A headline shared online falsely claims that Iceland has banned COVID-19 vaccines and cites sudden deaths for which there is no evidence, according to the Icelandic national health authority.
Iceland has not banned COVID vaccines and “there are no soaring sudden deaths,” Guðrún Aspelund, chief epidemiologist at the Icelandic Directorate of Health, told Reuters in a Nov. 29 email.
Comments closedFlu season has officially begun in Canada, the federal public health agency said on Friday.
“At the national level, influenza activity has crossed the seasonal threshold, indicating the start of influenza season,” the Public Health Agency of Canada said in its weekly FluWatch report posted online.
Comments closedAmid a declining life expectancy across the country, new national data released this week show that years on from the beginning of the pandemic, COVID-19…
Comments closedBabies born in South Korea last year are expected to live 82.7 years, down from 83.6 years in 2021, the statistics agency said on Friday, after life expectancy fell in 2022 for the first time since 1970, hit by a spike in deaths linked to COVID-19.
Following a global trend of such declines over the past few years, the OECD grouping said last month that average life expectancy had dipped 0.7 years across its 39 member nations between 2019 and 2021.
Comments closedRespiratory viruses are on the rise in Manitoba and the province is reducing recommended intervals between COVID-19 vaccines.
Dr. Brent Roussin, Manitoba’s chief provincial public health officer, said residents are now eligible to receive an updated vaccine three months after their previous shot.
Comments closedA review and meta-analysis of long-term cardiac complications of long COVID finds a high prevalence of chest pain and abnormal heart rhythms (arrythmias).
Comments closedTwo doses of a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine were 40% effective against emergency department (ED) visits and hospitalization in preschool-aged children during a period of Omicron variant predominance, estimates a test-negative, case-control study using data from the New Vaccine Surveillance Network (NVSN).
Comments closedFor the fifth consecutive week, the community risk index for COVID-19 for the Peterborough, Ont., region remains at a high level, public health officials report.
Comments closedU.S. life expectancy rose last year — by more than a year — but still isn’t close to what it was before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 2022 rise was mainly due to the waning pandemic, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers said Wednesday. But even with the large increase, U.S. life expectancy is only back to 77 years, 6 months — about what it was two decades ago.
Comments closedThe city’s COVID-19 numbers to watch are mostly very high, and they are either stable or rising in this week’s Ottawa Public Health (OPH) updates.
Comments closedThe Middlesex-London Health Unit (MLHU) is closing its mass vaccination clinic in mid-December.
Comments closedWith four of Toronto’s temporary COVID-19 vaccination sites set to close for good, the city is hoping to switch focus to boosting immunization rates for school-aged children.
Provincial funding will soon run out, meaning “fixed-site” vaccination clinics at Metro Hall, Cloverdale Mall, North York Civic Centre and one near Scarborough Town Centre will close after Dec. 13, the city announced in a release Monday.
Comments closedIn China, the recent outbreak of hospitalizations due to childhood pneumonia has attracted the attention of the World Health Organization (WHO). The primary cause appears to be Mycoplasma pneumoniae. In the height of influenza season, should we be concerned about this pathogen? Here are five questions to understand.
Comments closedDespite data showing surging flu and COVID-19 infections, Toronto’s COVID-19 vaccination clinics are shutting down due to a lack of funding.
Comments closedThe world is nearly four years into the COVID-19 pandemic, but how the SARS-CoV-2 virus damages human lives, both in the short term and across a span of years, is still becoming clear. Earlier this month, a study in Lancet showed that 54% of those infected in the first months of the pandemic were still experiencing symptoms over three years later.
Comments closedToronto emergency room doctors say the winter surge of COVID-19, flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections is underway, with hospitals seeing a wave of visits across the GTA.
In the last week, nearly 250 Ontarians have been admitted to hospital, and Public Health Ontario (PHO) reports the COVID-19 wastewater signal is at its highest level in more than a year.
Comments closedTorontonians are questioning why the city is closing its four fixed-site vaccination clinics in less than a month, despite a rise in the number of COVID-19 cases across Ontario.
Comments closedA study from Israel finds that adult solid-cancer patients had a higher risk of death and hospitalization after COVID-19 infection than infected patients without cancer during a period of Omicron variant predominance and that vaccination lowered that risk.
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