Jul 30 2021 — CBC — Canada’s top health officials are warning that Canada could be seeing the beginning of a fourth COVID-19 wave driven by the more infectious delta variant. The seriousness of the pandemic’s resurgence will depend largely on vaccination coverage, said Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam. “This forecast reaffirms the need to take a cautious approach […]
Jul 30 2021 — The Canadian Press — Canada’s top doctors say Alberta’s decision to end isolation requirements for those who test positive for COVID-19, or who have been in close contact with someone who has, could have ripple effects across the country. Chief public health officer Theresa Tam is urging people to continue isolating, get tested for COVID-19 and inform their close […]
Jul 30 2021 — CBC — Many Alberta doctors are reacting with surprise and disappointment to the province’s plan to relax its COVID-19 surveillance and management system despite growing case numbers, positivity rate and R-value, and vaccination rates that are lagging behind other provinces. As of July 29, quarantine for close contacts became no longer mandatory but just recommended. Contact tracers […]
Jul 30 2021 — The Delta coronavirus variant surging across the United States appears to cause more severe illness and spread as easily as chickenpox, according to an internal document from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The document — a slide presentation — outlines unpublished data that shows fully vaccinated people might spread the Delta variant […]
Jul 30 2021 — Global News — Nicole Menzies, a single mother of two teenage boys, has no doubt. Without the federal COVID-19 income support programs, “I would have been homeless,” she says. Menzies says she’s been through eight months of on-and-off unemployment after her income as a restaurant manager and server dropped to 10 per cent of her usual pay at […]
Jul 29 2021 — The Canadian Press — Calgary’s mayor says it’s the “height of insanity” that Alberta is moving ahead with removing almost all of its remaining COVID-19 public health orders. As of today, close contacts of people who test positive for COVID-19 will no longer be notified of exposure by contact tracers nor will they be legally required to isolate. The […]
Jul 29 2021 — Amanda Connolly — Global News — Cases of COVID-19 are surging among the unvaccinated and as Canadians prepare to head to the polls in an anticipated fall election, new polling suggests most people are worried about a potential fourth wave. Polling by Ipsos done exclusively for Global News shows 81 per cent of respondents reported feeling worried that the spread of […]
Jul 28 2021 — CTV News — Alberta is lifting much of its remaining COVID-19 restrictions in the coming days as the disease continues to infect unvaccinated Albertans. Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw, in her first appearance since June 29, said the province will shift its public health response and lift a number of measures related to quarantine, isolation […]
Jul 28 2021 — CBC — The government of the United Kingdom announced today that travellers to England who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 in the European Union or United States will be exempt from mandatory quarantine upon arrival — but fully vaccinated travellers from Canada will still have to undergo quarantine.
Jul 27 2021 — CBC — The Canadian government has spent irresponsibly in its attempt to fend off the economic disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to former prime minister Stephen Harper. “It’s not a good reaction, it’s been overkill,” Harper said on an episode of the podcast American Optimist, which was released on Tuesday. “This is bad macroeconomic policy […]
Jul 28 2021 — CBC — Health and infectious disease experts say the rate at which COVID-19 cases are growing in Alberta is alarming, as it spreads faster than during the height of the pandemic’s third wave. The R-value, which represents the number of people infected by each infected person, was 1.48 (with a confidence interval of 1.38-1.59) in Alberta as […]
Jul 28 2021 — A third dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine can “strongly” boost protection against the Delta variant — beyond the protection afforded by the standard two doses, suggests new data released by Pfizer on Wednesday. The data posted online, which are expected to be discussed in a company earnings call on Wednesday morning, suggest that antibody […]
Jul 27 2021 — CBC — The Calgary Stampede says at least 71 people caught COVID-19 during the festival in mid-July. That’s seven cases per day, or a total of 0.01 per cent of 528,998 attendees, the Stampede said. Dana Peers, the Stampede’s interim CEO, said he feels the event, which ran from July 9-18, was a success despite the on-site […]
Jul 27 2021 — The Canadian Press — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is urging Canadians who still have not gotten a COVID-19 vaccine to roll up their sleeves, saying that the overwhelming majority of cases are in people who haven’t received their two shots. Trudeau says only half of one per cent of cases being recorded are in fully vaccinated people. The prime […]
Jul 27 2021 — Bruce Anderson and David Coletto — Abacus Data — The latest Abacus Data research explored how Canadians are feeling about vaccination against Covid-19. Our polling is based on a representative sample of the adult Canadian population, as our sampling includes people 18 and older. Here’s what we found: