The COVID-19 lull in the U.S. may soon come to an end, as a new family of SARS-CoV-2 variants—nicknamed “FLiRT” variants—begins to spread nationwide. These…
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Topic: ManitobaView all posts for the topic: Manitoba
Mask rules being relaxed at Manitoba health-care facilities
Mask requirements for health-care workers are being loosened at Manitoba facilities starting next month.
In a memo to staff issued last week, Shared Health Chief Operating Officer Monika Warren writes the requirement to mask during direct care interactions will be lifted in most areas starting May 1.
She notes health-care workers are required to wear PPE according to approved protocols, including if respiratory symptoms are present.
Comments closedTopic: avian fluView all posts for the topic: avian flu
There’s never a good time to drink raw milk. But now’s a really bad time as bird flu infects cows
Scientists who know about the types of pathogens — E. coli and Salmonella among them — that can be transmitted in raw milk generally think drinking unpasteurized milk is a bad idea. But right now, they believe, the danger associated with raw milk may have gone to a whole new level.
“If I were in charge, for the moment I would forbid the selling of raw milk,” said Thijs Kuiken, a pathologist in the department of viroscience at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, who has done research on H5N1 and the damage it inflicts for about two decades.
Comments closedTopic: researchView all posts for the topic: research
Scientists discover higher levels of CO2 increase survival of viruses in the air and transmission risk
A new study has revealed for the first time the vital role carbon dioxide (CO2) plays in determining the lifespan of airborne viruses – namely SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
It clearly showed keeping CO2 levels in check helps to reduce virus survival, and therefore the risk of infection.
The research, led by the University of Bristol and published today in Nature Communications, shows how CO2 is a major factor in prolonging the life of SARS-CoV-2 variants present in tiny droplets circulating in the atmosphere.
Comments closedTopic: avian fluView all posts for the topic: avian flu
Cattle testing for H5N1 bird flu will be more limited than USDA initially announced
New federal rules aimed at limiting the spread of the H5N1 bird flu virus among dairy cattle go into effect Monday, but detailed guidance documents released Friday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture reveal its mandatory testing order is less stringent than initially described.
While that is easing concerns from farmers and veterinarians about the economic and logistical burden of testing, it leaves questions about how effective the testing program will be at containing additional outbreaks.
Comments closedTopic: avian fluView all posts for the topic: avian flu
Canadian officials considering ‘pre-pandemic’ vaccines as bird flu spreads through U.S. livestock
As H5N1 bird flu spreads rapidly through livestock and other animals across the U.S., Canadian officials are exploring stockpiling “pre-pandemic” H5N1 vaccines as a precaution.
The highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N1) has not been detected in any Canadian livestock and the risk of transmission for the general public is considered low, but the recent rapid spread of the virus through livestock and elsewhere in the U.S. has public health officials around the world on high alert.
Health experts are urging people not to drink raw, unpasteurized, milk and to make sure meat is thoroughly cooked, but they say the real potential risk from bird flu is not from food, but from the possibility that changes to the virus enable it to jump from animals to humans. That could create a potential influenza pandemic because human immunity to the virus is expected to be minimal.
Comments closedTopic: indoor air qualityView all posts for the topic: indoor air quality
Canada needs to improve indoor air quality for kids as an early wildfire season looms, advocates say
Comments closedChildren are particularly susceptible to harm from air pollutants … They’re much more vulnerable to the health effects of poor indoor air quality because their bodies, brains and respiratory systems are still developing.
Topic: United KingdomView all posts for the topic: United Kingdom
About 2m people have long Covid in England and Scotland, figures show
About 2 million people in England and Scotland say they are experiencing long Covid, figures reveal, with many reporting their symptoms have lasted two years or longer.
The findings were released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and cover the period from November 2023 to March 2024, revealing of those who reported having long Covid, about 1.5 million people – about three-quarters– felt their day-to-day activities were affected, while 381,000 people – about a fifth – said their ability to undertake such activities had been “limited a lot”.
Comments closedTopic: avian fluView all posts for the topic: avian flu
As bird flu spreads in cows, fractured U.S. response has echoes of early covid
Federal agencies with competing interests are slowing the country’s ability to track and control an outbreak of highly virulent bird flu that for the first time is infecting cows in the United States, according to government officials and health and industry experts.
The response has echoes of the early days of 2020, when the coronavirus began its deadly march around the world. Today, some officials and experts express frustration that more livestock herds aren’t being tested for avian flu, and that when tests and epidemiological studies are conducted, results aren’t shared fast enough or with enough detail. They fear that the delays could allow the pathogen to move unchecked — and potentially acquire the genetic machinery needed to spread swiftly among people. One dairy worker in Texas has already fallen ill amid the outbreak, the second U.S. case ever of this type of bird flu.
Officials and experts said the lack of clear and timely updates by some federal agencies responding to the outbreak recall similar communication missteps at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. They point, in particular, to a failure to provide more details publicly about how the H5N1 virus is spreading in cows and about the safety of the milk supply.
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Topic: British ColumbiaView all posts for the topic: British Columbia
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.
Comments closedTopic: AlbertaView all posts for the topic: Alberta
Confirmed case of measles in Edmonton, AHS warns of public exposure
Alberta Health Services is warning the public that an individual with lab-confirmed measles has been in public settings in Edmonton while infectious.
In a Wednesday news release, officials sent out a list of locations and times of when the infected person was out in public and said residents who were at any of the locations during the specified dates and times may have been exposed to measles:
Comments closedTopic: AlbertaView all posts for the topic: Alberta
Edmonton judges dismiss appeal by parents; Alberta school boards may not enforce their own masking mandates
A panel of Alberta appeals court judges has dismissed an appeal by parents of five immunocompromised Alberta kids.
Lawyers for the families, known only by initials, had argued the children’s Charter rights were violated in 2022 when the province stopped masking requirements and barred school boards from enforcing their own masking mandates.
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Topic: AlbertaView all posts for the topic: Alberta
Alberta’s Secret Pandemic Study Is Led by COVID Restrictions’ Critic
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.
Comments closedTopic: avian fluView all posts for the topic: avian flu
USDA Now Requiring Mandatory Testing and Reporting of HPAI in Dairy Cattle as New Data Suggests Virus Outbreak is More Widespread
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.
Comments closedTopic: avian fluView all posts for the topic: avian flu
Bird flu virus found in grocery milk as officials say supply still safe
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.
Comments closedTopic: AlbertaView all posts for the topic: Alberta
‘Contrarian’ doctor a good choice to lead COVID-19 data review, Alberta premier says
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.”
Continue reading‘Contrarian’ doctor a good choice to lead COVID-19 data review, Alberta premier says
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