The Canadian government plans to stop supplying provinces and territories with free COVID-19 rapid tests, which has an infection control epidemiologist worried about two-tiered health care, increased spread and increased health-care costs.
“The federal government continues to support Canada’s rapid testing needs while the federal inventory remains,” Health Canada spokesperson Nicholas Janveau told CBC News.
Comments closedNearly $574 million will be doled out to researchers across the country for projects aimed at ramping up Canada’s preparedness for future health emergencies, including the next pandemic, the federal government announced on Monday.
One of the 19 projects is a national network of existing emergency departments and primary-care clinics, called Prepared, that will screen for any new viruses or pathogens that start to appear in patients.
“As a public health specialist and as a practising physician, I would very much anticipate there being another respiratory pandemic in the future. The challenge is we don’t know when it will be or what it will be,” said Dr. Andrew Pinto, Prepared project lead and a family physician at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto.
Comments closedA new study has analysed 26 RATs from Australia and Canada, finding only six could effectively detect the lowest concentrations of COVID-19.
Patients across the globe have come to rely on rapid antigen tests (RATs) to confirm a COVID-19 diagnosis, but a new Australian study has revealed most are not producing accurate results.
Researchers from James Cook University (JCU) say they were left ‘shocked’ after an analysis of 26 RATs from Australia and Canada found just six were effective at detecting the lowest concentration of COVID-19.
One Canadian test failed to detect the COVID-19 protein entirely at any level of concentration.
Comments closedFour years ago this week, there was only one subject on Canadians’ minds: the incipient COVID-19 pandemic. Schools and businesses were locked down in most of the country. The death count was appalling: close to 1,900 in the first full week of the month. In all, about 4,300 Canadians would die that May – with far more brutal waves of infection and death to come.
The story is much different today. Thanks to the rapid development, approval and delivery of vaccines – an amazing human accomplishment that isn’t celebrated enough – COVID-19 has been brought to heel and is now largely seen as just one more viral disease, like the flu or common cold. The availability of home testing kits means most people who become infected by the latest variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus can manage the disease at home, and never trouble the health care system.
That’s good, but it hides the troubling fact that it is difficult to discern coherent policies at any level of government for continuing the fight against COVID-19, for dealing with its long-term effects, or for preparing for another pandemic.
Comments closedNearly a year after the legislature unanimously passed an Opposition motion to update the New Brunswick Clean Air Act and improve air quality in public buildings to reduce the spread of airborne illnesses, such as COVID-19, the government says it won’t update the act after all.
The Department of Environment and Local Government reviewed the act, which dates back to 1997, and “determined updating was not necessary because protections already exist under other legislation,” such as the Occupational Health and Safety Act, said spokesperson Clarissa Andersen.
Comments closedThe National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) released its updated guidelines on Friday on the use of COVID-19 vaccines during the upcoming fall season.
Although COVID-19 rates are currently low across the country, NACI said it anticipates a surge in activity during the fall and winter months, aligning with patterns seen in previous years and consistent with the behaviour of other respiratory viruses.
“As COVID-19 activity is expected during the upcoming fall and winter months, and COVID-19 disease can compound the impact on the health system of other fall and winter respiratory viruses, NACI continues to provide early guidance on the use of COVID-19 vaccines to facilitate planning by provinces and territories,” the guidelines state.
Comments closed📣 The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario has initiated a consultation on infection prevention and control (IPAC). Do you want healthcare workers to wear N95 respirators? Would it be safer with HEPA filters in healthcare settings? Let them know!
Comments closedA ground-breaking study by James Cook University researchers has produced damning findings on several COVID-19 Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) available in Australia and overseas.
The new joint study by JCU and National Research Council Canada analysed 16 RATs approved by Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and 10 by Health Canada, using a JCU-developed COVID-19 protein and its Canadian counterpart as reference materials.
Out of the total 26 RATs compared, only six were found to be effective at detecting the lowest concentration of the COVID-19 reference proteins in the dilution series used for benchmarking.
Comments closedTwo New Brunswickers aged 65 or older died from COVID-19 between April 14-20, according to new data from the province.
The news was included in its weekly update on COVID and influenza.
Seventeen people required hospital treatment for COVID between April 14-20, and one patient needed intensive care. There were two lab-confirmed COVID outbreaks in undisclosed facilities.
Comments closedNew Brunswick is mulling the future of its COVID-19 rapid point-of-care testing program, as the virus claimed two more lives and hospitalized 17 people, including a child under four.
“Demand for rapid tests has been steadily declining since last fall, and the province is currently determining its next steps with regards to the COVID-19 tests,” said Department of Health spokesperson Sean Hatchard.
He made the comment in response to questions from CBC News about how much longer the province will continue to offer free rapid test kits and whether it’s considering phasing them out.
Comments closedMask 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 closedAs 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 closedComments 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.
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 closedAlberta 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 closedA 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.
Comments closedWhen 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 closedAlberta 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.”
