Quebec has become the first province in Canada to announce a financial penalty for residents who refuse to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Adult Quebecers who won’t get vaccinated and don’t have a medical exemption will be forced to pay a health “contribution,” Quebec Premier Francois Legault told reporters on Tuesday. Legault said the amount of…
Category: Community News
Experts are hopeful the Omicron wave will be short, but fear for health care capacity continues
Case counts are soaring and hospitalizations are rising. But things are very different now than they were in March 2020. Omicron has burst the New Year’s bubble. In Ontario, as students and teachers prepared to move returned to online learning online, Durham Region’s paramedic union revealed that the suburban area had posted multiple “Code Zeros,” meaning no ambulances were available,…
A change in who can offer degrees aimed to stave off Ontario’s nursing crisis. Here’s why it might not be that simple
Colleges can now offer four-year nursing degrees. But, in many cases, everyone is still competing for the same number of program seats. Nurses have always been the front lines of health care but never more critical than during the COVID-19 crisis. In this ongoing series, we explore the many issues affecting nursing. For Marijana Loncar, it was a…
Vaccination trend for Ontario kids 5-11 ‘alarming’
Almost seven weeks after appointments opened, just 45 per cent of kids 5-11 had received at least one dose, as the date for in-person learning nears. COVID-19 vaccine doses administered to the kids aged five to 11 in Ontario have dropped off significantly over the last three weeks, a sign that the province is facing an…
Canadians with disabilities fell through the cracks in the pandemic response. Here’s what needs to change as Omicron surges
One in five Canadians live with disabilities — a number likely to grow as the pandemic presses on. Advocates share how leaders should plan ahead. As the COVID-19 case count in Canada surges due to the Omicron variant, the number of people dealing with long-term symptoms — an expansive list that can include brain fog, fatigue, muscle…
Denying health care to the unvaccinated is one step too far
It is tempting to want to punish someone or something for the lockdown many of us have again been forced to endure. There are plenty of targets: politicians, public-health leaders, modelling experts … our livers. But no group appears to have attracted as much ire as those who continue to deny a safe, proven, free…
The cruel, ridiculous reality of ‘virtual learning’
Shannon Proudfoot: What does online school actually look like? It’s an impossible balancing act that’s ruining kids and parents alike. And it’s not okay. Here is what has particularly chewed me up during this latest round of school closures in Ontario, the province that has deprived its children of education and normalcy more than any…
Moderna CEO says people may need another COVID-19 booster in fall of 2022
The efficacy of boosters against COVID-19 is likely to decline over the next few months and people may need another shot in the fall of 2022, Moderna Inc chief executive officer Stephane Bancel said at a Goldman Sachs-organized health care conference on Thursday. Bancel said the company is working on a vaccine candidate tailored to…
The fate of COVID-19 depends on rapid data sharing
Alan Bernstein is president and CEO of the global research organization CIFAR and a member of Canada’s COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force. Janet Rossant is president and scientific director of the Gairdner Foundation and senior scientist emeritus at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto. To say that the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of open…
Ontario to expand the use of rapid COVID-19 antigen tests amid surge in Omicron cases
The Ontario government has announced it will expand the use of rapid COVID-19 antigen tests as the provincial diagnostic testing network faces sustained pressure under the spread of the Omicron variant. In documents released by the government on Thursday, rapid antigen tests (RATs) for the most vulnerable sectors are now being recommended for three purposes,…