Press "Enter" to skip to content

Tag: Canada

Topic: British ColumbiaView all posts for the topic: British Columbia

Masking required at all B.C. health-care facilities once again

Published January 8, 2025

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Published by: CBC News
Published on:

Masks must again be worn in health-care facilities across B.C., according to the province’s Health Ministry.

In an email to CBC News, the Ministry of Health said the requirement came into effect on Jan. 6, and everyone in health-care facilities, including staff, patients, visitors and volunteers, must wear medical masks “in areas where patients are actively seeking care.”

The move is in response to what the ministry says is a rise in influenza and RSV infections in B.C. COVID-19, it said, is “stable but showing early signs of an increase.”

Continue readingMasking required at all B.C. health-care facilities once again
Comments closed
Topic: avian fluView all posts for the topic: avian flu

First Bird Flu Death in U.S. Reported in Louisiana

Published January 6, 2025

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Published by: The New York Times
Published on:
By Apoorva Mandavilli, Emily Anthes

A Louisiana patient who had been hospitalized with severe bird flu has died, the first such fatality in the United States, state health officials reported on Monday.

The patient was older than 65 and had underlying medical conditions, the officials said. The individual became infected with the bird flu virus, H5N1, after exposure to a backyard flock and wild birds.

There is no sign that the virus is spreading from person to person anywhere in the country, and Louisiana officials have not identified any other cases in the state. Pasteurized dairy products remain safe to consume.

Continue readingFirst Bird Flu Death in U.S. Reported in Louisiana
Comments closed
Topic: MontrealView all posts for the topic: Montreal

Locations exposed to measles in Montreal due to the appearance of a new case

Published January 6, 2025

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Published by: Radio-Canada
Published on:

Another case of measles has been detected in recent days by the Direction de la santé publique de Montréal, which is reminding hospital staff to apply the necessary measures to avoid transmission of this serious respiratory disease.

In a notice published on Sunday, the Direction régionale de santé publique revealed that “a Montréal adult was infected with measles following exposure to another unvaccinated adult with measles, in a location outside Montréal.”

Public Health states that these two cases are part of “the measles chain of transmission initiated by the case imported from a foreign country who attended the NATO Parliamentary Assembly at the Palais des congrès de Montréal in November.”

Continue readingLocations exposed to measles in Montreal due to the appearance of a new case
Comments closed
Topic: avian fluView all posts for the topic: avian flu

7 southwestern Ontario poultry farms in quarantine after avian flu outbreak

Published January 5, 2025

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Published by: CBC News
Published on:

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) says seven poultry farms in southwestern Ontario are under quarantine due to an avian flu outbreak.

These include four farms near Ingersoll, two in Strathroy and one in North Middlesex County. The first cases were detected on Dec. 14, 2024, and officials say the virus was transmitted to the area through migratory birds.

“The source is generally migratory birds, so it’s usually spread through direct contact with wild birds or indirectly through fecal matter or contaminated water, soil or feed,” said Grant Loney, incident commander for the Ontario Avian Influenza Response.

Continue reading7 southwestern Ontario poultry farms in quarantine after avian flu outbreak
Comments closed
Topic: avian fluView all posts for the topic: avian flu

In severe bird flu cases, the virus can mutate as it lingers in the body

Published January 3, 2025

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Published by: NBC News
Published on:
By Kaitlin Sullivan, Mustafa Fattah

A 13-year-old girl in British Columbia who was hospitalized with bird flu for several weeks late last year harbored a mutated version of the virus, according to a report published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The case was Canada’s first recorded human infection of avian influenza, which has infected at least 66 people in the United States since last March, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This includes the nation’s first severe case, in Louisiana in December.

Continue readingIn severe bird flu cases, the virus can mutate as it lingers in the body
Comments closed
Topic: AlbertaView all posts for the topic: Alberta

Masking Fear

Published January 1, 2025

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Published by: Alberta Views
Published on:
By Paula Simons

COVID hasn’t forgotten us

Yes, I’m still wearing a mask. And yes, it takes some courage. Any time I post images of myself in a mask on my Facebook page, the insults and jeers come thick and fast, mocking me for wearing “a face diaper” or for being too stupid to know that COVID is “over.”

