Today’s coronavirus news: Ontario lifts stay-at-home order in 27 regions as economic reopening continues; Winter weather disrupts the reopening of schools in three COVID-19 hot spots - Toronto Star | Canada News Media
Today’s coronavirus news: Ontario lifts stay-at-home order in 27 regions as economic reopening continues; Winter weather disrupts the reopening of schools in three COVID-19 hot spots – Toronto Star
5:43 a.m.: A stay-at-home order lifts for 27 Ontario public health units Tuesday
5:41 a.m.: In-person classes will resume today at schools in three Ontario COVID-19 hot spots
The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world Tuesday. This file will be updated throughout the day. Web links to longer stories if available.
11:33 a.m.: Today is the deadline for written submissions from the public to the commission examining the devastating impact of COVID-19 on long-term care homes.
Ontario’s Long-Term Care COVID-19 Commission says anything sent by the public after today may not be considered for its final report.
That report is due April 30 and the commission still has a few more video hearings.
The commission had requested an extension to investigate the pandemic’s second wave further and to get crucial information the province.
Minister of Long-Term Care Merrilee Fullerton denied the request.
More than 3,700 residents of nursing homes have died due to COVID-19 since the pandemic began last year.
11:15 a.m.: Quebec is reporting 669 new cases of COVID-19 and 20 more deaths attributed to the novel coronavirus, including six in the past 24 hours.
Health officials said today hospitalizations dropped by 33, to 771, and 134 people were in intensive care, a decline of two.
The province says it administered 2,732 doses of vaccine yesterday, for a total of 297,694.
Quebec has reported a total of 278,187 COVID-19 infections and 10,246 deaths linked to the pandemic. The province has 9,399 active reported infections.
10:50 a.m.: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he’s been reassured again by the president of the European Commission that export controls imposed by the EU won’t affect shipments of COVID-19 vaccines to Canada.
He says he spoke to Ursula von der Leyen this morning.
Canada is expecting its biggest single shipment of vaccine doses from Pfizer-BioNTech this week, and a bigger one next week.
All of Canada’s doses of that vaccine come from a factory in Belgium. Trudeau also said he spoke to Moderna chair Noubar Afeyan Monday to get reassurance about that company’s deliveries. Moderna is to ship two million doses by the end of March is only at about half a million doses shipped to date. Trudeau said Afeyan said the company will meet its contract for two million in the first quarter.
10:43 a.m.: Ontario is reporting three more COVID-19 deaths among residents in long-term-care homes for a total of 3,717 since the pandemic began.
There are 170 long-term-care homes in an outbreak (no change from the previous report), or about 27.2 per cent of all LTC homes in the province.
10:35 a.m.: Ontario is also reporting 5,053 more vaccinations on Tuesday and 7,698 on Monday since its last daily update for a total of 480,377 as of 8 p.m. Monday.
There are 186,934 people who are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had both shots.
10:15 a.m. (updated): Ontario is reporting 904 COVID-19 cases today and 964 cases on holiday Monday.
There were 13 more deaths reported today, and 13 the previous day.
The seven-day average is down to 1,035 cases daily or 50 weekly per 100,000, and down to 23.4 deaths/day.
The labs report 57,360 completed tests over two days with a positivity rate of 3.3 and 3.6 per cent.
Today, there are 320 new cases in Toronto, 154 in Peel and 118 in York Region.
10:05 a.m. Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland is appealing to the official Opposition Conservatives to hasten passage of a COVID-19 relief bill through the House of Commons.
The appeal is in a letter from Freeland to Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole in which the deputy prime minister says the Tories are dragging their feet on the proposed legislation for no good reason.
Freeland goes on to say the bill should not be “a political football,” and asks O’Toole to support its passage to help Canadians struggling during the pandemic.
The Liberal government introduced the proposed legislation at the beginning of December, to enact spending measures proposed in their fall economic statement.
That includes billions of dollars in new pandemic-related aid to top up and expand existing programs as well as new, targeted support for hard-hit industries.
More than two months later, partly thanks to a six-week Christmas break in Parliament, the bill has made little progress through the legislative process.
9:35 a.m. The Canadian Real Estate Association says home sales in January hit a new record high for the month as prices also set a new high water mark.
