Month: April 2024

Alberta’s Secret Pandemic Study Is Led by COVID Restrictions’ Critic

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith on April 10, 2024. Photo by Chris Schwarz / Government of Alberta. Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/.

Alberta’s Secret Pandemic Study Is Led by COVID Restrictions’ Critic

Published April 24, 2024

Published by: The Tyee
Published on: April 24, 2024
By David Climenhaga

When Alberta Premier Danielle Smith mused in the midst of the debate over her government’s new funding turf war with Ottawa that “we could also establish our own research programs” to ensure ideological balance in academic research, many Albertans suspected they understood precisely what she had in mind.

They thought the United Conservative Party’s Bill 18 is about more than just keeping the Trudeau government from getting credit for helping Alberta municipalities, starved for cash by her government’s policies, and Alberta students and researchers who qualify for federal grants. The so-called Provincial Priorities Act, many also thought, was intended to ensure that what research gets done in Alberta reinforces the UCP’s ideological preferences for unbridled markets and climate change denialism and against vaccines and effective public health measures.

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avian flu

USDA Now Requiring Mandatory Testing and Reporting of HPAI in Dairy Cattle as New Data Suggests Virus Outbreak is More Widespread

Published April 24, 2024

Published by: AgWeb
By Tyne Morgan

USDA is now ordering all dairy cattle must be tested prior to moving the animals across state lines as a way to help stop the spread of HPAI H5N1 impacting dairy herds across the country. This comes after a lab at Ohio State University detected genetic material of the virus in 38% of retail milk samples they’ve tested, data that also suggests the current outbreak is being underreported.

In a new Federal Order announced on Tuesday, USDA says in an effort to protect the U.S. livestock industry from the threat posed by highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza, there are a number of actions being taken with federal partners to limit the spread.

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avian flu

Bird flu virus found in grocery milk as officials say supply still safe

Published April 23, 2024

Published by: The Washington Post
Published on: April 23, 2024
By Lena H. Sun, Rachel Roubein, Dan Diamond

Viral fragments of bird flu have been identified in samples of milk taken from grocery store shelves in the United States, a finding that does not necessarily suggest a threat to human health but indicates the avian flu virus is more widespread among dairy herds than previously thought, according to two public health officials and a public health expert who was briefed on the issue.

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Alberta

‘Contrarian’ doctor a good choice to lead COVID-19 data review, Alberta premier says

Published April 23, 2024

Published by: CBC News / The Canadian Press
Published on: April 23, 2024
By Lisa Johnson

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says it’s a good idea to have a physician who accused the province of exaggerating COVID-19’s impact on hospitals now lead a review of pandemic-era health data.

Smith says Dr. Gary Davidson was selected to lead the data review because she wants to hear a range of viewpoints, including from those “shouted down in the public sphere.”

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avian flu

H5N1 bird flu virus particles found in pasteurized milk but FDA says commercial milk supply appears safe

Published April 23, 2024

Published by: STAT
Published on: April 23, 2024
By Helen Branswell, Nicholas Florko, Megan Molteni, Rachel Cohrs Zhang

Testing conducted by the Food and Drug Administration on pasteurized commercially purchased milk has found genetic evidence of the H5N1 bird flu virus, the agency confirmed Tuesday. But the testing, done by polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, cannot distinguish between live virus or fragments of viruses that could have been killed by the pasteurization process.

The agency said it has been trying to see if it could grow virus from milk found to contain evidence of H5N1, which is the gold standard test to see if there is viable virus in a product. The lengthy statement the agency released does not explicitly say FDA laboratories were unable to find live virus in the milk samples, but it does state that its belief that commercial, pasteurized milk is safe to consume has not been altered by these findings.

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research

COVID-19 virus disrupts protein production, study finds

Published April 23, 2024

Published by: University of Toronto
Published on: April 23, 2024
By Jenni Bozec

When SARS-CoV-2 enters our cells, it disrupts the process of making proteins, which are essential for our cells to work correctly. A particular SARS-CoV-2 protein called Nsp1 has a crucial role in this process. It stops ribosomes, the machinery that makes proteins, from doing their job effectively. The virus is like a clever saboteur inside our cells, making sure its own needs are met while disrupting our cells’ ability to defend themselves.

