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No new COVID-19 cases reported, protesters demand province end restrictions – Winnipeg Sun

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There were no new COVID-19 cases reported in Manitoba, public health officials announced on Saturday.

The total number of lab-confirmed positive and probable positive cases remains at 300. The announcement was made in a Manitoba Government tweet as there was no formal COVID-19 update.

As of Friday, there are nine active cases, and 284 people have recovered from the virus, officials said.


A woman wearing an N-95 mask, in Winnipeg Saturday. Chris Procaylo/Winnipeg Sun

Chris Procaylo /

Winnipeg Sun

The death toll in Manitoba remains at seven, and no one is currently in hospital due to COVID-19.

Meanwhile, changes to the hours of operation at community testing sites in Brandon, Portage la Prairie, Steinbach and Winkler, as well as at Thunderbird House in Winnipeg, came into effect this weekend.

Due to low patient volumes, these sites are now closed on Sundays.

PROTEST HELD AT LEG

Holding a Canadian flag and carrying a sign reading ‘Time to Open Now!,’ Winnipegger Patrick Allard had a simple message for the provincial government over its public health orders barring groups larger than 50 people gathering outdoors and requiring social distancing and other measures be observed: Fine me and I’ll see you in court.

“What I’d like is for the Manitoba government to put their money where their mouth is,” said Allard, one of about 30 people from the group Manitoba Together who rallied on the grounds of the Legislature on Saturday afternoon to protest the public health orders put in place by the provincial government and calling for them to end immediately. “Come and fine me.”

The group has been holding protests at the Legislature every Saturday since early May. Organizers sent out a media advisory on Thursday announcing that they would not be observing social distancing or limiting group sizes and would “welcome Pallister’s enforcement fine, which its validity would be legally contested in court”.

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“We’re not social distancing,” said Allard, a local contractor well-known for his run-ins with the City of Winnipeg over bylaw enforcement. “We’re not wearing masks. We’re shaking hands and we’re being together. I want a fine because I know I won’t get one because the fine would be illegal under our Charter.”

The province would be required to justify their public health orders in court, Allard said, which the government would be unable to do making the ticket “null and void”.

“They’re not stupid,” said Allard. “I think they know this and they don’t want to waste the tax dollars defending themselves in court.”


Holding a Canadian flag and carrying a sign reading ‘Time to Open Now!,’ Winnipegger Patrick Allard takes part in a small protest at the Manitoba Legislature in Winnipeg on Saturday. Allard had a simple message for the provincial government over its public health orders barring groups larger than 50 people gathering outdoors and requiring social distancing and other measures be observed: Fine me and I’ll see you in court. Glen Dawkins/Winnipeg Sun

Glen Dawkins /

Winnipeg Sun

It appeared no fines were issued at Saturday’s protest, nor were there any police or enforcement officers present.

The Manitoba government declared a province-wide state of emergency on March 20 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the order was extended on April 20 and May 17. Chief provincial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin also issued public health orders on April 30 and on May 29.

“Our government’s number one priority is to protect the health and well being of all Manitobans, especially those most vulnerable,” said a provincial spokesperson in an email Saturday. “We will continue to act on the advice of health care experts and Manitoba’s chief public health officer in the fight against COVID-19.

“Manitobans are doing their part to prevent a COVID comeback. It is because of their commitment and actions that we are able to continue to ease restrictions and restart our economy.”

On June 1, Manitoba began Phase 2 of its reopening plan, restoring services and allowing select businesses to reopen under restrictions.

Fines for violating the emergency orders were set at $486 for individuals and $2,542 for corporations and businesses. Over the Victoria Day long weekend, RCMP charged eight individuals – including seven Winnipeggers – for non-essential travel over the 53rd parallel, in violation of COVID-19 public health orders. Last month, two Winnipeg businesses were fined $2,542 and ordered closed for breaking public health orders and four other businesses were fined.

gdawkins@postmedia.com

Twitter: @SunGlenDawkins

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Whooping cough is at a decade-high level in US

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MILWAUKEE (AP) — Whooping cough is at its highest level in a decade for this time of year, U.S. health officials reported Thursday.

There have been 18,506 cases of whooping cough reported so far, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. That’s the most at this point in the year since 2014, when cases topped 21,800.

The increase is not unexpected — whooping cough peaks every three to five years, health experts said. And the numbers indicate a return to levels before the coronavirus pandemic, when whooping cough and other contagious illnesses plummeted.

Still, the tally has some state health officials concerned, including those in Wisconsin, where there have been about 1,000 cases so far this year, compared to a total of 51 last year.

Nationwide, CDC has reported that kindergarten vaccination rates dipped last year and vaccine exemptions are at an all-time high. Thursday, it released state figures, showing that about 86% of kindergartners in Wisconsin got the whooping cough vaccine, compared to more than 92% nationally.

Whooping cough, also called pertussis, usually starts out like a cold, with a runny nose and other common symptoms, before turning into a prolonged cough. It is treated with antibiotics. Whooping cough used to be very common until a vaccine was introduced in the 1950s, which is now part of routine childhood vaccinations. It is in a shot along with tetanus and diphtheria vaccines. The combo shot is recommended for adults every 10 years.

