New York will soon introduce the Excelsior Pass, a card which proves you have taken a Covid-19 vaccine or have a recent negative test in order to enter events and businesses.
“Similar to a mobile airline boarding pass, individuals will be able to either print out their pass or store it on their smartphones using the Excelsior Pass Wallet app,” the press release announcing the ‘passports’ read.
Washington expert who led inquiry into the cause of the virus reveals three Wuhan lab scientists fell ill in November 2019
A cluster of researchers from China’s secretive Wuhan laboratories fell sick with ‘Covid-like’ symptoms at least six weeks before the Beijing government admitted an outbreak of a new virus in their city, according to the leading US investigator looking into the start of the pandemic.
David Asher, who led State Department inquiries into Covid-19’s origins, told The Mail on Sunday that three scientists are believed to have become ill with the mysterious respiratory condition in the second week of November, 2019.
‘There are suspicions – for good reasons – of an initial cluster tied to Wuhan Institute of Virology in November and that people started to be hospitalised,’ he said.
I note the media shies away from coverage of this event…
Toronto anti lockdown protestors sending their positive message to Kensington Market #NoMoreLockdowns pic.twitter.com/EhDQUrPcRI
— Rowan (@canmericanized) March 27, 2021
Facebook, Twitter and Google have been urged by a US lawmaker to ban a dozen people who it is claimed are spreading the vast majority of disinformation about Covid vaccinations.
Representative Mike Doyle made the call to remove their accounts during a US congressional session on how the three firms were dealing with fake news.
He challenged Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and Sundar Pinchai to deplatform the dozen people immediately.
None have responded to the call so far.
Ontario reports 2,453 new COVID-19 cases and 16 more deaths; hospitalizations continue to rise
Ontario reported more than 2,000 new COVID-19 cases for a third day in a row, as hospitalizations hit a high not seen since early February.
Provincial health officials logged 2,453 new COVID-19 infections on Saturday and 16 additional deaths.
Today marks the highest single-day case count since Jan.22 when 2,662 were reported.
COVID-19’s collateral damage: What happens when Canadians with other illnesses miss out on medical care?
By the time Pedro Gomez Marin met the surgeon who would remove his oral cancer and rebuild his jaw, the tumour in his neck was nearly as big as a golf ball.
The mass had ballooned since Mr. Gomez Marin, a retired owner of a landscaping and snow removal business, first noticed a bump that felt like a small nut three months earlier. The 71-year-old, who goes by Peter, needed major surgery right away.
“[The surgeon] told me that this type of cancer Peter has is quite an aggressive, fast-moving cancer. It has already spread into the bone in his jaw,” said Karen Leahy-Gomez, Peter’s wife of nearly 40 years.
A team of researchers at St. Paul’s Hospital first detected an entire cluster of cases of the P.1 variant – most commonly associated with Brazil – that were previously unknown earlier this month. In subsequent days, they’ve found even more. As of Friday at noon, they revealed they’ve discovered a total of 215 of the P.1 variant through their screening, a number not yet reported by provincial officials.
“At St. Paul’s Hospital we’ve actually identified more P.1 variants than the entire United States,” said. Dr. Marc Romney, co-author and medical leader of the microbiology and virology department at the facility. “This is concerning because P.1 is associated with immune evasion.”
The government’s lockdown regime has transformed the very idea of civil liberties.
As Britain was heading into lockdown on 23 March 2020, UK health secretary Matt Hancock was busy introducing the accompanying legislation in parliament. ‘To defeat [Covid-19]’, he said, ‘we are proposing extraordinary measures of a kind never seen before in peacetime’.
Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer says her agency wasn’t wrong when it rated the risk of COVID-19 to the country as low in early 2020, a ranking that the federal Auditor-General says was concerning and based on a faulty assessment tool.
At a news conference on Friday, Theresa Tam said the low-risk assessment was to show a moment in time rather than the potential risk the coronavirus posed to Canadians. However, she said her agency is now more focused on its forward-looking risk assessments, rather than only capturing the immediate risk posed by a disease.
“It was not wrong, it’s just that it is important to also provide what that future state might be like,” Dr. Tam said. Public-health agencies, she said, “need to be prediction organizations and not just being able to assess the risk of that present moment.”
Canada’s COVID case count set to hit 1 million next week as variants spread
After two months of relative stability, Canada’s COVID-19 case count is expected to rise rapidly in the coming weeks as virus variants take hold.
Canada is projected to hit roughly 1 million total cases next week, according to data released today by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC).
While the vaccination campaign has ramped up after a period of scarcity, the rollout can’t keep pace with the spread of the virus, said Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer. Tam today urged Canadians to reduce their contacts in the medium-term while provinces and territories deploy more shots in the months to come.
The former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention believes the virus that causes COVID-19 escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China, according to a new interview.
Robert Redfield told CNN on Friday that it was his “opinion” that SARS-CoV-2 — the new coronavirus responsible for killing 2.7 million people globally — did not evolve naturally.
Ontario is reporting 2,169 cases of #COVID19 and over 53,400 tests completed. Locally, there are 682 new cases in Toronto, 397 in Peel, 254 in York Region, 129 in Ottawa, 123 in Durham and 122 in Hamilton.
— Christine Elliott (@celliottability) March 26, 2021
Support for Ford government steady despite criticism of COVID-19 pandemic handling, poll shows
TORONTO — A new poll shows Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives would win the most votes if the election were held today, despite some criticism of their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The online survey, conducted by polling firm Leger, found that 38 per cent of decided voters would vote for Premier Doug Ford’s Tories – slightly less than the 40.5 per cent they got in the 2018 election when they won a majority government.
It is unconscionable for Health Canada to have ignored the advice of pharmaceutical makers and allowed inordinate delays in administering second doses of COVID-19 vaccines.
Two more studies have come my way, added to a British one I wrote about last week, that underscore the danger to lives of Canada’s reckless procurement failure compounded by the world’s only federally approved dosage rationing of four months.
Despite nearly two decades of warnings, planning and government spending, the Public Health Agency of Canada was not ready for the global pandemic and did not appreciate the threat it posed in its early stages, Canada’s auditor general says.
In a hard-hitting review released today, Auditor General Karen Hogan took the country’s primary pandemic response agency to task for failures in early warning, surveillance, risk assessments, data-sharing with the provinces and follow-up on Canadian travellers who were ordered into quarantine.
Ontario reports 2,380 new COVID-19 infections and 17 more deaths; cases are over reported due to data catch-up
Ontario reported more than 2,300 new COVID-19 cases but the Ministry of Health says today’s case count is over reported due to data catch-up.
Provincial health officials logged 2,380 new infections on Thursday, compared to 1,571 on Wednesday.
However, officials say the latest numbers are higher by approximately 280 cases due to a data catch-up process related to the provincial system.
Canadian vaccine shipments threatened by EU and India
Just as Canada’s vaccine program was starting to gain steam, comes word that it could all fall apart.
Both the European Union and India, our major sources of vaccine doses — our only sources thus far — are both looking at blocking the export of vaccines to deal with a slow rollout at home and rising COVID-19 case counts.
Premier Doug Ford said it would be “absolutely terrible” if Ontario was forced to go back into lockdown because of the third wave of COVID-19 and that it’s critical people remain cautious and vigilant to protect themselves.