The association says January sales were up 35.2 per cent compared with a year earlier.
Sales for the first month of the year were also up 2.0 per cent compared with December.
The increase came as the national sales-to-new listings ratio rose to 90.7 per cent – the highest level on record. The previous monthly record was 81.5 per cent set 19 years ago.
The actual national average price of a home sold in January was a record $621,525, up 22.8 per cent from the same month last year.
CREA says excluding Greater Vancouver and the Greater Toronto Area, two of the country’s most active and expensive markets, cuts $129,000 from the national average price.
9:20 a.m. The European Commission says it expects Moderna to make up a shortfall in deliveries of its COVID-19 vaccine by next month.
EU Commission spokeswoman Vivian Loonella told reporters that Moderna told E.U. authorities about delays in vaccine deliveries for this month, but that “it’s likely” the U.S. company “will be caught up in March.”
Spanish media reported on Tuesday that Spain will be receiving just under half of the 400,000 Moderna doses it was expecting this week. The Spanish Health Ministry told the AP that a similar reduction has been announced across Europe.
World Health Organization experts recommend that the two doses of the Moderna vaccine be taken 28 days apart, but say that giving the second shot can be extended to 42 days.
Delivery delays have considerably slowed down the rollout of vaccines in the 27-nation bloc and sparked criticism against the EU’s vaccine strategy in several member states.
The EU commission has signed six contracts for more than 2 billion doses of various coronavirus vaccines, but only three of them have been approved for use so far.
9 a.m. As Ontario MPPs return to Queen’s Park after the winter break, they can expect a subdued session — at least at first.
Government house leader Paul Calandra, who met last week with his counterparts in the opposition parties, said the proceedings that begin Tuesday after a two-month recess should be low-key and methodical due to the new and more contagious COVID-19 variants.
“It’s going to be a deliberately slow start, a leaner schedule, to ensure all the (pandemic safety) protocols are in place,” Calandra said in an interview.
By order of Speaker Ted Arnott, masks are mandatory throughout Queen’s Park, including on the floor of the chamber.
8:44 a.m. Earlier this year, the Marlboro man announced he was making a comeback.
Well, to be clear, Altria Group Inc., which makes Marlboros, released the news that the trend of declining cigarette sales, which it has experienced for decades, has come to an end, likely due to COVID-19.
On the face of it, this is unsurprising news, given that we’ve all heard that people are consuming more cannabis and drinking more alcohol to cope with boredom, stress and loneliness with their drug of choice.
“I don’t have empirical data,” says Natacha Duke, a registered psychotherapist with Cleveland Clinic Canada and Bhatia Psychology Group. “But I can say from my clinical experience that smoking has increased, the same way that alcohol use and problematic eating behaviour has increased during the pandemic, as well as other types of habits that might not be best for our health.
8:30 a.m. Winter weather disrupted the reopening of schools in three Ontario COVID-19 hot spots where in-person classes were set to resume Tuesday, with some students forced to rely on virtual classes a little longer.
Public and Catholic school boards in Peel and York Regions said their schools remained closed and bus service was cancelled Tuesday due to poor weather, though classes continued virtually.
“Parents Do NOT send your child to school today,” the York public board said in a tweet.
The Toronto District and Toronto Catholic District school boards, meanwhile, said schools were reopening as planned, but no transportation would be provided as a result of the snowfall.
“As more than 93 per cent of TDSB students who are currently attending in-person school do not use a school bus, schools will remain open,” the public board said on Twitter.
In-person lessons were slated to restart in those regions after a stretch of online learning that began in January as part of a provincial lockdown.
The three regions are the last in Ontario to have students return to physical classrooms — the provincial government allowed other regions to reopen shuttered schools in phases over the last few weeks. A more detailed COVID-19 screening form must now be filled out by students or their guardians every day before coming to school.
Students in Grade 1 and above will also be required to follow provincial health guidelines and wear a mask whenever they’re indoors and during outdoor recess when physical distancing is not possible.
The province is also expanding asymptomatic COVID-19 testing at schools.
Snowfall also caused some school boards in the Toronto and Hamilton areas to call off both virtual and in-person classes Tuesday.
8:25 a.m. France’s entire rugby squad was isolating on Tuesday after an unnamed member of the team’s backroom staff tested positive for the coronavirus.
