Canadian COVID-19 News

[Macblaze]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

CBC: Unvaccinated tourists won't be allowed into Canada 'for quite a while,' Trudeau says

I think it's significant he said "tourists." It gives him quite a bit of wiggle room especially vis a vis the US. Still I like the cautious approach. I really really dread having to go backwards again.

[Montanan]

Unvaccinated travellers shouldn't expect to come to Canada anytime soon, according to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. "That’s not going to happen for quite a while," Trudeau said at a press conference on Thursday.

The prime minister did indicate that the next step for the federal government is to look at possible loosening of measures for international travellers who are fully vaccinated.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/canada-us...232734705.html

As of Monday, fully vaccinated Canadians and permanent residents no longer have to quarantine when they return to Canada, but are still required to take pre-departure and arrival COVID-19 tests.

Earlier on Thursday Ontario's Solicitor General, Sylvia Jones, stated that the provincial government has continued to communicate with the federal government that COVID-19 variants are coming into Ontario through the borders.

"There is responsibility at the federal level to make sure that as that movement occurs there is the protection in place to ensure that the individuals who are moving back and forth are properly quarantining, properly being monitored by the federal government, because we don’t want to see additional variants coming into Ontario," she said.

This comes after Niagara's top public health officials indicated it is a risk to open the Canada-U.S. border due to Delta variant spread, recommending that the situation be reassessed in the fall.

[GordMay]

A recent report [1], published by the Royal Society of Canada, compared the number of official COVID-19 deaths in each province between Feb. 1 and Nov. 28, 2020, with excess deaths — essentially the difference between the total number of deaths, and the number that was expected based on past years.

[1] “Excess All-Cause Mortality During the COVID-19 Epidemic in Canada” ~ by Tara J. Moriarty et al, for the Royal Society of Canada [June 2021]

It is widely assumed that 80 per cent of Canada’s deaths due to COVID-19 occurred among older adult residents of long-term care homes, a proportion double the 40-per-cent average of peer countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). But an in depth analysis of all deaths that have so far been reported across Canada during the pandemic casts doubt on this estimate.
It reveals evidence that at least two thirds of the deaths caused by COVID-19 in communities outside of the long-term care sector may have been missed.

[1] ➥ https://rsc-src.ca/sites/default/files/EM%20PB_EN.pdf

News Report About:
COVID-19 deaths in Canada may be 2 times higher than reported, study finds
➥ https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/canad...aths-1.6084595

See also:
“Excess mortality during the Coronavirus pandemic” ~ by Charlie Giattino et al, for Our World in Data [July 2021]
➥ https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid

[Mike OReilly]

CTV: Quarantine exemptions lure visitors to Canada in advance of busy travel weekend

The Canada Border Services Agency says incoming traffic last week increased about 25 per cent after quarantine rules were waived Monday for fully vaccinated Canadians, permanent residents and others already allowed to cross the border.

But despite the agency's best efforts to publicize the requirements, roughly half of the people seeking the exemption had to be turned away, said Denis Vinette, vice-president of the agency's travellers branch.

Only Canadian citizens, permanent residents and eligible foreign nationals who have gone two weeks since a full course of one of the four COVID-19 vaccines approved by Health Canada -- Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Oxford-AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson -- are exempt from quarantine.

[Montanan]

Our one vibrant, athletic, 16 year old cousin has Long Covid, she has been ill since January, was unable to attend school during her junior year, continues to suffer from extreme fatigue, breathlessness and headaches, loss of taste and smell, etc.

Whitty warns long Covid will increase, particularly among the young

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/b...s-b944430.html

Scientific discovery paves way for test for Long Covid

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/med...?ocid=msedgntp

“It’s hard to escape a prediction that 100,000 new infections a day equates to 10,000 to 20,000 long Covid cases a day, especially in young people. That’s a lot of damage to a lot of lives. “And it’s hard to see that we’d have the healthcare provision to deal with it on that scale,” said Prof Altmann. “All of us working on this could not be more alarmed.”

Long Covid is a colloquial term being used to describe people who experience symptoms for longer than two weeks, which according to the World Health Organisation is how long coronavirus typically lasts.

However, while some people have a mild form of illness, others have been seriously affected. People affected with long-term symptoms have described how they have been previously fit and healthy and now they are confined to a wheelchair. Breathlessness and fatigue have been reported by long-term sufferers, and some have described how doing shopping or climbing stairs can leave them bed-ridden for days.

Imperial College London researchers have discovered so-called “autoantibodies” in long Covid patients that didn’t appear in patients who recovered quickly from the virus. Usually, immune systems create antibodies to fight disease but sometimes the body creates autoantibodies that turn on the host and attack healthy cells. Danny Altmann, a professor of immunology at Imperial, believes these autoantibodies may be one of the things causing long Covid symptoms.

[Mike OReilly]

CBC:
Canada to donate almost 18 million surplus AstraZeneca doses to low- and middle-income countries

Canada is donating an additional 17.7 million doses of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine to help inoculate people in low- and middle-income countries, federal ministers announced Monday.

Generous ... since we no longer want this vaccine. Still, very glad it will go to helping people.

[deblen]

50% increase in USA Covid cases in the last week??
Open the border??
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...UT-E-NLETTER56

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by deblen

50% increase in USA Covid cases in the last week??
Open the border??
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...UT-E-NLETTER56

Not good. I was betting the border would open come July 21st (the next renewal of the closure order), but given these trends... I dunno.

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Not good. I was betting the border would open come July 21st (the next renewal of the closure order), but given these trends... I dunno.

I dunno either. But the anti-vaxxers are now hurting us all, both sides of the border. Wow, a real world application of "bothsiderisms" that's not the NYT!

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Stu Jackson

I dunno either. But the anti-vaxxers are now hurting us all, both sides of the border. Wow, a real world application of "bothsiderisms" that's not the NYT!

Yes indeed. But most of us already knew this would happen. Or, at least the 75% to 85% of us who are getting vaccinated.

[pcmm]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Not good. I was betting the border would open come July 21st (the next renewal of the closure order), but given these trends... I dunno.

I really can't see the border opening any time soon unfortunately. Late September is my current guess based on the current Federal govt. I don't think they have any interest in opening the border

[Montanan]

Your flu shot may protect against severe COVID, study finds — but it’s not clear why

https://www.yahoo.com/news/flu-shot-...184901023.html

the conclusion researchers made from a review of nearly 75 million COVID-19 patient records from around the globe

COVID-19 patients who did not get their flu shots were more likely to be admitted to the ICU (up to 20%), visit the emergency department (up to 58%), have a stroke (up to 58%), develop sepsis (up to 45%) and develop blood clots (up to 40%).

The risk of death, however, was not reduced among those who were recently vaccinated against the flu.

The reason behind the association remains unclear. Some scientists speculate the flu shot boosts the immune system’s general defenses used to fight any foreign invader.

[Mike OReilly]

CTV: Canada to reach 55M vaccine doses by week's end, catching up to U.S. on second doses

[Mike OReilly]

CBC: Cruise ships to be allowed back in Canadian waters in November

[redhead]

We just came back from Pt Roberts (Washington state but attached to the Canadian mainland). This is a picture of 2 cruise ships we believe were transiting Canadian waters most likely going to Alaska. Even in "normal" times it would be unusual to see them sailing so close together, except at Seymour Narrows, of course.