Six more people in B.C. have tested positive for COVID-19, including two residents at a long-term care home, provincial health officials have confirmed.
Two residents at the Lynn Valley Care Centre in North Vancouver are infected. The facility is now considered the site of an outbreak, provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said on Saturday. The virus spread after a worker contracted the virus earlier this week.
Another pair were infected while aboard a previous cruise on the Grand Princess and are now back in the province. The other two new infections are related to travel from Iran.
“We are by no means near the end of this,” said Henry. “We’ve seen the progression around the world, we’ve seen what’s happened in other communities, and we’re preparing as best we can for that.”
The province is now advising all British Columbians to avoid travelling on cruise ships.
Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix have announced more cases of the novel coronavirus in B.C. (Dirk Meissner/The Canadian Press)
Care home investigation
The province has deployed resources to investigate the outbreak at Lynn Valley Care Centre. Staff from Vancouver Coastal Health have been at the facility for the last three days as part of the province’s outbreak response.
The coronavirus spread into the care home through a worker who is infected. She was the province’s first case of community transmission.
“This is one of the scenarios that we have been most concerned about,” said Henry, who was close to tears at her news conference. There are more than 200 residents at the facility, many of whom are considered vulnerable because of their age and underlying health conditions.
Residents and workers at the Lynn Valley Care Centre have been screened. Health officials are concerned about transmission to other facilities as care workers tend to work at multiple health centres. (Deborah Goble/CBC)
All residents at the facility have been screened for symptoms.
Health officials are also tracing the steps of care workers at the centre to ensure the virus hasn’t spread to other parts of the community. Henry said many care workers work in multiple facilities.
It’s the same vessel that is currently quarantined off the coast of California over fears of an outbreak. More than 200 Canadians are on board, and it’s scheduled to dock in B.C. early April.
Scrambling to keep the coronavirus at bay, officials ordered the Grand Princess cruise ship to hold off the California coast Thursday, March 5, to await testing of those aboard, after a passenger on an earlier voyage died and others became infected. (Scott Strazzante/The Associated Press/San Francisco Chronicle)
Health officials have been in contact with other B.C. passengers who boarded previous trips on the ship and warn that there could be more positive cases.
Provincial health minister Adrian Dix is urging all British Columbians to avoid travelling on cruise ships.
“Those who are considering going on cruises, who have bought tickets on cruises, need to very seriously consider their position — and if you’re asking my advice, I say don’t go,” said Dix.
There have been 27 positive cases of coronavirus in B.C. This illustration provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in January 2020 shows the 2019 novel coronavirus. (The Canadian Press)
Provincial efforts ramped up
On Friday the province announced plans to ramp up its response to the coronavirus outbreak, outlining a wide-ranging provincial pandemic co-ordination plan to contain the spread of the COVID-19, the disease that results from the virus.
The plan focuses on “delaying, containing and preparing the province to minimize serious illness and economic disruption” — first by identifying and containing cases, and then, in its second phase, escalating government co-ordination to quickly direct resources.
A total of 27 people in B.C. have tested positive for the virus. At least four have recovered.
Some Ontario doctors have started offering a free shot that can protect babies from respiratory syncytial virus while Quebec will begin its immunization program next month.
The new shot called Nirsevimab gives babies antibodies that provide passive immunity to RSV, a major cause of serious lower respiratory tract infections for infants and seniors, which can cause bronchiolitis or pneumonia.
Ontario’s ministry of health says the shot is already available at some doctor’s offices in Ontario with the province’s remaining supply set to arrive by the end of the month.
Quebec will begin administering the shots on Nov. 4 to babies born in hospitals and delivery centers.
Parents in Quebec with babies under six months or those who are older but more vulnerable to infection can also book immunization appointments online.
The injection will be available in Nunavut and Yukon this fall and winter, though administration start dates have not yet been announced.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
-With files from Nicole Ireland
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Polio cases are rising ahead of a new vaccination campaign in Pakistan, where violence targeting health workers and the police protecting them has hampered years of efforts toward making the country polio-free.
Since January, health officials have confirmed 39 new polio cases in Pakistan, compared to only six last year, said Anwarul Haq of the National Emergency Operation Center for Polio Eradication.
The new nationwide drive starts Oct. 28 with the aim to vaccinate at least 32 million children. “The whole purpose of these campaigns is to achieve the target of making Pakistan a polio-free state,” he said.
Pakistan regularly launches campaigns against polio despite attacks on the workers and police assigned to the inoculation drives. Militants falsely claim the vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.
Most of the new polio cases were reported in the southwestern Balochistan and southern Sindh province, following by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and eastern Punjab province.
The locations are worrying authorities since previous cases were from the restive northwest bordering Afghanistan, where the Taliban government in September suddenly stopped a door-to-door vaccination campaign.
Afghanistan and Pakistan are the two countries in which the spread of the potentially fatal, paralyzing disease has never been stopped. Authorities in Pakistan have said that the Taliban’s decision will have major repercussions beyond the Afghan border, as people from both sides frequently travel to each other’s country.
The World Health Organization has confirmed 18 polio cases in Afghanistan this year, all but two in the south of the country. That’s up from six cases in 2023. Afghanistan used a house-to-house vaccination strategy this June for the first time in five years, a tactic that helped to reach the majority of children targeted, according to WHO.
Health officials in Pakistan say they want the both sides to conduct anti-polio drives simultaneously.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of people with private health insurance would be able to pick up over-the-counter methods like condoms, the “morning after” pill and birth control pills for free under a new rule the White House proposed on Monday.
Right now, health insurers must cover the cost of prescribed contraception, including prescription birth control or even condoms that doctors have issued a prescription for. But the new rule would expand that coverage, allowing millions of people on private health insurance to pick up free condoms, birth control pills, or “morning after” pills from local storefronts without a prescription.
The proposal comes days before Election Day, as Vice President Kamala Harris affixes her presidential campaign to a promise of expanding women’s health care access in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to undo nationwide abortion rights two years ago. Harris has sought to craft a distinct contrast from her Republican challenger, Donald Trump, who appointed some of the judges who issued that ruling.
“The proposed rule we announce today would expand access to birth control at no additional cost for millions of consumers,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement. “Bottom line: women should have control over their personal health care decisions. And issuers and providers have an obligation to comply with the law.”
The emergency contraceptives that people on private insurance would be able to access without costs include levonorgestrel, a pill that needs to be taken immediately after sex to prevent pregnancy and is more commonly known by the brand name “Plan B.”
Without a doctor’s prescription, women may pay as much as $50 for a pack of the pills. And women who delay buying the medication in order to get a doctor’s prescription could jeopardize the pill’s effectiveness, since it is most likely to prevent a pregnancy within 72 hours after sex.
If implemented, the new rule would also require insurers to fully bear the cost of the once-a-day Opill, a new over-the-counter birth control pill that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved last year. A one-month supply of the pills costs $20.
Federal mandates for private health insurance to cover contraceptive care were first introduced with the Affordable Care Act, which required plans to pick up the cost of FDA-approved birth control that had been prescribed by a doctor as a preventative service.
The proposed rule would not impact those on Medicaid, the insurance program for the poorest Americans. States are largely left to design their own rules around Medicaid coverage for contraception, and few cover over-the-counter methods like Plan B or condoms.
