BREAKING Security guard shot, seriously injured outside of Drake's Toronto mansion
A security guard working at Drake’s Bridle Path mansion in Toronto was seriously injured in a shooting outside the residence early Tuesday morning, police said.
Exposure to air pollution increases the risk of COVID-19 hospitalization, according to a new study.
Published this month in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, the peer-reviewed study found that exposure to common air pollutants increased the risk of hospitalization by up to 30 per cent for fully-vaccinated patients.
"Among vaccinated people, the detrimental effect of air pollution exposure is a little smaller, compared to people who were not vaccinated," co-author Zhanghua Chen, an assistant professor of population and public health sciences at the University of Southern California, explained in a news release. "But that difference is not statistically significant."
The study analyzed data from more than 50,000 COVID-19 patients in Southern California. Estimated air pollution exposure was calculated for every residential address using publicly-available data on fine particle (PM2.5), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and ozone (O3) levels in the one month and year prior to each patients' diagnosis.
“We investigated both long-term and short-term air pollution exposure, which may influence COVID-19 severity through different mechanisms,” Chen said.
Long-term exposure to air pollution is linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular and lung disease, both of which can lead to more severe COVID-19 symptoms, the researchers noted, while short-term air pollution exposure may intensify lung inflammation, and even affect patients' immune responses. Since COVID-19 is a respiratory illness, it was no surprise to find that air quality impacted patient outcomes.
For the unvaccinated COVID-19 patients, short-term exposure to nitrogen dioxide and fine particles increased the risk of hospitalization by 13 to 14 per cent, while long-term exposure increased the risk by 22 to 24 per cent. For the partially and fully-vaccinated, the risks were slightly lower, but not statistically significant, according to the study. Ozone levels did not impact hospitalization rates.
The study was also able to further establish that COVID-19 vaccination leads to fewer hospitalizations.
"Fully vaccinated people had almost 90 per cent reduced risk of COVID hospitalization, and even partially vaccinated people had about 50 per cent less risk," Chen said.
"These findings are important because they show that, while COVID-19 vaccines are successful at reducing the risk of hospitalization, people who are vaccinated and exposed to polluted air are still at increased risk for worse outcomes than vaccinated people not exposed to air pollution," added co-author Anny Xiang, a senior research scientist at Kaiser Permanente, an American healthcare consortium, in the news release.
Since the findings suggest improving air quality could reduce severe cases of COVID-19, the researchers are now studying the impacts of indoor air purifiers on patients.
A security guard working at Drake’s Bridle Path mansion in Toronto was seriously injured in a shooting outside the residence early Tuesday morning, police said.
Prince Harry will not be seeing his father King Charles during his current visit to Britain as the monarch will be too busy, Harry's spokesperson said on Tuesday.
Movement is movement, right? Not exactly. Here’s what your body is looking for in addition to your morning walk or yoga session, according to experts.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Sporting mullets, Canadian Armed Forces officer cadets placed second in an annual military skills competition in the U.S.
The Met Gala and its fashionista A-listers on Monday included Jennifer Lopez, Zendaya and a parade of others in a swirl of flora and fauna looks on a green-tinged carpet lined by live foliage.
Quebec is looking at tightening the regulations around sperm donation in the province following the release of a documentary that revealed three men from the same family fathered hundreds of children.
As the higher cost of living continues to squeeze household budgets, many Canadians find they have even less left over at the end of every month to squirrel away for the future.
The rumours are true: Vegetables aren't real — that is, in botany, anyway. While the term fruit is recognized botanically as anything that contains a seed or seeds, vegetable is actually a broad umbrella term.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.