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With news on COVID-19 happening rapidly, we’ve created this page to bring you our latest stories and information on the outbreak in and around Calgary.
Health
COVID-19 Update: AHS reports problems with booking website as Pfizer, Moderna vaccines open to people born in 1947 | Workers blast ‘patchwork’ rollout of vaccine – Calgary Herald
Watch this page throughout the day for updates on COVID-19 in Calgary
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My COVID Story: How have you been impacted by coronavirus?
Postmedia is looking to speak with people who may have been impacted by COVID-19 here in Alberta. Have you undergone a travel-related quarantine? Have you received your vaccine, and if so did you feel any side effects? Have you changed your life for the better because of the pandemic? Send us an email at reply@calgaryherald.com to tell us your experience, or send us a message via this form.
Read our ongoing coverage of personal stories arising from the pandemic.
Calgary pharmacies offering COVID-19 vaccine
This map shows all 48 Calgary pharmacies that are offering the COVID-19 vaccine. Appointments are still necessary and can be booked by contacting the participating pharmacies. Details on eligibility and booking can be found here.
Expanded Alberta vaccine rollout hits sign-up snags
Some Albertans seeking to book an appointment Monday amid an expanded COVID-19 vaccination program hit roadblocks, according to Alberta Health Services.
The glitches arose as the province launched phase 2A of its vaccination program that allows those born between 1947 and 1956 and First Nations, Inuit and Metis born in 1971 and before to book their immunization appointments starting at 8 a.m. Monday.
“The AHS website is experiencing intermittent issues. The Covid-19 immunization booking tool launch this morning is being delayed as a result,” the AHS tweeted Monday morning.
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Mass vaccination site to open at Telus Convention Centre
A large-scale, easily accessible COVID-19 vaccination site will open at the Telus Convention Centre on April 5, Alberta Health Services said in a statement this morning.
The City of Calgary will provide free parking at the site, with bookings to open later in March.
The addition of the convention centre will bring the total number of AHS immunization sites in the Calgary zone to 25.
The convention centre location will operate between eight and 16 hours, seven days a week, for those eligible and with pre-booked vaccination appointments. Hours of operation will be based on vaccine supply.
Last week AHS announced that the Genesis Centre in northeast Calgary is open for vaccinations, capable of administering 60 doses per hour.
Eligible Albertans must book their vaccinations through the AHS online booking site or by calling Health Link at 811. There are no drop-ins allowed.
More to come…
Regular booster shots are the future in battle with COVID-19 virus, says British health official
Regular booster vaccines against the novel coronavirus will be needed because of mutations that make it more transmissible and better able to evade human immunity, the head of Britain’s effort to sequence the virus’s genomes told Reuters.
The novel coronavirus, which has killed 2.65 million people globally since it emerged in China in late 2019, mutates around once every two weeks, slower than influenza or HIV, but enough to require tweaks to vaccines.
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“We have to appreciate that we were always going to have to have booster doses; immunity to coronavirus doesn’t last forever,” Sharon Peacock said.
COVID-19 one year later: Yoga studio owner faces mounting bills — and an $87,000 lawsuit
On March 16, 2020, one day before the Alberta government declared a state of public emergency over the COVID-19 pandemic, Dana Blonde shut down — she thought temporarily — the inner-city yoga studio she had run for 17 years.
Almost one year later, on March 3, 2021, she was sued by her landlord for $87,000 in unpaid rent.
The two events together book-end what has been the most stressful year in the 50-year-old Calgary woman’s life. Like many small business owners, Blonde has spent the last 12 months trying desperately to stay afloat — and has been dealt one gut punch after another.
“It’s mind-blowing to me that it’s been a year,” Blonde said, of the one-year anniversary of the pandemic. “I’m a very resilient person. I haven’t cried this whole time. But when I got this statement (of claim) from the landlord, all day long I was trying not to cry. It’s just like being kicked in the knees at the worst time ever.”
Green shoots of hope for a pandemic-free summer in Canada, but leaders urge caution
The warmer weather is arriving, daylight saving time returned Sunday and the exasperatingly slow vaccine rollout in Canada is sputtering to life.
