decision to drop healthcare mask requirements, at a time when there are multiple illness outbreaks in medical settings. Public health groups DoNoHarm BC, Protect Our Province BC, and the Canadian Covid Society warn that the move endangers vulnerable patients and frontline workers, while harming the sustainability and cost-effectiveness of BC’s healthcare system.

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I traded my U.S. medical career for life in Canada. Here’s how the two health systems stack up.

After more than a decade practicing emergency medicine in the United States, I very recently began working shifts in Canada. The differences hit me immediately, and are profound.

What follows are a series of working hypotheses — early impressions shaped by firsthand experience and years of health policy work in the U.S. I expect they will evolve with time, but they already point to important contrasts in how both countries approach medicine, physician autonomy, and the doctor-patient relationship.

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Smartwatch Data: Study Finds Early Health Differences in Long COVID Patients

People who later experienced persistent shortness of breath or fatigue after a COVID infection were already taking significantly fewer steps per day and had a higher resting heart rate before contracting the virus, according to a CSH study published in npj Digital Medicine. This may indicate lower fitness levels or pre-existing conditions as potential risk factors

Between April 2020 and December 2022, over 535,000 people in Germany downloaded and activated the Corona Data Donation App (CDA). Of these, more than 120,000 voluntarily shared daily data from their smartwatches and fitness trackers with researchers, providing insights into vital functions such as resting heart rate and step count.

“These high-resolution data served as the starting point for our study,” explains CSH researcher Katharina Ledebur. “We were able to compare vital signs in 15-minute intervals before, during, and after a SARS-CoV-2 infection.”

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BC’s Measles Vaccination Rate Is Lower Than in Gaines County, Texas

In Gaines County, Texas, where a measles outbreak has killed one six-year-old and one adult, the measles vaccination rate among kindergarteners is just 82 per cent, according to reporting by The Atlantic.

That’s a higher measles vaccination rate than children have here in B.C.

Just under 82 per cent of two-year-olds have gotten one dose of the measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine, and around 72 per cent of seven-year-olds have gotten both doses, according to the B.C. Childhood Immunization Coverage Dashboard’s 2023 data, which is the most recent data year available.

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International Long COVID Awareness Day 2025

International Long COVID Awareness Day – COVID-cautious walk

Date: Saturday, March 15, 2025

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

Where: Ottawa City Hall (meet at the entrance, Laurier Avenue side)

Join us for a walk on International Long COVID Awareness Day, Saturday, March 15, 2025 at 7 pm. The route is wheelchair-accessible.

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Advocates Urge BC to Reinstate Healthcare Mask Protections Amid Rising Risks

DoNoHarm BC, Protect Our Province BC and the Canadian Covid Society warn of infection risks in healthcare

December 10, 2024 (British Columbia, Canada) – Advocacy groups in BC are calling on policy-makers to immediately reinstate healthcare mask requirements. The call comes as BC faces severe risks from COVID-19, a rise in “walking pneumonia,” local measles warnings, and Canada’s first human case of H5N1 avian influenza – which health officials warn could potentially turn into another pandemic.

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Everything Wrong with Canada’s Proposed Long COVID Recommendations

Researchers involved in the organizations Cochrane Canada and the McMaster GRADE Centre at McMaster University are developing guidelines to prevent and treat Long COVID in Canada. Their effort is supported by the Public Health Agency of Canada and their recommendations would likely have major sway in the way Long COVID is treated if adopted.

Every month, they release new recommendations and provide an opportunity for public comment. On November 20th, the group released a new set of Canadian Post-COVID Condition (CAN-PCC) recommendations which propose harmful and ineffective treatments: Exercise to prevent Long COVID and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to treat post-exertional malaise (PEM).

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Novavax now! We need access to the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine!

📣 Let PHAC and health ministers know you want timely access to the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine this fall

✉️ Send letters to PHAC and health ministers to voice your support for access to the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine this fall. Use our online tool to send emails.

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Local groups join forces for Vancouver’s second annual Clean Air Festival

Event spotlights clean air, community care, and award-winning talent

August 22, 2024 (Vancouver, BC) – On September 15, 2024, a coalition of community groups will present Vancouver’s second annual Clean Air Festival. From 1-6:30 pm, Clean Air 604, Clean Air in BC Schools, DoNoHarm BC, Masks 4 East Van, Millions Missing BC, Protect Our Province BC, SolidAIRity GVRD, Safe Schools Coalition BC, Spring Vancouver, and Vancouver Still Cares will join forces to present a COVID-safer, immuno-inclusive hybrid event, taking place in-person at Slocan Park and digitally via livestream and recording.

