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Month: December 2023

US prison deaths soared by 77% during height of Covid-19 crisis, study finds

A study of US prison deaths at the height of the Covid-19 crisis in 2020 has found that mortality rates soared by 77% relative to 2019, or more than three times the increase in the general population.

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Ottawa Public Health to let go most remaining COVID-19 staff as province ends special pandemic funding

Ottawa Public Health will let go most of its remaining COVID-19 staff by the end of the year as the province stops directly reimbursing most costs related to the pandemic.

OPH will continue offering vaccines to the most vulnerable, including long-term care residents and recent immigrants, but will wrap up broader COVID-19 efforts by the end of March.

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Dubai climate talks focus on health as Canadian doctors warn patients already seeing impacts

A group of Canadian doctors are in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, this week at COP28 to raise awareness about the impacts climate change is having on the health of patients and the overall health-care system.

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Les virus respiratoires prennent d’assaut les urgences du Québec

A trio of respiratory viruses hover over Quebec and send many patients to the emergency room.

According to Jean Longtin, a microbiologist-infectiologist at the CHU in Québec-Université Laval, it is mainly the respiratory syncytial virus, the RSV, influenza and COVID-19 that are currently circulating.

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24 Nova Scotia long-term care homes currently dealing with COVID-19 outbreaks

There are currently two dozen COVID-19 outbreaks reported at long-term care homes across Nova Scotia, and some health-care officials are concerned about a lack of COVID protocols.

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Fact Check: Iceland has not banned COVID vaccines

A headline shared online falsely claims that Iceland has banned COVID-19 vaccines and cites sudden deaths for which there is no evidence, according to the Icelandic national health authority.

Iceland has not banned COVID vaccines and “there are no soaring sudden deaths,” Guðrún Aspelund, chief epidemiologist at the Icelandic Directorate of Health, told Reuters in a Nov. 29 email.

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Flu season has officially started in Canada, public health agency says

Flu season has officially begun in Canada, the federal public health agency said on Friday.

“At the national level, influenza activity has crossed the seasonal threshold, indicating the start of influenza season,” the Public Health Agency of Canada said in its weekly FluWatch report posted online.

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‘Dramatic’ increases in younger Canadians’ deaths contributed to our reduced life expectancy

Amid a declining life expectancy across the country, new national data released this week show that years on from the beginning of the pandemic, COVID-19…

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COVID-19 shrinks life expectancy in S. Korea for first time since 1970

Babies born in South Korea last year are expected to live 82.7 years, down from 83.6 years in 2021, the statistics agency said on Friday, after life expectancy fell in 2022 for the first time since 1970, hit by a spike in deaths linked to COVID-19.

Following a global trend of such declines over the past few years, the OECD grouping said last month that average life expectancy had dipped 0.7 years across its 39 member nations between 2019 and 2021.

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