With 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.
Comments closedNearly 1 in 10 new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. are from the BA.2.86 variant, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated Monday, nearly triple what the agency estimated the highly mutated variant’s prevalence was two weeks ago.
Comments closedYou wouldn’t attend an outdoor party where measles or smallpox was present. Covid is no different, especially now.
Comments closedTwo new COVID-19 variants quickly gaining traction across Canada are already dominant in New Brunswick.
So far, HV.1 and HK.3, related to Omicron EG.5, do not appear to cause more severe disease than other recent variants, said Colin Furness, an infection control epidemiologist and assistant professor at the University of Toronto.
Comments closedMore than 19,700 Canadians died of COVID-19 last year, the highest number since the pandemic began in 2020.
Comments closedThe World Health Organization (WHO) last week reclassified the Omicron BA.2.86 variant—and its offshoots, including JN.1—as a variant of interest as global proportions grow, including in the United States, where it now makes up about 9% of circulating viruses, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today.
Comments closedThe surge in respiratory infections in young children in northern China is being driven primarily by known viral and bacterial infections and not by a novel pathogen, the World Health Organization (WHO) said late last week in an update.
Comments closedCOVID-19 caused an alarming surge in premature births, but vaccines were key to returning the early birth rate to pre-pandemic levels, according to a new analysis of California birth records.
“The effect of maternal COVID infection from the onset of the pandemic into 2023 is large, increasing the risk of preterm births over that time by 1.2 percentage points,” says Jenna Nobles, a University of Wisconsin–Madison sociology professor. “To move the needle on preterm birth that much is akin to a disastrous environmental exposure, like weeks of breathing intense wildfire smoke.”
Comments closedAccording to Saskatchewan’s latest respiratory illness surveillance report, flu season has descended on the province, with a dramatic spike in confirmed cases.
Comments closedUse of air purifiers at two daycare centres in Helsinki led to a reduction in illnesses and absences among children and staff, according to preliminary findings of a new study led by E3 Pandemic Response.
Air purifiers of various sizes and types were placed in two of the city’s daycare centres during cold and flu seasons.
The initial results from the first year of research are promising, according to researcher Enni Sanmark, from HUS Helsinki University Hospital.
“Children were clearly less sick in daycare centres where air purification devices were used — down by around 30 percent,” Sanmark explained.
Comments closedLife expectancy fell in the four Atlantic provinces in 2022. COVID-19 is one of the causes put forward by Statistics Canada to explain the phenomenon.
Comments closedAn outbreak of COVID-19 aboard a Canadian warship has forced the Royal Canadian Navy to cancel the remainder of a tour of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway.
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