The event features a DIY air purifier-building workshop, tabling, children’s games and activities from 1:00 pm, with a stage magic performance at 3:45 pm and an outdoor concert from 4:30 pm. Masks, rapid tests, zines and DIY fit test kits will be available while supplies last. Air purifiers from the workshop will be donated to schools via Clean Air in BC Schools, and to vulnerable community members via Masks 4 East Van.

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The Risks of Killing a COVID Early Warning System

COVID-19 is surging in parts of North America and Europe, and even played a role in ending the presidential campaign of 81-year-old Joe Biden, who was infected for the third time last month.

Nevertheless, on Wednesday the Ontario government shut down its early warning system to detect COVID and other emerging diseases.

Doctors, citizens and researchers are calling the decision to kill the province’s wastewater disease surveillance program both wrong-headed and dangerous. Ending the program will make it harder to track and thwart viral outbreaks, they say, and thereby increase the burden on Ontario’s understaffed hospitals, which experienced more than 1,000 emergency room closures last year.

“Pandemics do not end because science has been muzzled,” Dr. Iris Gorfinkel, a well-known Toronto physician and clinical researcher, told the CBC.

In emails to politicians, more than 5,000 citizens have demanded restoration of the program, with little effect.

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Ontario: Protect our health — save Ontario’s wastewater monitoring!

📣 Let MPPs know you want funding for Ontario’s wastewater monitoring program to continue

✉️ Send letters to MPPs to voice your support for wastewater monitoring. Use our online tool to send emails.

Why take action? Wastewater monitoring is an essential public health tool that provides insights into the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses in Ontario’s communities.

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Ontario: Call Members of Provincial Parliament on #WastewaterWednesday!

📣 Take action! Let MPPs know you want funding for Ontario’s wastewater monitoring program to continue

📱 Call MPPs to voice your support for wastewater monitoring.

✉️ Use our online tool to send letters to MPPs.

✉️ Use our online tool to send emails to municipal councillors in Ottawa or Waterloo Region.

📸 Post photos on social media.

Why take action? Wastewater monitoring is an essential public health tool that provides insights into the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses in Ontario’s communities.

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COVID virus can infect your eyes and damage vision

The virus that causes COVID-19 can breach the protective blood-retinal barrier, leading to potential long-term consequences in the eye, new research shows.

The blood-retinal barrier is designed to protect our vision from infections by preventing microbial pathogens from reaching the retina where they could trigger an inflammatory response with potential vision loss.

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BC health advocates call on government to reinstate healthcare mask requirements

Protect Our Province BC, DoNoHarm BC, and Masks4EastVan highlight harms and human rights violations from loss of healthcare safety

Wednesday, April 17, 2024 (British Columbia) – Independent public health groups Protect Our Province BC, DoNoHarm BC, and Masks4EastVan are calling on the BC government to restore healthcare mask requirements. They are urging British Columbians to call for airborne pathogen protections in clinical settings by joining DoNoHarm BC’s campaign.

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Study: Infection-control measures stemmed COVID spread in hospitals from 2020 to 2022

Implementation of ventilation standards of at least five clean-air changes per hour, COVID-19 testing, the use of personal protective equipment (PPE), and universal wearing of respirators prevented most SARS-CoV-2 transmissions in a California healthcare system from 2020 to 2022, suggests a study published yesterday in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

For the study, University of California (UC) researchers used electronic health records and movement data of patients and staff to conduct viral genomic and social network analyses to estimate COVID-19 spread in the UC–San Diego Health system. The team analyzed 12,933 viral genomes from 35,666 infected patients and healthcare workers (HCWs) (out of 1,303,622 tests [2.7%]) from November 2020 to January 2022.

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“They’re Taking Away Your Right To Be Healthy.”

The tide is turning. Thanks to all the people making noise on social media and bugging their families, while continuing to wear masks and build air purifiers no matter what anyone says, there’s a trace of hope.

