The first study of COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness in a large population of adult heart-failure patients suggests that vaccinated participants are 82% more likely to live longer than their unvaccinated peers, according to an analysis presented over the weekend at the Heart Failure 2024 scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) in Lisbon, Portugal.
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Topic: climate crisisView all posts for the topic: climate crisis
Wildfire smoke could move into Ottawa, eastern Ontario tonight
Wildfires in western Canada will likely bring smoke into Ottawa and eastern Ontario starting on Monday and into Tuesday morning.
CTV’s Your Morning chief meteorologist Kelsey McEwen says smoke could travel as far as Quebec City by Tuesday morning with air quality advisories being issued in five provinces.
“You can see the Jetstream pulling that smoke down south of the border through the Dakotas and back up through the Great Lakes,” McEwen said.
“By tomorrow, this begins to slide toward the Ottawa-Gatineau area, tomorrow morning and out toward Quebec City.”
Comments closedTopic: avian fluView all posts for the topic: avian flu
CDC launching wastewater dashboard to track bird flu virus spread
Reluctance among dairy farmers to report H5N1 bird flu outbreaks within their herds or allow testing of their workers has made it difficult to keep up with the virus’s rapid spread, prompting federal public health officials to look to wastewater to help fill in the gaps.
On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to unveil a public dashboard tracking influenza A viruses in sewage that the agency has been collecting from 600 wastewater treatment sites around the country since last fall.
Comments closedTopic: climate crisisView all posts for the topic: climate crisis
Smoky skies back in Alberta as wildfires spread
Just as the last vestiges of winter gave way to a few days of warm weather, smoke has clouded Alberta’s skies, bringing with it a foreboding memory of summers past, as wildfires continue to burn in the northern parts of the province.
Environment and Climate Change Canada has issued 321 air quality alerts, spanning the province from High Level to Milk River. Alberta Wildfire is reporting 50 active wildfires as of 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, with two currently classified as out-of-control.
One, near Fort McMurray, tripled in size overnight to extend its reach to about 5,500 hectares. The other, burning in Grande Prairie County in northwestern Alberta, had grown to about 1,400 hectares as of 1 p.m. Sunday.
Comments closedTopic: climate crisisView all posts for the topic: climate crisis
Edmonton to see smoky skies, poor air quality into Monday night
Edmontonians saw a slight improvement in the smoky skies Sunday.
The air quality index in the city had dropped from a 10 – very high risk – to a high-risk 9 by Sunday afternoon.
According to Environment Canada, wildfire smoke is harmful even at low concentrations, and residents in affected areas were told to reduce or reschedule strenuous outdoor activities and watch for symptoms such as coughing and throat irritation.
Comments closedTopic: human rightsView all posts for the topic: human rights
Feds ‘committed to doing more,’ but minister offers no timeline for Canadian Disability Benefit boost
Comments closedReaction from the disability community has been unanimous that this initial investment creates little impact for removing people with disabilities from poverty. It simply is not enough.
Topic: convoy occupationView all posts for the topic: convoy occupation
Convoy leader Pat King heads to trial
One of the most polarizing figures to gain notoriety during what became known as the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa more than two years ago will stand trial Monday, signalling the tail end of criminal proceedings that have dogged hundreds of individuals who participated in the historic protest.
Pat King, from Red Deer, Alta., is facing charges of mischief, intimidation, obstructing police, disobeying a court order and other offences for his role in the protest that gridlocked downtown for nearly a month in early 2022.
Arrested and jailed for five months before his release that summer, King is unlikely to serve more time behind bars if he is found guilty, given laws around credit from time served.
Comments closedTopic: AlbertaView all posts for the topic: Alberta
UCP board urges Premier Danielle Smith to make COVID vaccine policy changes for children
The United Conservative Party’s board is urging Premier Danielle Smith to reform COVID vaccine policy because the directors are worried about the safety of mRNA vaccines for kids, the party president says.
“We have serious concerns about them for children,” Rob Smith, the UCP president, told CBC News in an interview Friday.
“I would say that the board of directors’ position is that if parents are going to get their children vaccinated, they need to be very, very sure that they know what they’re doing.”
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Family doctor group calls for Ontario health minister’s resignation over ‘slap in the face’ comments
The Union of Family Physicians of Ontario (OUFP) is calling for the resignation of Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones after the Ministry of Health suggested recruitment and retention of doctors in Ontario is “not a major concern.”
The group said the comments from the ministry are “insensitive and dangerous” during a period in which family medicine is in crisis.
The ministry made the argument as part of arbitration with the Ontario Medical Association over physician compensation.
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Topic: variantsView all posts for the topic: variants
‘FLiRT’ COVID-19 subvariant dominant in Canada. What to know about the strain
Canada’s lull in COVID-19 cases faces a potential disruption with the emergence of a new family of subvariants, playfully dubbed the ‘FLiRT’ variants.
These genetic cousins, originating from JN.1, the Omicron subvariant that fuelled the winter surge, are now spreading nationwide, with one variant, KP.2, quickly gaining dominance in Canada.
KP.2 is the dominant subvariant of the JN.1 strain, explained Gerald Evans, an infectious disease specialist at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. As of April 28, national data shows that KP.2 accounted for 26.6 per cent of all COVID-19 cases in Canada, surpassing other JN.1 subvariants.
Comments closedTopic: Ottawa-GatineauView all posts for the topic: Ottawa-Gatineau
$1 million investment for cleaner, healthier air, energy savings at CHEO
The federal government says the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario’s (CHEO) will have major updates, resulting in healthier and cleaner air, and energy savings.
An investment of up to $1 million from the Low Carbon Economy Fund (LCEF) will go to the hospital to support its Deep Energy Retrofit Program, the government announced on Thursday.
Comments closedTopic: vaccinesView all posts for the topic: vaccines
Researchers estimate vaccines have saved 154 million lives over past half-century
An international team of health and medical researchers including workers at the WHO, working with economists and modeling specialists, has found that the use of vaccines to prevent or treat disease has saved the lives of approximately 154 million people over the past half-century.
In their study, published in The Lancet, the group used mathematical and statistical modeling to develop estimates for lives saved due to vaccines and then added them together to find the total.
Comments closedTopic: AlbertaView all posts for the topic: Alberta
Video | COVID-19 cases straining Alberta hospitals
Doctors say COVID-19 cases are spreading rapidly in Alberta, putting strain on hospitals. Chelan Skulski has the details.
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Topic: AlbertaView all posts for the topic: Alberta
High-risk Albertans urged to get another vaccine dose as COVID-19 cases ticking up
After trending downward for several months, COVID-19 is on the upswing in Alberta once again.
The province’s respiratory virus dashboard shows a number of key indicators, including case counts, hospitalization numbers and positivity rates, are ticking up.
“Many jurisdictions in Canada have seen a slight bump in late April in the number of COVID cases, the positivity rate and also in their wastewater monitoring,” said Dr. Dan Gregson, an infectious diseases specialist in the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary.
Comments closedTopic: rapid testsView all posts for the topic: rapid tests
Ottawa will stop providing COVID-19 rapid tests to regions
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.
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