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Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Long COVID Has Never Been Taken Seriously. Here’s Where It Left Us

Long COVID turned my life upside down. Amidst all the loss I’ve experienced, there’s been the cognitive dissonance of watching most of the rest of the world try to return to normal, without me in it. And seemingly unaware of the reality that COVID-19 is still out there, resulting in long-term chronic illness for a significant share of people infected.

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Antisemitism surges during pandemic

“International Holocaust Remembrance Day is important to recognize, because it commemorates arguably the worst-case scenario for a liberal democracy,” declared Daniel Panneton, director of allyship and community engagement at the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies.

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Covid increases risk of grave illness and death in pregnant women – study

Women are more likely to die in pregnancy if they catch Covid, according to researchers, who found the infection raised the risk of a swath of serious illnesses for mothers and their newborns.

Reports throughout the pandemic have highlighted how pregnant women are particularly vulnerable to the virus, with doctors urging women to take up the offer of Covid vaccination to reduce the risk to themselves and their children.

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‘Gross negligence’: Judge gives go-ahead to COVID-deaths lawsuit against Ontario

Governments saw broad immunity against COVID civil suits, but the class-action suit for deaths in nursing homes could have an impact throughout the country.

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Long COVID stemmed from mild cases of COVID-19 in most people

Even mild COVID-19 cases can have major and long-lasting effects on people’s health. That is one of the key findings from our recent multicountry study on long COVID-19—or long COVID—recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

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Age-Related Macular Degeneration a Risk Factor for COVID-19 Infection

Recent evidence has emerged to suggest that age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a clinical risk factor for increased risk for infection and mortality. AMD has been reported to confer higher risk of severe complications of SARS-CoV-2 infection, including respiratory failure and death (25 percent), a risk which is higher than Type 2 diabetes (21 percent) and obesity (13 percent).

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Featured

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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Immune systems seriously weakened by COVID

Emergency wards remain busy two years after the first COVID-19 vaccines arrived in Ontario in part because the virus depletes the body’s supply of T-cells, leaving young and old alike vulnerable to secondary infections, says a University of Waterloo immunologist.

T-cells are the front-line soldiers of the immune system, and the number of T-cells typically increases when the body is fighting off an infection, said Barb Katzenback, who studies viruses.

“Individuals who are infected with COVID have many fewer T-cells,” said Katzenback. “That’s a problem for us because T-cells are a really important part of our immune system that helps defend us against infection.”

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Air filter hack: Sackville groups put together DIY solution

Several Sackville groups are turning to DIY solutions to keep their spaces as virus-free as possible.

They’re making Corsi–Rosenthal boxes, a homemade air purifier system, designed to filter out airborne droplets that could carry the flu or COVID-19.

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“I don’t feel protected”: How a lack of COVID-19 protections is impacting mental health

People who are COVID-aware or at high risk discuss the mental health burden of staying safe.

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Opinion: We don’t know what’s causing the tsunami of sick kids, but we’d better figure it out fast

Something concerning is happening to our children. Unlike previous autumns, this year there seem to be far more kids falling ill, and far too many…

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Why China’s ‘zero COVID’ policy is finally faltering

For nearly three years now, China has had incredible success at keeping its number of COVID deaths relatively low. So far, the country has recorded only about 6,000 deaths among 1.4 billion people. By comparison, the U.S. has recorded more than a million deaths in a population of only 330 million.

China has accomplished this feat with what’s known as a “zero COVID” policy – using strict lockdowns and community-wide testing and other measures to keep case counts close to nil.

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How COVID Truthers Breathed New Life Into an Antisemitic Symbol

The widespread appropriation by COVID truthers of the yellow star that the Nazis forced Jews to wear is a sign that public displays of antisemitism have become normalised in modern Germany to an unthinkable degree, experts say.

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How long COVID ruined my life, from crushing fatigue to brain fog

The change struck like a bolt of lightning from a clear blue sky. I’d been under the weather for a couple of weeks – nothing major, just a persistent cough, but for some reason I couldn’t seem to shift it. I took a day off work and carried on. Until 19 March, when I woke up and everything was different.

I was tired – overwhelmingly, crushingly tired, as if I’d been up for days, when in fact I’d slept all night – and I couldn’t think straight. When I tried to text my boss to tell him I wasn’t going to be able to make it into work, it took me more than an hour to string a sentence together.

Eventually, I got out a short apologetic message. Then I went back to bed, where I stayed for three days straight. It should have been scary, but I was too tired to be scared. The need for rest overwhelmed every thought or feeling.

—Rowland Manthorpe
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Video | Is COVID-19 Dysregulating Our Immune Systems?

Are people becoming sick more often, experiencing more severe symptoms and having more difficulty treating viral infections after having had COVID-19? If so, why? Epidemiologists,…

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