—Jessica Wildfire
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First-person stories from British Columbians

CW: cancer, surgery, medical negligence, denial of care, disability grief

As part of DoNoHarm BC’s #Postcards4PublicHealth campaign, we’ve invited British Columbians to share their stories about the lack of Covid safety in BC – particularly the loss of mask protections in healthcare. Many wrote directly to policy makers. Some generously gave us permission to share their stories with the public and the press.

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Ten COVID Facts Health Officials Dangerously Downplay

Do not listen to powers that be who pretend that getting infected with COVID multiple times is now no big deal. They’re asking you to lower your guard for a nasty virus that can invade the brain, disregulate the immune system and damage the vascular system.

This strategy has led to predictable results — more direct deaths, more excess deaths, more disease and some 1.4 million Canadians reporting some form of long COVID over the last two years.

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Covid and Flu Can Triple Your Risk of Heart Attack

A number of viral infections, including flu, Covid-19 and shingles, are linked to an increased risk of heart disease and stroke, a new study affirmed.

The risk of a heart attack triples within the first few weeks after a Covid-19 infection, the study suggested, and quadruples in the month after a flu infection. The study, published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Heart Association, was a large review and analysis of existing research.

“It endorses a general idea that we’ve been thinking about and talking about for the past several years — that infections are generally not benign,” said Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, a senior clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis, who was not involved in the study.

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Video | Long COVID is underdiagnosed, researchers say, and there’s work to be done to change that

St. John’s hosted the 2025 Canadian Symposium on Long COVID earlier this month, a gathering of top researchers, clinicians, and people living with long COVID.…

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Analysis: Last year’s COVID vaccines protected well against severe illness

The updated 2024-25 COVID-19 vaccines provided 57% protection against hospitalization and death, although their effectiveness waned over time, according to a study yesterday in JAMA Internal Medicine.

The study assessed effectiveness against infection, emergency department (ED) visits, and hospitalization. Protection against infection and ED visits was 45%.

The study was based on outcomes seen among Nebraskan residents during the 2024-25 respiratory virus season and used hospital discharge data from member hospitals of the Nebraska Hospital Association and data from death certificates from the Nebraska Office of Vital Records.

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Canada’s status as a country without endemic measles can now be revoked

TORONTO — Canada is poised to lose its international status as a measles-free country now that an outbreak that began in New Brunswick and spread to other provinces has hit the one-year mark.

The country eliminated measles in 1998 and maintained that status for more than 25 years, meaning there was no ongoing community transmission and new cases were travel-related.

But since Oct. 27, 2024, the virus has spread to more than 5,000 people in Canada, including two infants in Ontario and Alberta who were infected with measles in the womb and died after they were born.

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Video | Her mysterious symptoms turned out to be long COVID

Gill Deacon was a familiar voice to CBC Radio listeners in Toronto, but that all came crashing down when she started suffering mysterious and debilitating symptoms. The former Here & Now host opens up about her long COVID diagnosis and how she found her way back to feeling great.

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Jewish General Hospital reinstates mask mandate as flu season kicks in early

The Jewish General Hospital has reinstated a mask mandate for medical staff as the flu season has begun much earlier than usual this year, prompting fears that some elderly and vulnerable individuals might not get their vaccines on time.

“It’s not a bad thing to reinstate wearing masks in a hospital because you have sick people by default and you have high-risk patients,” Dr. Karl Weiss, chief of the division of infectious diseases at the Jewish General, told The Gazette.

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Alberta doctors say province’s attempt to save on COVID shots could cost more

EDMONTON – Alberta doctors say the province’s effort to save money on COVID-19 vaccines could end up costing taxpayers far more in public health-care costs.

Dr. Brian Wirzba, head of the Alberta Medical Association, which represents doctors in the province, says there’s still time for the government to improve public communication about vaccines and make them more accessible.

“In my clinic talking to patients, they’re still confused about how they could even get it,” said Wirzba, who practises internal medicine in Edmonton.

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Video | The Signal | Live [from] the 3rd Canadian Symposium on Long COVID

Today we bring you a live on location show at the 3rd Canadian Symposium on Long COVID. We talk to doctors, researchers, students and patients…

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Some Albertans frustrated, Health Link overwhelmed as COVID-19 shots roll out to general public

Some Albertans struggled to book COVID-19 shots as the province’s fall immunization campaign opened to the general public on Monday.