“They used to call it the 100-day cough because it literally lasts for 100 days,” said Joyce Knestrick, a family nurse practitioner in Wheeling, West Virginia.

Whooping cough is usually seen mostly in infants and young children, who can develop serious complications. That’s why the vaccine is recommended during pregnancy, to pass along protection to the newborn, and for those who spend a lot of time with infants.

But public health workers say outbreaks this year are hitting older kids and teens. In Pennsylvania, most outbreaks have been in middle school, high school and college settings, an official said. Nearly all the cases in Douglas County, Nebraska, are schoolkids and teens, said Justin Frederick, deputy director of the health department.

That includes his own teenage daughter.

“It’s a horrible disease. She still wakes up — after being treated with her antibiotics — in a panic because she’s coughing so much she can’t breathe,” he said.

It’s important to get tested and treated with antibiotics early, said Dr. Kris Bryant, who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases at Norton Children’s in Louisville, Kentucky. People exposed to the bacteria can also take antibiotics to stop the spread.

“Pertussis is worth preventing,” Bryant said. “The good news is that we have safe and effective vaccines.”

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AP data journalist Kasturi Pananjady contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Scientists show how sperm and egg come together like a key in a lock

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How a sperm and egg fuse together has long been a mystery.

New research by scientists in Austria provides tantalizing clues, showing fertilization works like a lock and key across the animal kingdom, from fish to people.

“We discovered this mechanism that’s really fundamental across all vertebrates as far as we can tell,” said co-author Andrea Pauli at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna.

The team found that three proteins on the sperm join to form a sort of key that unlocks the egg, allowing the sperm to attach. Their findings, drawn from studies in zebrafish, mice, and human cells, show how this process has persisted over millions of years of evolution. Results were published Thursday in the journal Cell.

Scientists had previously known about two proteins, one on the surface of the sperm and another on the egg’s membrane. Working with international collaborators, Pauli’s lab used Google DeepMind’s artificial intelligence tool AlphaFold — whose developers were awarded a Nobel Prize earlier this month — to help them identify a new protein that allows the first molecular connection between sperm and egg. They also demonstrated how it functions in living things.

It wasn’t previously known how the proteins “worked together as a team in order to allow sperm and egg to recognize each other,” Pauli said.

Scientists still don’t know how the sperm actually gets inside the egg after it attaches and hope to delve into that next.

Eventually, Pauli said, such work could help other scientists understand infertility better or develop new birth control methods.

The work provides targets for the development of male contraceptives in particular, said David Greenstein, a genetics and cell biology expert at the University of Minnesota who was not involved in the study.

The latest study “also underscores the importance of this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry,” he said in an email.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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Older patients, non-English speakers more likely to be harmed in hospital: report

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Patients who are older, don’t speak English, and don’t have a high school education are more likely to experience harm during a hospital stay in Canada, according to new research.

The Canadian Institute for Health Information measured preventableharmful events from 2023 to 2024, such as bed sores and medication errors,experienced by patients who received acute care in hospital.

The research published Thursday shows patients who don’t speak English or French are 30 per cent more likely to experience harm. Patients without a high school education are 20 per cent more likely to endure harm compared to those with higher education levels.

The report also found that patients 85 and older are five times more likely to experience harm during a hospital stay compared to those under 20.

“The goal of this report is to get folks thinking about equity as being a key dimension of the patient safety effort within a hospital,” says Dana Riley, an author of the report and a program lead on CIHI’s population health team.

When a health-care provider and a patient don’t speak the same language, that can result in the administration of a wrong test or procedure, research shows. Similarly, Riley says a lower level of education is associated with a lower level of health literacy, which can result in increased vulnerability to communication errors.

“It’s fairly costly to the patient and it’s costly to the system,” says Riley, noting the average hospital stay for a patient who experiences harm is four times more expensive than the cost of a hospital stay without a harmful event – $42,558 compared to $9,072.

“I think there are a variety of different reasons why we might start to think about patient safety, think about equity, as key interconnected dimensions of health-care quality,” says Riley.

The analysis doesn’t include data on racialized patients because Riley says pan-Canadian data was not available for their research. Data from Quebec and some mental health patients was also excluded due to differences in data collection.

Efforts to reduce patient injuries at one Ontario hospital network appears to have resulted in less harm. Patient falls at Mackenzie Health causing injury are down 40 per cent, pressure injuries have decreased 51 per cent, and central line-associated bloodstream infections, such as IV therapy, have been reduced 34 per cent.

The hospital created a “zero harm” plan in 2019 to reduce errors after a hospital survey revealed low safety scores. They integrated principles used in aviation and nuclear industries, which prioritize safety in complex high-risk environments.

“The premise is first driven by a cultural shift where people feel comfortable actually calling out these events,” says Mackenzie Health President and Chief Executive Officer Altaf Stationwala.

They introduced harm reduction training and daily meetings to discuss risks in the hospital. Mackenzie partnered with virtual interpreters that speak 240 languages and understand medical jargon. Geriatric care nurses serve the nearly 70 per cent of patients over the age of 75, and staff are encouraged to communicate as frequently as possible, and in plain language, says Stationwala.

“What we do in health care is we take control away from patients and families, and what we know is we need to empower patients and families and that ultimately results in better health care.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.

Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.

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