While acknowledging there are good reasons for optimism, and an end to the year-long COVID-19 pandemic, the overarching messaging from Canada’s leaders hasn’t budged in a meaningful way from earlier scripts.
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On Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam encouraged Canadians to “keep to a steady and cautious pace.”
“Racing towards the finish line could cost us what we’ve gained,” said Tam, while Trudeau stuck to his “by end of September” timeline for having all adult Canadians who want it vaccinated.
Alberta detects first cases of Brazil variant, prepares to expand vaccine eligibility
Alberta has detected its first two cases of the highly contagious COVID-19 variant that was identified in Brazil, P.1, on Sunday as the province prepares to once again expand vaccine eligibility.
The two cases of the P.1 strain have been linked to travel and are both located in the Calgary zone, said Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, on her Twitter account Sunday. The two are already isolating and their close contacts are being offered testing twice.
This is the third variant strain to be detected in Alberta, though P.1 has been located in other provinces, including Ontario and B.C.
“I know any new variant cases can create anxiety but remember we are working hard to prevent their spread. These variants are spread by close contact and measures that protect you from other strains — distancing, masking, washing hands — will also protect you from this variant,” said Hinshaw on Twitter.
The province also reported another 63 cases of the B.1.1.7 strain that was first identified in the U.K. and one case of the B.1.351 variant discovered in South Africa.
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East Coasters proud of COVID record, but some worry over heavy cost to mental health
Atlantic Canada’s political leaders have touted the region as an example to the world after the novel coronavirus was repeatedly beaten back by a population that dutifully followed orders to isolate and physically distance.
Yet, a year after the first cases, the side-effects of declining mental health and damaged livelihoods remain costs that some psychologists and entrepreneurs say haven’t been fully recognized. And as residents reflect on the year past, their reactions vary from pride to sadness, as they recall both lives saved and the lasting damage many have endured.
“We’ve learned through this that Atlantic Canadians tend to respect authority and government a lot more than other regions,” said Donald Savoie, author of multiple books on the East Coast’s economy and politics.
Sunday
Africa Centre food bank to stay open after community support
An Alberta food bank that’s been providing hampers to racialized groups through the COVID-19 pandemic will remain open after seeing significant community support in recent days.
The Africa Diaspora Food Bank, run by Black-led organizations in Alberta, launched last spring after the start of the pandemic to provide more than 100 culturally specific hampers to families in need each week.
Earlier this week, organizers said they were at risk of closing their doors due to a lack of funding.
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But a recent surge of donations means the group can keep distributing food packages through to the start of the fall.
Sunday
AstraZeneca finds no evidence of increased blood clot risk from vaccine
AstraZeneca Plc said on Sunday a review of safety data of people vaccinated with its COVID-19 vaccine has shown no evidence of an increased risk of blood clots.
AstraZeneca’s review, which covered more than 17 million people vaccinated in the United Kingdom and European Union, comes after health authorities in some countries suspended the use of its vaccine over clotting issues.
“A careful review of all available safety data of more than 17 million people vaccinated in the European Union and UK with COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca has shown no evidence of an increased risk of pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis or thrombocytopenia, in any defined age group, gender, batch or in any particular country,” the company said.
Sunday
‘Patchwork quilt’ approach to COVID-19 vaccine rollout frustrates worker groups
The rollout of COVID-19 vaccinations across the country is frustrating several groups of workers who identify as front-line employees and want to be bumped up in the queue.
The National Advisory Committee on Immunization makes recommendations for the use of vaccines and groups that should be prioritized, but each province has the responsibility for health care.
“It is frustrating,” said Shelley Morse, president of the Canadian Teachers’ Federation, in Wolfville, N.S.
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“We know that (the committee) is calling for prioritization of different working groups. And when they call for people in ‘congregate settings’ to be prioritized that would include teachers and education workers.”
She said the federation’s 300,000 members who work in classrooms are at risk and should be included in the second phase of vaccinations across Canada.
Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and the Northwest Territories are including teachers in that phase, Morse said, but not other jurisdictions.
She said the federal and provincial governments need to sit down and agree to a national list.
