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Tag: pro-virus policies

Why do we have to keep getting COVID?

Flannery Dean is a writer and editor based in Hamilton.

Nearly five years into life with COVID-19, I find myself selfishly wondering how many more times I – by which I mean, all of us – need to get it before we acknowledge that allowing multiple reinfections poses a very large problem? I thought my second bout of it (or was it my third?) in February, 2023, was tough – that one set me back a few months. But this nasty little bug, which is again surging here, there and everywhere, has bitten me once again, and has been a beast to overcome.

My latest infection – which began in June and is mild by medical standards – surprised me. I’m an active, healthy woman in her 40s. In addition to having been infected previously, I’ve gratefully received every single vaccine offered, including the booster shot only about 18 per cent of Canadians got last fall. I’m not sure I blame those who didn’t rush out in droves to get it. There was little public push to do so, and a general sense that infection after vaccination was okay so long as you’re “healthy.” Continued protection against a virus that makes swift and powerful adaptations is a hard sell when you don’t invest in the power of prevention, too.

Even so, after the fever passed, I spent a month largely confined to my bed, unable to do more than shuffle to my doctor’s office and back. I felt weak and nauseated in a way that made pregnancy queasiness seem quaint. My muscles felt tired or tingling or cold, or all three at once. I was regularly overcome by a sensation that I can only describe as a full-body panic attack, marked by a racing heart and rapid breathing. For weeks, I felt like my internal circuitry was on the fritz. Even my vision was blurred.

It remains so.

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Opinion: Closing long-COVID clinics a devastating blow to patients

I was dismayed to see Alberta Health Services’ decision to abruptly shut down the three long-COVID clinics and outpatient programs last week. This was done without any consultation, notice or consideration for those who access these crucial health care services.

As a long-COVID patient I was personally able to access their rehab services, which were incredibly helpful for me. Many may not realize how long-COVID impacts the entire body, and the extent of care supports many long-COVID patients require.

I went from being a very active person to being homebound and unable to work. The support I received through the clinic helped me regain some of my function and made my activities of daily living more manageable.

Through the clinic I was able to access cardiac and respiratory testing, as well as many rehabilitation therapists, including a physiotherapist, occupational therapist, recreational therapist (so critical when you’re housebound), a speech language pathologist, and a social worker.

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The US Government Is Shutting Down A Key Covid Website

Tomorrow the US government agency responsible for biomedical and public health research, The National Institutes of Health, will shut down its Covid-19 ‘special populations’ website.

This site hosts a huge amount of information about how to treat covid and long covid in the immunocompromised and in people with HIV, cancer and similar immune supressing conditions – so-called ‘special populations.’

The site is going totally offline.

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Nassau Legislature approves act prohibiting mask wearing in some scenarios

The Nassau County Legislature passed the Mask Transparency Act Monday – a law that prohibits the wearing of masks in public in some scenarios.

Those over the age of 16 will not be allowed to wear masks, unless it is being worn for the person’s health, religion or celebratory purposes. Officials say police will be the ones to determine whether or not the masks are being used for those purposes.

Legislators explained their reasoning for supporting the measure during the hearing.

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The Risks of Killing a COVID Early Warning System

COVID-19 is surging in parts of North America and Europe, and even played a role in ending the presidential campaign of 81-year-old Joe Biden, who was infected for the third time last month.

Nevertheless, on Wednesday the Ontario government shut down its early warning system to detect COVID and other emerging diseases.

Doctors, citizens and researchers are calling the decision to kill the province’s wastewater disease surveillance program both wrong-headed and dangerous. Ending the program will make it harder to track and thwart viral outbreaks, they say, and thereby increase the burden on Ontario’s understaffed hospitals, which experienced more than 1,000 emergency room closures last year.

“Pandemics do not end because science has been muzzled,” Dr. Iris Gorfinkel, a well-known Toronto physician and clinical researcher, told the CBC.

In emails to politicians, more than 5,000 citizens have demanded restoration of the program, with little effect.

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Ontario has a globally praised system for monitoring diseases through wastewater. So why is the province shutting it down?

For the past three years, Alexandra Johnston has started her work day by reaching for the pickaxe in the trunk of her car.

It is her tool of choice for prying open manhole covers – a task she demonstrated with practised ease last week while on a tour of her wastewater sampling regimen in Toronto.

Wearing a surgical mask and gloves, Ms. Johnston dragged the heavy cover aside, then grabbed hold of the fishing line secured underneath. After hauling up a few metres of line, she displayed her catch: a dripping wet tampon she had placed there the day before.

Her teammate, Claire Gibbs, quickly moved in with a prelabelled plastic bag to capture the sewage-laden sample. Using scissors, Ms. Gibbs deftly snipped the line, sealed the bag and stowed it away in the trunk as part of that day’s delivery.

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Wastewater testing a ‘huge scientific success’ says UW prof as province terminates network

Mark Servos is going back to studying fish.

After more than four years of testing wastewater for traces of COVID-19, the University of Waterloo fisheries biologist and his team that spans 12 universities will take their last samples next week as the country’s largest wastewater network officially disbands.

The Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks has terminated the program as of July 31, removing one of the last reliable trackers of the virus’s spread in communities across Ontario.

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Ontario can’t make COVID-19 disappear by pretending it doesn’t exist

Another blow to understanding the spread of COVID-19 is now slated to happen on July 31. That’s when funding ends for Ontario’s extensive wastewater surveillance program. It’s a technology that can detect viral particles up to seven days before people develop symptoms. It costs $15 million annually to check 58 sites throughout Ontario. But the cost of losing this hard-won technology is far greater. No longer having its data means that hospitals, long-term-care facilities, schools and communities will lose critical advanced warning of a potential outbreak. That gives them less time to prepare with masks, air filtration and vaccines.

