Still COVIDing Canada

Published by: Medical Xpress
Published on: January 13, 2026
By Stony Brook University

A study of 227 individuals who experienced neurocognitive difficulties post COVID-19 infection—such as headaches, vertigo, balance dysregulation, changes in taste/smell, and brain fog—displayed a significant increase in their blood plasma of a crucial protein called tau, which is found in nerves and especially in the brain. Excess levels of tau are linked to neurodegenerative diseases and found in many Alzheimer’s patients.

Published in eBioMedicine, the study suggests that people who experience long COVID neurocognitive symptoms could be at further risk for neurodegenerative diseases.

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vaccines

Moderna COVID vaccine 53% effective against adult hospitalization in 2024-25 season, data suggest

Published January 12, 2026

Published by: CIDRAP
Published on: January 12, 2026
By Laine Bergeson

A large observational study using US healthcare claims and electronic health record data suggests that Moderna’s updated 2024-25 COVID vaccine was 39% effective at preventing medically attended illness among adults and 53% effective against hospitalization, particularly those at high risk for severe disease.

The study, led by scientists from the vaccine manufacturer and published late last week in Infectious Diseases and Therapy, analyzed outcomes among 596,248 adults who received the updated mRNA-1273 vaccine, which targeted the Omicron KP.2 variant, from August 2024 to April 2025. Vaccinated people were matched 1:1 with unvaccinated counterparts.

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Northwest Territories

Yellowknife adds more flu and Covid shot walk-in clinics

Published January 12, 2026

Published by: Cabin Radio
Published on: January 12, 2026
By Ollie Williams

Yellowknife public health workers say two walk-in clinics for flu and Covid-19 shots will take place this week.

The first runs from 9am-4pm on Monday including the lunch hour, staff said in a Monday morning email, and the second operates to the same times on Friday, January 16.

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vaccines

‘Incomprehensibly stupid:’ How U.S. cuts in vaccine recommendations will impact Canadians

Published January 11, 2026

Published by: CTV News
Published on: January 11, 2026
By Kamil Karamali

Canadian doctors are warning that a new U.S. policy which slashes the number of vaccines universally recommended to all children could have devastating, and potentially deadly effects in Canada, including increasing disease spread through American travellers visiting north of the border.

“This was just incomprehensibly stupid. I was horrified,” said family doctor and former president of the Ontario Medical Association, Dr. Sohail Gandhi in an interview with CTV News Saturday. “Children in the U.S. are going to die as a result of this move – and, worse, some children are going to have lifelong complications as a result of this move.”

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Germany

German health minister rejects US counterpart’s COVID claims

US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has claimed that doctors in Germany who issued COVID-19 vaccine exemptions are facing legal action. Health Minister Nina Warken has hit back vehemently at the accusations.

Published January 11, 2026

Published by: DW / Reuters
Published on: January 11, 2026
By Timothy Jones

German Health Minister Nina Warken has rejected accusations by US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr that doctors in Germany have faced legal action for issuing vaccine and mask exemptions during the coronavirus pandemic.

Kennedy, a known vaccine skeptic, posted a video on X on Saturday in which he says: “I’ve learned that more than a thousand German physicians, and thousands of their patients, now face prosecution and punishment for issuing exemptions from wearing masks or getting COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic.”

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universal masking

Face masks ‘inadequate’ and should be swapped for respirators, WHO is advised

Experts are urging guideline changes on what health professionals should wear to protect against flu-like illnesses including Covid

Published January 9, 2026

Published by: The Guardian
Published on: January 9, 2026
By Kat Lay

Surgical face masks provide inadequate protection against flu-like illnesses including Covid, and should be replaced by respirator-level masks – worn every time doctors and nurses are face to face with a patient, according to a group of experts urging changes to World Health Organization guidelines.

There is “no rational justification remaining for prioritising or using” the surgical masks that are ubiquitous in hospitals and clinics globally, given their “inadequate protection against airborne pathogens”, they said in a letter to WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

“There is even less justification for allowing healthcare workers to wear no face covering at all,” they said.

