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Assessing your risk in Canada’s 6th wave will be difficult. Here’s why – Global News

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At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, retired teacher Lois Armstrong said local health officials where she lives in Kingston, Ont., provided daily updates about outbreaks, cases and deaths in the community.

Now, Armstrong, 68, said the public is being asked to take a bigger role in managing their risk but information from health authorities is less available than before. Data such as the location of outbreaks, meanwhile, is no longer made public, she added.

“I think it’s very difficult for the average person to assess their own risk,” Armstrong said Monday in an interview.

“Kingston is one of the hot spots of Ontario, but they still are only posting the information three times a week, and you can’t go get tested unless you’re really high risk or really sick. So there’s no way of knowing.”

Read more:

COVID-19 hospitalizations, cases continue to rise in most provinces amid 6th wave

Health experts agree with Armstrong. Provincial governments are telling Canadians to estimate their own sense of risk but those same governments are reducing the amount of data available to residents, they say.

“There’s no question that people are being provided less data,” said Tara Moriarty, a University of Toronto professor in the faculty of dentistry who studies infectious diseases.

“It’s particularly critical because people have been made responsible for how they handle the pandemic and the decisions they make.”

Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador are the only provinces that report daily COVID-19 data, she said in an interview Monday, adding that Canada does less COVID-19 testing per capita than other wealthy countries.

For the week ending April 9, an average of 1.46 COVID-19 tests per 1,000 people were conducted every day in Canada, according to Our World In Data, a global data website affiliated with Oxford University.

In Austria, by contrast, 40.5 tests were conducted per 1,000 people. In Greece, Italy, the United Kingdom, France and South Korea, three times as many daily tests were conducted per capita as Canada. The website counts both PCR and antigen test results that are made public.

While wastewater testing has become a way to track the evolution of the pandemic, Moriarty said, it’s only being done in large cities in some provinces.

It’s not just an issue of data, she said, but also of communication. Government leaders, she explained, need to do a better job of communicating what the current situation is and who might be most at risk.

“You need to give people information so they can make better risk assessments and so that they can modify their behaviour accordingly,” she said.

“If you withhold that information, or, by omission, just don’t provide it, you’re limiting the ability of people to act on that information.”


Click to play video: 'Vaccinated Canadians can have COVID-19 symptoms despite testing negative'



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Vaccinated Canadians can have COVID-19 symptoms despite testing negative


Vaccinated Canadians can have COVID-19 symptoms despite testing negative

Jean-Paul Soucy, a PhD student at the University of Toronto who studies infectious disease epidemiology, said some provinces, like Nova Scotia, have stopped reporting region-specific data, which he said makes it difficult for residents to manage their own risk.

“COVID is not just one big outbreak in a country, it’s 1,000 little epidemics that are local,” he said in an interview Monday.

“So the more local your information is, the more tailored your decision-making can be. Health care is local. If you need an ICU bed and there’s one free in Kenora, that’s not going to be too helpful if you’re in Toronto.”

Read more:

WHO analyzing 2 new Omicron COVID-19 sub-variants: BA.4 and BA.5

Soucy said he takes more precautions when the COVID-19 situation worsens and participates in riskier activities when the situation improves.

“An important component of public health is building trust,” he said.

“And I think transparency builds trust.”

© 2022 The Canadian Press

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A linebacker at West Virginia State is fatally shot on the eve of a game against his old school

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CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A linebacker at Division II West Virginia State was fatally shot during what the university said Thursday is being investigated by police as a home invasion.

The body of Jyilek Zyiare Harrington, 21, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was found inside an apartment Wednesday night in Charleston, police Lt. Tony Hazelett said in a statement.

Hazelett said several gunshots were fired during a disturbance in a hallway and inside the apartment. The statement said Harrington had multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. Police said they had no information on a possible suspect.

West Virginia State said counselors were available to students and faculty on campus.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with Jyilek’s family as they mourn the loss of this incredible young man,” West Virginia State President Ericke S. Cage said in a letter to students and faculty.

Harrington, a senior, had eight total tackles, including a sack, in a 27-24 win at Barton College last week.

“Jyilek truly embodied what it means to be a student-athlete and was a leader not only on campus but in the community,” West Virginia State Vice President of Intercollegiate Athletics Nate Burton said. “Jyilek was a young man that, during Christmas, would create a GoFundMe to help less fortunate families.”