By late afternoon, Health Link had been flooded with more than 10,000 calls related to the COVID vaccine alone and a spokesperson for Primary Care Alberta confirmed the provincial health information phone line was facing extremely high call volumes.

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Health authority firms up Yellowknife flu and Covid-19 clinic dates

Walk-in clinics for the flu and Covid-19 vaccine open in Yellowknife later in October, the NWT’s health authority confirmed in a schedule issued late last week.

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Quezon reinstates mandatory face masks amid flu-like illnesses spike

LUCENA CITY — Citing a spike in influenza-like illnesses, Quezon Governor Angelina Tan has reinstated the mandatory wearing of face masks.

“Due to the increasing number of cases of illnesses such as colds, coughs, influenza-like illness, and severe respiratory infections like community-acquired pneumonia—and in accordance with Executive Order No. DHT-60—the wearing of face masks is hereby strictly mandated in all indoor settings, as well as in outdoor areas where physical distancing cannot be observed,” Tan, a medical doctor, said in a Facebook post on Sunday afternoon, Oct. 19.

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Toronto to develop wastewater surveillance program for FIFA World Cup

TORONTO – Toronto Public Health is developing a wastewater surveillance program to detect any potential spread of diseases during the FIFA World Cup.

Toronto’s new Medical Officer of Health Dr. Michelle Murti said the pilot will collect sewage samples in areas where fans congregate and test them for infections such as COVID-19, influenza and RSV.

Murti said the public health unit is looking into whether other illnesses, such as measles, could also be monitored in wastewater given the large international audience expected next summer.

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London schools to get filters to cut air pollution

Hundreds of London schools are set to receive new air quality filters in a £2.7m scheme designed to reduce pollution in classrooms and protect children’s health.

Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan said the rollout, covering more than 200 schools across the capital, could cut harmful particulate matter (PM2.5) inside classrooms by up to 68%.

Speaking at St Mary’s RC Primary School in Battersea, south-west London, one of the first schools to receive the filters, Sir Sadiq said they could have a “life-changing” impact on young people.

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Federal Contract for up to $40 Million Fuels Research to Revolutionize Clean Indoor Air and Defend Against Next Pandemic

When a public building catches fire, its built-in systems automatically respond: Smoke alarms blare, sprinklers kick on, and occupants quickly evacuate.

But what if the life-threatening danger isn’t fire but invisible airborne contaminants that can make occupants sick? Could a similar smart-building system monitor and improve the quality of the air indoors, where Americans spend 90 percent of their time?

With a contract for up to $40 million from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), an ambitious multi-institutional research team led by Virginia Tech and including researchers at the University of California, Davis, aims to create just such a system.

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Long Covid Is Real — And It’s Changing an Entire Generation

Hundreds of thousands of kids in America are struggling with an illness that many doctors and schools refuse to recognize

In January 2020, just weeks before the NBA shut down and Costco shelves emptied and Tom Hanks got sick, Joy Corbitt’s only brother died in his mid-forties with symptoms of Covid. Which meant, from the pandemic’s earliest days, Joy was taking no chances.

She’d heard that Black and brown people like her seemed to be getting sick and dying at higher rates than other Americans. And that kids were either not getting sick, or getting less sick, or getting sick in ways we didn’t really understand. So, when it came to protecting her then-14-year-old daughter Lia, the North Carolina mother was vigilant.

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Trump Rattles Vaccine Experts Over Aluminum

Federal health officials are examining the feasibility of taking aluminum salts out of vaccines, a prospect that vaccine experts said would wipe out about half of the nation’s supply of childhood inoculations and affect shots that protect against whooping cough, polio and deadly flu.

The review at the Food and Drug Administration began after President Trump listed aluminum in vaccines as harmful during a press briefing about the unproven link between Tylenol and autism.

Aluminum salts have been in vaccines since the 1920s and are added to enhance the immune-stimulating effect against the virus or bacteria covered by the inoculation. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s health secretary, has been a longtime critic of aluminum in vaccines, which he has suggested is linked to autism.

Vaccine experts said the tiny amount of aluminum salts in vaccines — often measured in the one-millionth of a gram — has a long track record of safety and is essential to generating lasting immunity from disease. Developing vaccines without aluminum salts, they said, would require an entirely new formulation from scratch.

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