Sunday
GraceLife Church, charged as entity for COVID-19 violations, still drawing crowds
Less than a week after it was charged as an entity for breaching COVID-19 public health orders, GraceLife Church held another packed service Sunday morning and authorities did not intervene.
Two RCMP police officers, along with one Alberta Health Services employee, were parked in police cruisers off the church property about 5 km west of the city limits on Hwy 627, prior to the service. They did not enter the church property or engage with churchgoers and left about half an hour after the service began.
Sunday
‘One of our finer moments:’ Pandemic led to massive scramble to get Canadians home
Global Affairs headquarters transformed into a travel agency. The department’s emergency response centre, normally staffed by two dozen people, swelled to 600, swallowing up offices, the library and entire floors of the Lester B. Pearson Building in Ottawa.
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When countries began locking down, imposing road closures and checkpoints, there were calls to foreign governments to negotiate landing rights and safe ground passage for desperate passengers.
“Everyone became a consular official, everyone became a travel agent,” recalled then-foreign affairs minister Francois-Philippe Champagne. “I remember texting my counterpart in Peru to open the airspace.”
Sunday
Experts say Quebecers may be less willing to comply with curfew as days get longer
MONTREAL — The curfew imposed across Quebec in a bid to quell the spread of COVID-19 is coming under renewed scrutiny as public health experts question whether residents will still be willing to comply with the measure as the days grow longer.
The curfew — which came into effect in early January — has corresponded with a steep decline in the number of new COVID-19 cases reported daily in the province.
It also appears to have broad public support, with 70 per cent of Quebecers in favour of the measure, according to a survey released Tuesday by the province’s public health institute.
But that support might decline once the curfew means staying in when it’s still light outside, said Kim Lavoie, the chair of behavioral medicine at the University of Quebec at Montreal.
Sunday
More provinces expanding vaccine rollouts as COVID-19 cases rise nationally
Some provinces are expanding their COVID-19 vaccine rollouts amid what Canada’s chief public health officer describes as a recent increase in the number of new cases across the country.
Dr. Theresa Tam says health officials are observing a rise in new infections after several weeks of levelling off.
Tam expressed concern over an increase in cases linked to more contagious virus variants, as well as a higher infection rate in Canadians age 20 to 39, who she described in a statement as more mobile and socially connected.
Her statement adds urgency to the vaccine effort, which is ramping up in several provinces as more doses arrive.
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Health Canada has authorized Moderna’s updated COVID-19 vaccine that protects against currently circulating variants of the virus.
The mRNA vaccine, called Spikevax, has been reformulated to target the KP.2 subvariant of Omicron.
It will replace the previous version of the vaccine that was released a year ago, which targeted the XBB.1.5 subvariant of Omicron.
Health Canada recently asked provinces and territories to get rid of their older COVID-19 vaccines to ensure the most current vaccine will be used during this fall’s respiratory virus season.
Health Canada is also reviewing two other updated COVID-19 vaccines but has not yet authorized them.
They are Pfizer’s Comirnaty, which is also an mRNA vaccine, as well as Novavax’s protein-based vaccine.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
TORONTO – Sanniah Jabeen holds a sonogram of the unborn baby she lost after contracting listeria last December. Beneath, it says “love at first sight.”
Jabeen says she believes she and her baby were poisoned by a listeria outbreak linked to some plant-based milks and wants answers. An investigation continues into the recall declared July 8 of several Silk and Great Value plant-based beverages.
“I don’t even have the words. I’m still processing that,” Jabeen says of her loss. She was 18 weeks pregnant when she went into preterm labour.
The first infection linked to the recall was traced back to August 2023. One year later on Aug. 12, 2024, the Public Health Agency of Canada said three people had died and 20 were infected.
The number of cases is likely much higher, says Lawrence Goodridge, Canada Research Chair in foodborne pathogen dynamics at the University of Guelph: “For every person known, generally speaking, there’s typically 20 to 25 or maybe 30 people that are unknown.”
The case count has remained unchanged over the last month, but the Public Health Agency of Canada says it won’t declare the outbreak over until early October because of listeria’s 70-day incubation period and the reporting delays that accompany it.