I’ve had strangers shout angry abuse at me as I walk through airports. But I think the most exasperating are the jokes and eyerolls from colleagues and family members, who seem to take my mask as a personal affront or insult. These friends and relations bug me—jokingly, but incessantly—to take it off, or tease me for what they perceive as my neurosis. I had one Senate colleague make fun of me for masking—only to tell me, in his next breath, that he was just getting over his fourth case of COVID.

— Senator Paula Simons
Continue readingMasking Fear
Comments closed
Topic: avian fluView all posts for the topic: avian flu

B.C. teen no longer critical with avian flu, has been taken off oxygen

Published December 31, 2024

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Published by: Global News
Published on:
By Simon Little

We’re learning more about the B.C. teenager who became the first critically ill pediatric patient with avian influenza in North America earlier this fall, including some details about her recovery.

The new information was published in a case summary as a letter to the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine on Tuesday, signed by multiple doctors from the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, BC Children’s Hospital and Public Health Agency of Canada.

Prior to the publication of the letter, B.C.’s Ministry of Health had refused to provide updates on the teen’s status or their case “unless there is a need from a public health perspective to do so.”

Continue readingB.C. teen no longer critical with avian flu, has been taken off oxygen
Comments closed
Topic: five yearsView all posts for the topic: five years

COVID-19 Turns Five Today. The Next Pandemic Is Lurking

Published December 31, 2024

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Published by: The Tyee
Published on:
By Crawford Kilian

Five years ago this morning on Dec. 31, 2019, I was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and my laptop. I was a member of “Flublogia,” a group of journalists, health scientists and kibitzers like me who had been tracking reports of disease outbreaks for years. I started every morning by checking my friends’ sites and Twitter feeds.

News had been slow lately; an Ebola outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo was fading out. But this morning, several of my friends had picked up a report from Hong Kong’s Centre for Health Protection about a “cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan, Hubei province.”

Continue readingCOVID-19 Turns Five Today. The Next Pandemic Is Lurking
Comments closed
Topic: avian fluView all posts for the topic: avian flu

American pet food sold in B.C. recalled after a cat died of bird flu

Published December 26, 2024

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Published by: CBC News
Published on:

Northwest Naturals, an Oregon-based pet food company, is recalling a batch of its two pound (one kilogram) Feline Turkey Recipe raw frozen pet food after a cat that died of H5N1 avian influenza was linked to the product.

The recalled pet food was sold in British Columbia and several American states — including Oregon, Washington and California — and lists the best before dates as between May 21, 2026, and June 23, 2026, the Portland company said in a press release on Tuesday.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed one house cat in Washington County, Ore., became infected with H5N1 and died after eating the pet food, the Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) said in a press release on Thursday.

Continue readingAmerican pet food sold in B.C. recalled after a cat died of bird flu
Comments closed
Topic: OntarioView all posts for the topic: Ontario

Hospital workers who refused COVID-19 vaccine lose court battle

Published December 24, 2024

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Published by: BayToday.ca
Published on:
By Doug Coxson

It strains all credulity to accept that the Premier of Ontario, a number of cabinet ministers and 54 non-governmental defendants somehow conspired to concoct a plan to declare a ‘false pandemic’ all for the predominant purpose of harming the plaintiffs.

Continue readingHospital workers who refused COVID-19 vaccine lose court battle
Comments closed
Topic: vaccinesView all posts for the topic: vaccines

Why We Vaccinate

Published December 24, 2024

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Published by: The Tyee
Published on:
By Michelle Gamage

There’s a concerning trend emerging in Canada and the United States when it comes to vaccine hesitancy.

In the United States, a key legal adviser to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the man tapped to be the next U.S. health secretary, is working to get rid of polio and hepatitis B vaccines in America, according to the New York Times. Kennedy himself has vocally opposed vaccines for years.

And here in Canada the overall childhood vaccination rate is declining, said Dr. Jason Wong, chief medical officer at the BC Centre for Disease Control. Wong is the deputy provincial health officer and a clinical associate professor in the University of British Columbia school of population and public health.

Continue readingWhy We Vaccinate
Comments closed
Topic: OntarioView all posts for the topic: Ontario

Dropping vaccination rates for children in Ontario raise measles fears

Published December 22, 2024

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Published by: Ottawa Citizen
Published on:
By Elizabeth Payne

Just 70 per cent of seven year olds in Ontario were fully vaccinated against measles last year, according to Public Health Ontario.

That represents a steep drop in vaccination coverage compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the data. There have been similar declines for other routine childhood vaccines as well.