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research

In utero COVID exposure linked to brain changes, developmental delays, anxiety, and depression

Published January 5, 2026

Published by: CIDRAP
Published on: January 5, 2026
By Mary Van Beusekom

In utero SARS-CoV-2 exposure may predispose children to altered brain volumes, impaired cognition, and internalizing emotional problems such as anxiety and depression, researchers from Children’s National Hospital and George Washington University write in Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.

The team enrolled 39 mother-baby pairs in Washington, DC, who had been exposed to COVID-19 during pregnancy from 2020 to 2022 and compared them with 103 normative pairs from before the pandemic (2016 to 2019). None of the infected women had been vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2.

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six years

COVID-19 Is Six Today. What We’ve Learned

We need cleaner air, which requires changes in medical culture.

Published December 31, 2025

Published by: The Tyee
Published on: December 31, 2025
By Crawford Kilian

Last year on this date, I published a Tyee article about the fifth anniversary of the first public announcement of what we now know as COVID-19.

My conclusions then were that we hadn’t learned much from the experience. A year later, many of us have unlearned the value of vaccination. Outbreaks of measles and whooping cough have predictably followed. Alberta has stopped reporting COVID-19 in hospitals.

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Lyme disease

Lyme disease research at Johns Hopkins in jeopardy due to federal funding delays

Published December 29, 2025

Published by: CNN / CTV News
Published on: December 29, 2025

MARYLAND (WJZ) — Maryland has some of the highest cases of Lyme disease in the nation, yet funding for research is in jeopardy.

Lyme disease is the most common and fastest-growing vector-borne disease in the United States. Approximately 476,000 Americans are diagnosed and treated for it each year, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In Maryland, Lyme disease cases have nearly doubled since 2020, according to the latest data from the Maryland Department of Health.

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Alberta

Masks now required for patients, visitors at 4 Edmonton hospitals

Published December 23, 2025

Published by: CTV News
Published on: December 23, 2025
By Hannah Kavanagh

Alberta Health Services (AHS) has instituted a masking requirement for four hospitals in the Edmonton area.

An enhanced masking directive is in place at Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital, Royal Alexandra Hospital, Stollery Children’s Hospital and the University of Alberta Hospital.

This means all patients, designated support persons and visitors must wear a mask in the emergency departments of the above acute care facilities. There are signs at the front entrance of each location signalling where enhanced masking is happening, AHS says.

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influenza

As H3N2 sweeps across Canada, what to know about flu’s heart attack risk

Published December 23, 2025

Published by: Global News
Published on: December 23, 2025
By Uday Rana

It’s more than just a bad cold: influenza can also raise your risk of a heart attack shortly after an infection, medical experts are warning as the H3N2 strain spreads rapidly in Canada.

At the same time, flu season is coinciding with another risk factor for heart attacks – shovelling snow.

“Any time you get an infection, including a viral infection, there’s the release in your body of molecules that both trigger inflammation and sustain inflammation. And part of that is an increased tendency for your blood to clot,” said Dr. Fahad Razak, internal medicine physician at St. Michael’s Hospital and professor at the University of Toronto.

“That can have immediate effects within the weeks following an infection, resulting in things like strokes or heart attacks.”

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indoor air quality

Schools must improve air quality to slow spread of respiratory illness, advocates say

Published December 23, 2025

Published by: The Globe and Mail
Published on: December 23, 2025
By Dave McGinn

Heather Hanwell’s 12-year-old daughter recently missed almost two weeks of school after being hit hard by a viral infection. She’s among many parents who are caring for sick kids this flu season, which so far has seen a surge of cases among school-age children.

But the experience was particularly frustrating for Dr. Hanwell, an epidemiologist who says that improving the air quality in schools would help reduce the spread of contagious respiratory illnesses.

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indoor air quality

Schools have become cesspools for cold and flu, but they don’t have to be: Ontario School Safety

Published December 21, 2025

Published by: CityNews
Published on: December 21, 2025
By Rachel Morgan

The volunteer-led organization Ontario School Safety is renewing calls to the Ontario government to improve indoor air quality in schools.