Danone Canada’s head of communications said in an email Wednesday that the company is still investigating the “root cause” of the outbreak, which has been linked to a production line at a Pickering, Ont., packaging facility.
Pregnant people, adults over 60, and those with weakened immune systems are most at risk of becoming sick with severe listeriosis. If the infection spreads to an unborn baby, Health Canada says it can cause miscarriage, stillbirth, premature birth or life-threatening illness in a newborn.
The Canadian Press spoke to 10 people, from the parents of a toddler to an 89-year-old senior, who say they became sick with listeria after drinking from cartons of plant-based milk stamped with the recalled product code. Here’s a look at some of their experiences.
Sanniah Jabeen, 32, Toronto
Jabeen says she regularly drank Silk oat and almond milk in smoothies while pregnant, and began vomiting seven times a day and shivering at night in December 2023. She had “the worst headache of (her) life” when she went to the emergency room on Dec. 15.
“I just wasn’t functioning like a normal human being,” Jabeen says.
Told she was dehydrated, Jabeen was given fluids and a blood test and sent home. Four days later, she returned to hospital.
“They told me that since you’re 18 weeks, there’s nothing you can do to save your baby,” says Jabeen, who moved to Toronto from Pakistan five years ago.
Jabeen later learned she had listeriosis and an autopsy revealed her baby was infected, too.
“It broke my heart to read that report because I was just imagining my baby drinking poisoned amniotic fluid inside of me. The womb is a place where your baby is supposed to be the safest,” Jabeen said.
Jabeen’s case is likely not included in PHAC’s count. Jabeen says she was called by Health Canada and asked what dairy and fresh produce she ate – foods more commonly associated with listeria – but not asked about plant-based beverages.
She’s pregnant again, and is due in several months. At first, she was scared to eat, not knowing what caused the infection during her last pregnancy.
“Ever since I learned about the almond, oat milk situation, I’ve been feeling a bit better knowing that it wasn’t something that I did. It was something else that caused it. It wasn’t my fault,” Jabeen said.
She’s since joined a proposed class action lawsuit launched by LPC Avocates against the manufacturers and sellers of Silk and Great Value plant-based beverages. The lawsuit has not yet been certified by a judge.
Natalie Grant and her seven year-old daughter, Bowmanville, Ont.
Natalie Grant says she was in a hospital waiting room when she saw a television news report about the recall. She wondered if the dark chocolate almond milk her daughter drank daily was contaminated.
She had brought the girl to hospital because she was vomiting every half hour, constantly on the toilet with diarrhea, and had severe pain in her abdomen.
“I’m definitely thinking that this is a pretty solid chance that she’s got listeria at this point because I knew she had all the symptoms,” Grant says of seeing the news report.
Once her daughter could hold fluids, they went home and Grant cross-checked the recalled product code – 7825 – with the one on her carton. They matched.
“I called the emerg and I said I’m pretty confident she’s been exposed,” Grant said. She was told to return to the hospital if her daughter’s symptoms worsened. An hour and a half later, her fever spiked, the vomiting returned, her face flushed and her energy plummeted.
Grant says they were sent to a hospital in Ajax, Ont. and stayed two weeks while her daughter received antibiotics four times a day until she was discharged July 23.
“Knowing that my little one was just so affected and how it affected us as a family alone, there’s a bitterness left behind,” Grant said. She’s also joined the proposed class action.
Thelma Feldman, 89, Toronto
Thelma Feldman says she regularly taught yoga to friends in her condo building before getting sickened by listeria on July 2. Now, she has a walker and her body aches. She has headaches and digestive problems.
“I’m kind of depressed,” she says.
“It’s caused me a lot of physical and emotional pain.”
Much of the early days of her illness are a blur. She knows she boarded an ambulance with profuse diarrhea on July 2 and spent five days at North York General Hospital. Afterwards, she remembers Health Canada officials entering her apartment and removing Silk almond milk from her fridge, and volunteers from a community organization giving her sponge baths.
“At my age, 89, I’m not a kid anymore and healing takes longer,” Feldman says.
“I don’t even feel like being with people. I just sit at home.”
Jasmine Jiles and three-year-old Max, Kahnawake Mohawk Territory, Que.