A decade ago, during the 2013-14 school year, 94 per cent of seven year olds in Ontario were fully immunized against measles. That number has steadily declined since then. Herd immunity for measles, which is among the most contagious infections in the world, is between 90 and 95 per cent.

Continue readingDropping vaccination rates for children in Ontario raise measles fears
Comments closed
Topic: British ColumbiaView all posts for the topic: British Columbia

Respiratory illness on the rise as B.C. residents begin busy holiday season

Published December 22, 2024

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Published by: Vancouver Sun
Published on:
By Tiffany Crawford

As B.C. begins the busy holiday season of social gatherings, health officials are reporting a steady increase in respiratory illness, including respiratory syncytial virus and walking pneumonia in children.

RSV is up 10.3 per cent over last week, predominantly in children in the Lower Mainland, the B.C. Centre for Disease Control reported in an update Friday.

Continue readingRespiratory illness on the rise as B.C. residents begin busy holiday season
Comments closed
Topic: British ColumbiaView all posts for the topic: British Columbia

To deal with a doctor shortage, this B.C. city has decided to start paying them directly

Published December 21, 2024

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Published by: CBC News
Published on:
By Michelle Gomez

A new clinic opening early next year on British Columbia’s Vancouver Island has a different structure it hopes will help attract and retain family doctors amid an ongoing physician shortage.

The Colwood Medical Clinic will be run not as a private practice, as is normally the case, but by the Greater Victoria municipality itself. The mayor says they have now hired their first doctor and plan on bringing on seven more.

All eight will be paid as municipal employees, receiving full medical benefits, vacation and a pension. They will also be free of the administrative and financial tasks doctors typically handle when running their own clinics, instead handing that work off to the city.

Continue readingTo deal with a doctor shortage, this B.C. city has decided to start paying them directly
Comments closed
Topic: avian fluView all posts for the topic: avian flu

Avian flu detected in Manitoba for the 1st time this year

Published December 19, 2024

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Published by: CBC News
Published on:

Manitoba has confirmed its first case of avian influenza in domestic birds for 2024 at a commercial poultry operation in Portage la Prairie.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said the viral infection was detected on Nov. 26. Similar cases have previously been detected in the province in 2022 and 2023.

CFIA has set a primary control zone in the area where the disease was detected.

Continue readingAvian flu detected in Manitoba for the 1st time this year
Comments closed
Topic: Nova ScotiaView all posts for the topic: Nova Scotia

Judge certifies Nova Scotia COVID-19 lawsuit as a class action

Published December 19, 2024

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Published by: CBC News
Published on:
By Blair Rhodes

⚠️ Content warning: mention of deaths.

A Nova Scotia judge has certified a class action lawsuit against Northwood, a company that was described as at the epicentre of COVID-19 deaths in the province at the height of the pandemic in 2020.

Some 53 people died in the Northwood complex in north-end Halifax.

A lawsuit was launched shortly after the deaths. On Thursday, Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice Scott Norton certified it as a class action.

Continue readingJudge certifies Nova Scotia COVID-19 lawsuit as a class action
Comments closed
Topic: OntarioView all posts for the topic: Ontario

Why doesn’t Doug Ford’s government want you to know if you have this dangerous disease?

Published December 19, 2024

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Published by: Toronto Star
Published on:
By Iris Gorfinkel

Transparency is crucial to public health, but far too little effort has gone into informing the public about the long-term health hazards posed by repeated COVID-19 infections. That needs to change. A good place to start is by providing free rapid tests to enable Ontarians to gauge their risk and that of their loved ones. Its messaging would be clear: Results still matter.

— Dr. Iris Gorfinkel
Continue readingWhy doesn’t Doug Ford’s government want you to know if you have this dangerous disease?
Comments closed
Topic: pro-virus policiesView all posts for the topic: pro-virus policies

America’s Public Health Breakdown Is Just Getting Started

Published December 19, 2024

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Published by: The Tyee
Published on:
By Crawford Kilian

The United States has a health-care system that is terrible and getting worse. It also has a health science system that is the best in the world and about to be dismantled.

The impending return of Donald Trump to the White House seems likely to collapse American health science, with consequences as disastrous for the rest of the world as for the approximately 340 million Americans in the U.S. Canada may be able to soften the impact here, but it will not be easy.

Continue readingAmerica’s Public Health Breakdown Is Just Getting Started
Comments closed