— Talya Yerlici, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine

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avian flu

Scientists say USDA is sharing too little data too slowly on H5N1 flu

Published April 23, 2024

Published by: CNN
Published on: April 23, 2024
By Brenda Goodman

When the US Department of Agriculture announced late Sunday that it had publicly posted new data from its investigation into a bird flu outbreak in cattle, scientists eagerly searched a well-known platform used globally to share the genetic sequences of viruses.

The sequences weren’t there. As of Tuesday morning, they still aren’t.

Researchers looking to track the evolution and spread of H5N1 say the information that was posted — raw data on a US server — isn’t very useful and is anything but transparent. They also say the government’s release of information in the outbreak, which was confirmed in cattle almost a month ago, has been painfully slow.

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New Brunswick

COVID-19 kills 2 more in N.B., flu sends child under 4 and 2 youths to hospital

Published April 23, 2024

Published by: CBC News
Published on: April 23, 2024
By Bobbi-Jean MacKinnon

COVID-19 has killed two more New Brunswickers, while a child under four and two youths aged five to 19 are among those hospitalized by the flu, Tuesday’s Respiratory Watch report shows.

“COVID-19 activity remains moderate; some indicators (number of cases, percent positivity, and number of deaths) remained stable during the current reporting period,” April 7 to April 13, the report says.

Influenza activity decreased slightly, it says.

The two people who died from COVID during the reporting week were both aged 65 or older.

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Saskatchewan

Sask. officials knew COVID-19 was spreading at an ‘exponential’ rate in 2021, but refused restrictions

Published April 23, 2024

Published by: CBC News
Published on: April 23, 2024
By Alexander Quon, Zak Vescera

This story is a collaboration between the Investigative Journalism Foundation and CBC Saskatchewan.

Newly obtained internal data shows the Saskatchewan government knew COVID-19 was spreading at an “exponential” rate in the fall of 2021, providing new insight into what officials knew before a devastating COVID-19 wave hit the province.

The Investigative Journalism Foundation (IJF) and the CBC have obtained a six-page briefing presented to top officials at Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Health in September 2021, days before the provincial government publicly declined to re-introduce measures doctors said were urgently needed to stop the spread of the virus.

The presentation, dated Sept. 3, 2021, came before a wave of COVID-19 infections that killed hundreds and nearly overwhelmed the province’s health system.

The government would later have to airlift roughly a quarter of its most critically sick patients to Ontario because there were not enough doctors and medical staff to care for them in Saskatchewan.

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Saskatchewan

Sask. father found guilty of withholding daughter to prevent her from getting COVID-19 vaccine

Published April 19, 2024

Published by: CTV News
Published on: April 19, 2024
By Donovan Maess

Michael Gordon Jackson, a Saskatchewan man accused of abducting his daughter to prevent her from getting a COVID-19 vaccine, has been found guilty for contravention of a custody order.

Following two weeks of proceedings, the jury’s verdict handed down Friday found Jackson, 55, withheld his then 7-year-old daughter from her mother in late 2021 to early 2022. Police eventually found the pair in Vernon, B.C.

While the motive was undisputed, Crown prosecutor Zoey Kim Zeggelaar said the results of Jackson’s actions were in direct contravention of the Order.

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Saskatchewan

Additional COVID-19 booster now available for at-risk individuals

Published April 19, 2024

Published by: Regina Leader-Post
Published on: April 19, 2024

Select residents can now receive an additional vaccine booster to protect against the current XBB.1.5 strain of COVID-19, one of several circulating in the province.

Booster doses have been available since April 8 and will remain available until June 30, only to high-risk groups or individuals, provided it has been at least six months since their last vaccination for XBB.1.5 or their last COVID-19 infection, according to a Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) news release issued Friday.

Those eligible include anyone aged 65 and older or any adult residing in a long-term care facility, personal care home or congregate living setting that also houses residents over 65 years of age.