The call comes as Ontario sees a rapid increase in cases of the flu, particularly impacting young children.

In April, 2021, the Government of Ontario announced it was investing over $130 million, in addition to funds from the Canadian government, to upgrade school infrastructure to protect children from COVID-19. The majority of this funding was earmarked for ventilation projects to improve indoor air quality.

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influenza

Flu season has hit Canadians hard and early, as cases continues to rise

Published December 19, 2025

Published by: The Globe and Mail
Published on: December 19, 2025
By Alanna Smith

At a neighbourhood Christmas party in Ottawa earlier this month, there were all the usual holiday delights: festive decor, treats and even a visit from the big man up North. It was an evening to remember for Christine Guptill, but not in the way she had imagined.

Tucked into a party room at Royale Ranch, a horse farm in the city’s south, there were nearly 40 people at the party – half children, half adults. Ms. Guptill said some children were coughing and she overheard one family say they had left their sick kid at home.

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influenza

Flu hospitalizations expected to ‘increase sharply,’ officials warn, as cases surge and vaccinations lag

Published December 19, 2025

Published by: CBC News
Published on: December 19, 2025

The Latest

Data from the Public Health Agency of Canada released today shows the number of flu outbreaks across the country is still rising, and hospitalizations due to the virus are set to surge in the coming weeks.
Health officials across the country are reporting a surge in cases of influenza this month, especially among children and youth.
There’s particular concern about low vaccination uptake this winter, with many provinces reporting only around 20 per cent of eligible residents have received the flu vaccine.
This year’s available vaccine isn’t a good match for the current predominant strain, H3N2 — but doctors are urging people to get their shots regardless.
Got a question about flu season? Send it to ask@cbc.ca.

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long COVID

Workplace exposures tied to higher risk of long COVID

Published December 18, 2025

Published by: CIDRAP
Published on: December 18, 2025
By Laine Bergeson

Work-related factors may increase the risk of developing long COVID, according to a new population-based study from Spain.

The findings, published in BMJ Occupational & Environmental Medicine, suggest that the primary work-related drivers of increased long COVID risk were irregular or limited use of respirators, close contact with coworkers and/or the public, inability to physical distance, and use of public transportation to commute to work.

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Nova Scotia

Masks now required at all Nova Scotia Health sites

Published December 18, 2025

Published by: CTV News
Published on: December 18, 2025
By Natalie Lombard

Nova Scotia Health says masking is required throughout all its facilities beginning Thursday.

However, the health authority says masks are not required in:

administrative buildings
private offices, nursing stations, or conference rooms (if no patients are present)
cafeterias (when people are seated)
patient bed-spaces (for patients, partners, and visitors)

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Alberta

Alberta quietly ends public reporting of COVID outbreaks in acute care

Alberta’s government said the province is under no legal obligation to continue publishing the data in a “post-pandemic context.”

Published December 17, 2025

Published by: St. Albert Gazette
Published on: December 17, 2025
By Brett McKay

Alberta’s government quietly eliminated its public reporting dashboard of COVID-19 outbreaks in acute care facilities, saying the province is under no legal obligation to continue publishing the data in a “post-pandemic context.”

Alberta Health Services’ (AHS) acute-care outbreaks webpage provided weekly public reports on COVID-19 outbreaks in AHS and Covenant Health facilities, including the location where an outbreak had been reported, the date the outbreak was declared, the number of units affected, and how many patients and health-care workers were infected.

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Still COVIDing Canada Posts

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Still COVIDing Canada Posts

US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has claimed that doctors in Germany who issued COVID-19 vaccine exemptions are facing legal action. Health Minister Nina Warken has hit back vehemently at the accusations.

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Experts are urging guideline changes on what health professionals should wear to protect against flu-like illnesses including Covid

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

We need cleaner air, which requires changes in medical culture.

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

The Latest

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Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Alberta’s government said the province is under no legal obligation to continue publishing the data in a “post-pandemic context.”

Still COVIDing Canada Posts