All players in camp at France’s training centre in Marcoussis have tested negative for COVID-19, the French Rugby Federation said, but head coach Fabien Galthie was being retested Tuesday following what it described as a “suspicious and unproven case.”
Further tests will be carried out at Marcoussis on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.
France’s next game in the tournament is against Scotland on Feb. 28. Les Tricolores have opened with two straight wins, over Italy and Ireland.
The squad for the game against Scotland will be announced on Wednesday.
7:55 a.m. A number of GTA school boards closed schools and cancelled buses early Tuesday morning as a winter storm blanketed the region in snow.
Toronto District and Toronto Catholic District School Boards announced that schools will remain open for in-person and virtual classes, but buses will not run due to inclement weather conditions.
Dufferin-Peel Catholic, Peel District, York Regional District, Hamilton Wentworth Catholic and York Regional Catholic District School Boards cancelled all in-person classes — which were slated to reopen Tuesday after a lengthy closure due to COVID-19 — but said virtual learning will continue.
7:42 a.m. Construction workers say that many work sites in Toronto deemed essential during the stay-at-home order are rife with COVID-19 rule violations, including people working in confined spaces while not wearing face masks.
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However, Ontario’s Ministry of Labour and other industry groups see things differently, saying they have been impressed with most employers’ oversight during the pandemic and that the government has been aggressive with ensuring compliance.
The Star spoke to several construction workers from some of Toronto’s biggest sites, who all told similar stories: widespread disdain for masks, a lack of enforcement from supervisors regarding mask-wearing and other COVID-19 precautions, a lack of access to clean washrooms and little to no hot water for handwashing.
Many of the workers spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of jeopardizing their employment.
7 a.m. Exhausted after 10 months of caring for the elderly and sick, Veleta Davis will never forget the moment the needle filled with COVID-19 vaccine pricked her arm: “I felt ready to conquer the world.”
Davis, 51, received her first dose of Pfizer’s vaccine on Dec. 15 as a personal support worker at Castleview Wychwood Towers Long-Term Care residence. “I felt I was part of a movement to make a difference,” she said.
But when she returned to her family, nothing changed. She didn’t kiss her children, hug her sister or hold her two nieces. She didn’t visit her parents. As she had done throughout the pandemic to protect her family from the risks of her work, she sanitized her hands and put on her mask. Then she braced herself for a difficult conversation.
5:46 a.m.: New Zealand reported no new virus cases in the community for a second day, raising hopes a lockdown in Auckland will be lifted Wednesday.
The three-day lockdown of New Zealand’s largest city was the nation’s first in six months.
Lawmakers say their final decision on whether to lift the lockdown will depend on any new information or cases that crop up over the next day.
The lockdown was prompted by the diagnoses of three family members, but how they got it remains a mystery.
The mother in the family works at a catering company that does laundry for airlines, and a possible link to infected passengers is being investigated. So far, other people at her workplace have tested negative, officials said.
Health officials have ramped up testing, administering more than 15,000 tests on Monday and processing the results of nearly 6,000.
5:44 a.m.: Australia’s regulator on Tuesday approved the AstraZeneca vaccine as its second for use against COVID-19.
Pfizer’s product will be available in Australia next week. It will be given in two doses three weeks apart, while AstraZeneca’s will be administered in two doses 12 weeks apart.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the Therapeutic Goods Administration, the regulator, found the AstraZeneca vaccine was safe and effective.
Health Minister Greg Hunt said the AstraZeneca vaccine will prevent serious COVID-19 illness.
Morrison will be vaccinated with the Pfizer product and Hunt with AstraZeneca in a demonstration of confidence in both vaccines.
Australia has contracted 53.8 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, and 50 million of those will be manufactured in Australia.
The government has also secured 20 million Pfizer vaccines for a population of 26 million.
5:44 a.m.: A stay-at-home order lifts for 27 Ontario public health units today.
The units will now return to the province’s COVID-19 colour-coded tiered ranking system used prior to a provincewide lockdown which began on Boxing Day.
Niagara Region will be the only region in the grey-lockdown zone — the most strict level — which allows businesses to open at 25 per cent capacity.
