In a letter to three federal ministers, Stephen Lecce said that it is critical that Canada looks ahead and applies the “lessons learned on the importance of forward planning” in obtaining and distributing vaccines to students and children as soon as they are approved by Health Canada.
Why?
The Biden administration and private companies are working to develop a standard way of handling credentials — often referred to as “vaccine passports” — that would allow Americans to prove they have been vaccinated against the novel coronavirus as businesses try to reopen.
h/t Mauser98
Big news story at the end of this week: Canada’s vaccination effort finally reaches 10% of the adult population!
The United States has the 13th highest COVID-19 death rate relative to population. Many different factors shaped death rates in the pandemic. But there’s one uncomfortable reason that the U.S. likely experienced more COVID-19 deaths that has largely been ignored because it’s politically incorrect.
Out-of-control obesity rates and the “body positivity” movement predating the pandemic have left the U.S. population disproportionately vulnerable to COVID-19 compared to other countries. The U.S. ranks No. 12 in obesity worldwide, one of the highest rates among developed countries. One study found that 90% of worldwide COVID-19 deaths occurred in countries with high obesity rates.
Ontario is reporting more than 2,400 new COVID-19 cases today as the province’s seven-day average of daily infections surpasses 2,000 for the first time in several weeks.
Provincial health officials logged 2,448 new cases of the disease caused by the novel coronavirus today, down slightly from the 2,453 reported on Saturday but up from 1,791 last week.
It is the fourth day in a row that the number of new infections jumped above 2,000 in the province.
Ontario easing COVID-19 restrictions is ‘threatening people’s lives’: nurses’ union
A union representing nurses in Ontario says the government’s loosening of restrictions is “threatening people’s lives” and has called for stronger measures to be put in place as the province faces a third wave of COVID-19.
The Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario (RNAO) said in a statement Saturday that recent government decisions to loosen some dining restrictions, as well as allow personal care services to open, also threaten the province’s health-care system and in-person learning.
Like teacher’s unions little things such as a roof over your head and enough food to eat never seem to factor in their position on lockdowns.
The Public Health Agency of Canada has admitted the modelling they use to create COVID-19 charts is a simple one that leaves out some potential inputs, including the impact of vaccinations.
“The forecasting model uses a simplified approach to model effects of public health interventions, which it does by altering the transmission rate,” explains a document sent by the PHAC to the federal House of Commons health committee earlier this week.
As vaccines roll out among older adults, many of the questions from this group of students focused on the fact that children aren’t on the current inoculation schedule. Of the vaccines approved in Canada so far, only the Pfizer vaccine has been cleared for people as young as 16 years old, and the other three are currently meant for ages 18 and up.
New York will soon introduce the Excelsior Pass, a card which proves you have taken a Covid-19 vaccine or have a recent negative test in order to enter events and businesses.
“Similar to a mobile airline boarding pass, individuals will be able to either print out their pass or store it on their smartphones using the Excelsior Pass Wallet app,” the press release announcing the ‘passports’ read.
Washington expert who led inquiry into the cause of the virus reveals three Wuhan lab scientists fell ill in November 2019
A cluster of researchers from China’s secretive Wuhan laboratories fell sick with ‘Covid-like’ symptoms at least six weeks before the Beijing government admitted an outbreak of a new virus in their city, according to the leading US investigator looking into the start of the pandemic.
David Asher, who led State Department inquiries into Covid-19’s origins, told The Mail on Sunday that three scientists are believed to have become ill with the mysterious respiratory condition in the second week of November, 2019.
‘There are suspicions – for good reasons – of an initial cluster tied to Wuhan Institute of Virology in November and that people started to be hospitalised,’ he said.
I note the media shies away from coverage of this event…
Toronto anti lockdown protestors sending their positive message to Kensington Market #NoMoreLockdowns pic.twitter.com/EhDQUrPcRI
— Rowan (@canmericanized) March 27, 2021
Facebook, Twitter and Google have been urged by a US lawmaker to ban a dozen people who it is claimed are spreading the vast majority of disinformation about Covid vaccinations.
Representative Mike Doyle made the call to remove their accounts during a US congressional session on how the three firms were dealing with fake news.
He challenged Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and Sundar Pinchai to deplatform the dozen people immediately.
None have responded to the call so far.
Ontario reports 2,453 new COVID-19 cases and 16 more deaths; hospitalizations continue to rise
Ontario reported more than 2,000 new COVID-19 cases for a third day in a row, as hospitalizations hit a high not seen since early February.
Provincial health officials logged 2,453 new COVID-19 infections on Saturday and 16 additional deaths.
Today marks the highest single-day case count since Jan.22 when 2,662 were reported.
COVID-19’s collateral damage: What happens when Canadians with other illnesses miss out on medical care?
By the time Pedro Gomez Marin met the surgeon who would remove his oral cancer and rebuild his jaw, the tumour in his neck was nearly as big as a golf ball.
The mass had ballooned since Mr. Gomez Marin, a retired owner of a landscaping and snow removal business, first noticed a bump that felt like a small nut three months earlier. The 71-year-old, who goes by Peter, needed major surgery right away.
“[The surgeon] told me that this type of cancer Peter has is quite an aggressive, fast-moving cancer. It has already spread into the bone in his jaw,” said Karen Leahy-Gomez, Peter’s wife of nearly 40 years.
A team of researchers at St. Paul’s Hospital first detected an entire cluster of cases of the P.1 variant – most commonly associated with Brazil – that were previously unknown earlier this month. In subsequent days, they’ve found even more. As of Friday at noon, they revealed they’ve discovered a total of 215 of the P.1 variant through their screening, a number not yet reported by provincial officials.
“At St. Paul’s Hospital we’ve actually identified more P.1 variants than the entire United States,” said. Dr. Marc Romney, co-author and medical leader of the microbiology and virology department at the facility. “This is concerning because P.1 is associated with immune evasion.”
The government’s lockdown regime has transformed the very idea of civil liberties.
As Britain was heading into lockdown on 23 March 2020, UK health secretary Matt Hancock was busy introducing the accompanying legislation in parliament. ‘To defeat [Covid-19]’, he said, ‘we are proposing extraordinary measures of a kind never seen before in peacetime’.
Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer says her agency wasn’t wrong when it rated the risk of COVID-19 to the country as low in early 2020, a ranking that the federal Auditor-General says was concerning and based on a faulty assessment tool.
At a news conference on Friday, Theresa Tam said the low-risk assessment was to show a moment in time rather than the potential risk the coronavirus posed to Canadians. However, she said her agency is now more focused on its forward-looking risk assessments, rather than only capturing the immediate risk posed by a disease.
“It was not wrong, it’s just that it is important to also provide what that future state might be like,” Dr. Tam said. Public-health agencies, she said, “need to be prediction organizations and not just being able to assess the risk of that present moment.”