Jasmine Jiles says her three-year-old son Max came down with flu-like symptoms and cradled his ears in what she interpreted as a sign of pain, like the one pounding in her own head, around early July.
When Jiles heard about the recall soon after, she called Danone Canada, the plant-based milk manufacturer, to find out if their Silk coconut milk was in the contaminated batch. It was, she says.
“My son is very small, he’s very young, so I asked what we do in terms of overall monitoring and she said someone from the company would get in touch within 24 to 48 hours,” Jiles says from a First Nations reserve near Montreal.
“I never got a call back. I never got an email”
At home, her son’s fever broke after three days, but gas pains stuck with him, she says. It took a couple weeks for him to get back to normal.
“In hindsight, I should have taken him (to the hospital) but we just tried to see if we could nurse him at home because wait times are pretty extreme,” Jiles says, “and I don’t have child care at the moment.”
Joseph Desmond, 50, Sydney, N.S.
Joseph Desmond says he suffered a seizure and fell off his sofa on July 9. He went to the emergency room, where they ran an electroencephalogram (EEG) test, and then returned home. Within hours, he had a second seizure and went back to hospital.
His third seizure happened the next morning while walking to the nurse’s station.
In severe cases of listeriosis, bacteria can spread to the central nervous system and cause seizures, according to Health Canada.
“The last two months have really been a nightmare,” says Desmond, who has joined the proposed lawsuit.
When he returned home from the hospital, his daughter took a carton of Silk dark chocolate almond milk out of the fridge and asked if he had heard about the recall. By that point, Desmond says he was on his second two-litre carton after finishing the first in June.
“It was pretty scary. Terrifying. I honestly thought I was going to die.”
Cheryl McCombe, 63, Haliburton, Ont.
The morning after suffering a second episode of vomiting, feverish sweats and diarrhea in the middle of the night in early July, Cheryl McCombe scrolled through the news on her phone and came across the recall.
A few years earlier, McCombe says she started drinking plant-based milks because it seemed like a healthier choice to splash in her morning coffee. On June 30, she bought two cartons of Silk cashew almond milk.
“It was on the (recall) list. I thought, ‘Oh my God, I got listeria,’” McCombe says. She called her doctor’s office and visited an urgent care clinic hoping to get tested and confirm her suspicion, but she says, “I was basically shut down at the door.”
Public Health Ontario does not recommend listeria testing for infected individuals with mild symptoms unless they are at risk of developing severe illness, such as people who are immunocompromised, elderly, pregnant or newborn.
“No wonder they couldn’t connect the dots,” she adds, referencing that it took close to a year for public health officials to find the source of the outbreak.
“I am a woman in my 60s and sometimes these signs are of, you know, when you’re vomiting and things like that, it can be a sign in women of a bigger issue,” McCombe says. She was seeking confirmation that wasn’t the case.
Disappointed, with her stomach still feeling off, she says she decided to boost her gut health with probiotics. After a couple weeks she started to feel like herself.
But since then, McCombe says, “I’m back on Kawartha Dairy cream in my coffee.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
VANCOUVER – Mayors and other leaders from several British Columbia communities say the provincial and federal governments need to take “immediate action” to tackle mental health and public safety issues that have reached crisis levels.
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim says it’s become “abundantly clear” that mental health and addiction issues and public safety have caused crises that are “gripping” Vancouver, and he and other politicians, First Nations leaders and law enforcement officials are pleading for federal and provincial help.
In a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier David Eby, mayors say there are “three critical fronts” that require action including “mandatory care” for people with severe mental health and addiction issues.
The letter says senior governments also need to bring in “meaningful bail reform” for repeat offenders, and the federal government must improve policing at Metro Vancouver ports to stop illicit drugs from coming in and stolen vehicles from being exported.
Sim says the “current system” has failed British Columbians, and the number of people dealing with severe mental health and addiction issues due to lack of proper care has “reached a critical point.”
Vancouver Police Chief Adam Palmer says repeat violent offenders are too often released on bail due to a “revolving door of justice,” and a new approach is needed to deal with mentally ill people who “pose a serious and immediate danger to themselves and others.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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