Burton said donations to a fund established by the athletic department in Harrington’s memory will be distributed to an organization in Charlotte to continue his charity work.

West Virginia State’s home opener against Carson-Newman, originally scheduled for Thursday night, has been rescheduled to Friday, and a private vigil involving both teams was set for Thursday night. Harrington previously attended Carson-Newman, where he made seven tackles in six games last season. He began his college career at Division II Erskine College.

“Carson-Newman joins West Virginia State in mourning the untimely passing of former student-athlete Jyilek Harrington,” Carson-Newman Vice President of Athletics Matt Pope said in a statement. “The Harrington family and the Yellow Jackets’ campus community is in our prayers. News like this is sad to hear anytime, but today it feels worse with two teams who knew him coming together to play.”

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Hall of Famer Joe Schmidt, who helped Detroit Lions win 2 NFL titles, dies at 92

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DETROIT (AP) — Joe Schmidt, the Hall of Fame linebacker who helped the Detroit Lions win NFL championships in 1953 and 1957 and later coached the team, has died. He was 92.

The Lions said family informed the team Schmidt died Wednesday. A cause of death was not provided.

One of pro football’s first great middle linebackers, Schmidt played his entire NFL career with the Lions from 1953-65. An eight-time All-Pro, he was enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1973 and the college football version in 2000.

“Joe likes to say that at one point in his career, he was 6-3, but he had tackled so many fullbacks that it drove his neck into his shoulders and now he is 6-foot,” said the late Lions owner William Clay Ford, Schmidt’s presenter at his Hall of Fame induction in 1973. “At any rate, he was listed at 6-feet and as I say was marginal for that position. There are, however, qualities that certainly scouts or anybody who is drafting a ballplayer cannot measure.”

Born in Pittsburgh, Schmidt played college football in his hometown at Pitt, beginning his stint there as a fullback and guard before coach Len Casanova switched him to linebacker.

“Pitt provided me with the opportunity to do what I’ve wanted to do, and further myself through my athletic abilities,” Schmidt said. “Everything I have stemmed from that opportunity.”

Schmidt dealt with injuries throughout his college career and was drafted by the Lions in the seventh round in 1953. As defenses evolved in that era, Schmidt’s speed, savvy and tackling ability made him a valuable part of some of the franchise’s greatest teams.

Schmidt was elected to the Pro Bowl 10 straight years from 1955-64, and after his arrival, the Lions won the last two of their three NFL titles in the 1950s.

In a 1957 playoff game at San Francisco, the Lions trailed 27-7 in the third quarter before rallying to win 31-27. That was the NFL’s largest comeback in postseason history until Buffalo rallied from a 32-point deficit to beat Houston in 1993.

“We just decided to go after them, blitz them almost every down,” Schmidt recalled. “We had nothing to lose. When you’re up against it, you let both barrels fly.”

Schmidt became an assistant coach after wrapping up his career as a player. He was Detroit’s head coach from 1967-72, going 43-35-7.

Schmidt was part of the NFL’s All-Time Team revealed in 2019 to celebrate the league’s centennial season. Of course, he’d gone into the Hall of Fame 46 years earlier.

Not bad for an undersized seventh-round draft pick.

“It was a dream of mine to play football,” Schmidt told the Detroit Free Press in 2017. “I had so many people tell me that I was too small. That I couldn’t play. I had so many negative people say negative things about me … that it makes you feel good inside. I said, ‘OK, I’ll prove it to you.’”

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Coastal GasLink fined $590K by B.C. environment office over pipeline build

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VICTORIA – British Columbia‘s Environment Assessment Office has fined Coastal GasLink Pipeline Ltd. $590,000 for “deficiencies” in the construction of its pipeline crossing the province.

The office says in a statement that 10 administrative penalties have been levied against the company for non-compliance with requirements of its environmental assessment certificate.

It says the fines come after problems with erosion and sediment control measures were identified by enforcement officers along the pipeline route across northern B.C. in April and May 2023.

The office says that the latest financial penalties reflect its escalation of enforcement due to repeated non-compliance of its requirements.

Four previous penalties have been issued for failing to control erosion and sediment valued at almost $800,000, while a fifth fine of $6,000 was handed out for providing false or misleading information.

The office says it prioritized its inspections along the 670-kilometre route by air and ground as a result of the continued concerns, leading to 59 warnings and 13 stop-work orders along the pipeline that has now been completed.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.

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