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Hamilton Region

Hamilton launching spring COVID-19 vaccination campaign

Published April 19, 2024

Published by: The Hamilton Spectator
Published on: April 19, 2024
By Metroland Staff

Hamiltonians at high risk of severe illness from COVID-19 infection are eligible for vaccination this spring.

In an April 19 news release, Hamilton public health services announced it’s joining forces with the Ontario Ministry of Health to administer vaccine doses to high-risk community members.

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Ontario

Public Health reports eight new high-risk COVID cases

Published April 19, 2024

Published by: The Intelligencer
Published on: April 19, 2024

Hastings Prince Edward Public Health officials reported eight new high-risk cases as of April 17 in the region, the same as in the previous reporting period.

The health unit also reported eight active high-risk cases, the same as in the last health unit report.

There were no new deaths attributed to COVID-19 leaving the number of deaths since the pandemic to 150 in the region.

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The Netherlands

COVID Patient’s Infection Lasts Record 613 Days—and Accumulated Over 50 Mutations

Published April 18, 2024

Published by: Time
Published on: April 18, 2024
By Jason Gale / Bloomberg

A Covid-19 patient with a weakened immune system incubated a highly mutated novel strain over 613 days before succumbing to an underlying illness, researchers in the Netherlands found.

The patient, a 72-year-old man with a blood disorder, failed to mount a strong immune response to multiple Covid shots before catching the omicron variant in February 2022. Detailed analysis of specimens collected from more than two dozen nose and throat swabs found the coronavirus developed resistance to sotrovimab, a Covid antibody treatment, within a few weeks, scientists at the University of Amsterdam’s Centre for Experimental and Molecular Medicine said. It later acquired over 50 mutations, including some that suggested an enhanced ability to evade immune defenses, they said.

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airborne transmission

WHO experts now agree diseases like COVID spread through the air

Published April 18, 2024

Published by: CBC News / Reuters
Published on: April 18, 2024

The World Health Organization (WHO) and around 500 experts have agreed for the first time what it means for a disease to spread through the air, in a bid to avoid the confusion early in the COVID-19 pandemic that some scientists have said cost lives.

The Geneva-based U.N. health agency released a technical document on the topic on Thursday. It said it was the first step toward working out how to better prevent this kind of transmission, both for existing diseases like measles and for future pandemic threats.

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Ottawa-Gatineau

Mpox cases on the rise again, OPH warns

Published April 18, 2024

Published by: CBC News
Published on: April 18, 2024
By Isabel Harder

Mpox cases in Ontario are on the rise, Ottawa Public Health (OPH) is warning local doctors and nurses.

The province has reported 26 cases so far in 2024, with OPH noting in its Wednesday statement that four had been confirmed in Ottawa.

Formerly known as monkeypox, mpox is a rare viral disease that is typically endemic in some central and west African countries.

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activism

Clean Air Club Is Organizing Musicians to Make COVID-Safer Shows and Spaces

Published April 18, 2024

Published by: Teen Vogue
Published on: April 18, 2024
By Mary Retta

Last year, Chicago resident Emily Dupree attended a concert with her partner, who caught COVID-19 at the show. While Dupree treated her sick partner and tried to avoid getting ill in their shared home, some thoughts began to form in her mind. Dupree and her partner still wore masks everywhere they went, and had adopted air purification in their home early in the pandemic to mitigate the risk of transmission. But she knew that wasn’t the case for most people.

Around this time, Dupree came across a question the father of prolific abolitionist organizer Mariame Kaba used to ask her when she was frustrated: “It sounds like this is something you are very upset about. What will you do about it?” That question helped Dupree “channel a lot of despair I was feeling during the pandemic into concrete action,” she told Teen Vogue. And Clean Air Club was born.

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Quebec

Quebec successfully pushes back against rise in measles cases

Published April 18, 2024

Published by: CBC News
Published on: April 18, 2024

Quebec appears to be winning its battle against the rising tide of measles after 45 cases were confirmed province-wide this year.

“We’ve had no locally transmitted measles cases since March 25, so that’s good news,” said Dr. Paul Le Guerrier, responsible for immunization for Montreal Public Health.

There are 17 patients with measles in Quebec currently, and the most recent case is somebody who was infected while abroad, he said.

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Month: April 2024

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