The rest of the regions, most of them outside the Greater Toronto Area, fall elsewhere along the scale that moves from red — the second-most strict level — through green, with lighter restrictions on businesses and gatherings at each stage.
Toronto, Peel Region, York Region and North Bay Parry Sound are set to remain under the stay-at-home order until at least Feb. 22.
Three health units — Hastings Prince Edward; Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox and Addington; and Renfrew County — returned to the green zone of the framework last week.
5:42 a.m.: Fresh air, blazing speed and spacious alpine terrain makes skiing and snowboarding low-risk activities for COVID-19 transmission, infectious disease doctors say.
But the threat is never zero during a global pandemic, they add. And people working those snowy slopes may be at greater risk of catching the virus than those dashing down them.
Most ski hills in Ontario were permitted to reopen Tuesday, joining other mountainous resorts across the country that have remained operational through the winter. Many have implemented extra safety precautions and operate under local restrictions, including asking patrons to wear face coverings on lifts, cancelling classes and limiting access to indoor spaces.
While the activity of skiing is relatively safe from a transmission standpoint, experts say spread can still happen, and COVID outbreaks have been reported at larger resorts over the last couple months, mostly affecting staff members.
5:42 a.m.: There is new guidance from Canada’s national advisory committee on immunization that says adults from racialized communities disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic should be prioritized for shots in the second stage of the vaccination campaign.
Essential workers who can’t do their jobs from home moved into the second stage, instead of focusing on health workers with lower-risk jobs, under the advice given Monday.
The second stage is expected to start this spring after the provinces vaccinate all staff and residents at long-term care homes, adults aged 70 or older, front-line health workers and adults in Indigenous communities.
The list of groups that should receive COVID-19 vaccines in the second stage includes people between 60 and 69 years old, racialized adults from groups disproportionately affected by COVID-19, essential workers, first responders, caregivers and residents and staff of congregate living sittings including homeless shelters, prisons and migrant workers’ quarters.
The committee added a third stage to its immunization recommendations that includes people between 16 and 59 years old with underlying conditions, those who are between 50 and 59 years old with no underlying conditions, and health workers and essential workers who are didn’t got shots in previous rounds.
The new recommendations prioritize racialized adults from groups disproportionately affected by the pandemic ahead of some older non-racialized people.
Health authorities in the provinces and the territories decide who gets vaccinated first.
5:40 a.m.: The vast majority of Canadians blame Ottawa rather than provincial governments for delays in COVID-19 vaccine delivery, a new poll suggests.
Sixty-nine per cent of respondents believe Canada is behind on deliveries due to federal challenges obtaining doses on the global market, according to an online survey by Léger and the Association for Canadian Studies.
Only 14 per cent of respondents point the finger at provincial governments.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says all Canadians who want a dose will get one by the end of September, despite recent hiccups in the production of both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
Residents remain divided on whether they will be able to roll up their sleeves before October, with 44 per cent confident they will and 51 per cent skeptical.
The split suggests Canadians maintain a measure of faith in the Liberal government’s procurement efforts, said Léger executive vice-president Christian Bourque.
4 a.m.: The latest numbers on COVID-19 vaccinations in Canada as of 4 a.m. ET on Tuesday Feb. 16, 2021.
In Canada, the provinces are reporting 1,704 new vaccinations administered for a total of 1,272,470 doses given. The provinces have administered doses at a rate of 3,357.505 per 100,000.
There were no new vaccines delivered to the provinces and territories for a total of 1,439,800 doses delivered so far. The provinces and territories have used 88.38 per cent of their available vaccine supply.
4 a.m.: The latest numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Canada as of 4 a.m. ET on Tuesday Feb. 16, 2021.
There are 826,924 confirmed cases in Canada (35,684 active, 769,929 resolved, 21,311 deaths).The total case count includes 13 confirmed cases among repatriated travellers.
There were 1,139 new cases Monday. The rate of active cases is 93.89 per 100,000 people. Over the past seven days, there have been a total of 18,804 new cases. The seven-day rolling average of new cases is 2,686.
There were 19 new reported deaths Monday. Over the past seven days there have been a total of 476 new reported deaths. The seven-day rolling average of new reported deaths is 68. The seven-day rolling average of the death rate is 0.18 per 100,000 people. The overall death rate is 56.07 per 100,000 people.
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.
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
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