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COVID-19 no longer novel coronavirus in Ontario

The Ontario government is downgrading COVID-19 from a novel coronavirus to a “disease of public health significance,” limiting the kind of data that needs to be reported to, and by, medical officers of health.

The change is being proposed through a regulation, which was publicly open for comment for a week earlier this month.

Under the new designation, medical officers of health will not need to pass on COVID-19 data unrelated to deaths and outbreaks to the Ministry of Health or Public Health Ontario.

Individuals who perform point of care testing will also no longer need to report every positive result to the medical officer of health.

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Ontario’s wastewater testing program to be replaced by a federal program that is significantly smaller

When Ontario’s wastewater surveillance program is shut down next month it will be replaced by a significantly smaller federal program. That potential information gap worries some researchers and public health experts, especially at a time when COVID-19 cases are starting to tick up and avian influenza is spreading rapidly.

Ontario’s wastewater testing initiative, considered a world leader, currently tests wastewater for signs of infectious diseases including COVID, influenza, RSV and more at 58 locations across the province. The provincial government plans to pull the plug on the program at the end of July, saying it wants to avoid duplication with an expanding pan-Canadian wastewater surveillance program.

That new federal program includes plans to conduct wastewater surveillance in five Ontario cities. Four of the five cities have not yet been selected.

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Small towns likely to be big losers when Ontario stops monitoring wastewater, expert says

Small towns and rural communities are likely to see the biggest impact when the province stops paying scientists to monitor wastewater for COVID-19 and other illnesses, an expert says.

Also likely to suffer is the scientific community’s ability to learn from rich, robust data that is currently being collected but won’t be after the provincial surveillance program wraps up at the end of July, said Chris deGroot, the lead researcher at the Western University lab that monitors the wastewater in this region.

“It’s safe to assume that with the transition to the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), there will be a reduction in the total number of sites and that we’re most likely going to see the sites be in larger urban centres,” deGroot said.

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Ontario is a ‘world leader’ in wastewater surveillance for COVID. The province’s decision to close testing sites will end that, experts say

Researchers are warning that Ontario’s decision to shut down its wastewater surveillance program that proved crucial in tracking COVID-19 will limit the province’s ability to rapidly respond to infectious disease threats, including new COVID variants, respiratory viruses and bird flu.

A key member of the waterwater surveillance program says Ontario has been a “world leader and now we’ll probably be one of the passengers” by the scale-back that will also stifle research.

Cancelling the provincial surveillance system — the largest in Canada — will drastically reduce the number of testing sites in the province, experts say. They also caution that shuttering the program will mean that monitoring may no longer take place in smaller communities and in rural and northern areas, potentially missing vulnerable populations.

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North Carolina wants to tighten mask restrictions. Disabled residents are concerned.

Disabled North Carolina residents say a mask restriction that is under consideration in the state legislature would make it harder for them to access parts of their communities, pushing them back into isolation.

“This law says to them that you are not welcome in our community and we don’t value your presence to accommodate your need to wear a mask,” Tara Muller, a policy attorney at Disability Rights North Carolina, told ABC News.

House Bill 237, dubbed the “Unmasking Mobs and Criminals” bill, would repeal a COVID-19 pandemic exception that allowed people to wear a face mask in public. It allows exceptions for holiday costumes, rituals or ceremonies, theatrical productions, gas masks or employment-based usage, but would remove the ability for someone to wear a mask to ensure “the physical health or safety of the wearer or others.”

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Video | Feds to stop providing free COVID-19 rapid tests

The federal government, which spent billions on COVID-19 rapid tests during the height of the pandemic, says it will stop supplying provinces and territories with those tests. Heidi Petracek explains the move, and the reaction from some provinces and doctors.

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Masks no longer mandatory at N.S. Health facilities

Nova Scotia Health will no longer require people to wear masks when entering its facilities, unless they are symptomatic.

The health authority updated its rules on Tuesday, stating that it will continue to monitor levels of respiratory illness, including COVID-19, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

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Mask ban bill shot down in North Carolina House

The North Carolina House voted against a bill that would’ve banned mask-wearing in public Wednesday.

The Senate passed it last week as part of an effort to crack down on people who wear masks at protests so they can commit crimes.

Lawmakers in the House worried it went too far, saying the law may be unfairly enforced against people who wear masks for health concerns.

Leaders in the House and Senate will soon meet to try to iron out a compromise.

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North Carolina House pauses passage of bill that would ban masking for health reasons

A North Carolina bill partially meant to address mask-wearing at protests was under review Wednesday after some House Republicans raised issue with the legislation’s impact on people who wear masks for health reasons.

The state House voted not to accept changes made to the bill by the state Senate that would remove a pandemic-era masking exemption for health purposes.

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Winding down of free COVID-19 rapid test kit access in N.B. ‘an abdication of what public health is supposed to be,’ says epidemiologist

We know that COVID-19 is not an equal-opportunity disease, we’ve known this for four years. COVID tends to have a disproportionately high impact on people who are lower on the socio-economic ladder; people who don’t have the luxury of working from home, people who are doing essential work, people who because of their income are living in more crowded conditions. These are all risk factors and they’re all socio-economically tied. So to say, ‘Yeah, there’s this tool that will keep you safe if you have enough money to pay for it,’ I think is an abdication of what public health is supposed to be, which is public.

— Colin Furness, infection control epidemiologist and associate professor at the University of Toronto
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