What's a Barnacle? It's yellow, sticks and screams if you try to pry it off your car
Barnacles, bright yellow devices used to make sure parking scofflaws pay their tickets, could soon be making their way to cities across Canada.
A Canadian study suggests the antiviral medication remdesivir could have a "modest but significant effect" on COVID-19 patient outcomes, including decreasing the need for mechanical ventilation by approximately 50 per cent.
The study, published Wednesday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, is billed as the largest single-country trial of remdesivir reported to date.
Results are part of a larger study called the World Health Organization Solidarity, a randomized, controlled trial evaluating remdesivir's impact on COVID-19 patients in several countries.
Researchers at the University of British Columbia and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto recruited 1,282 patients at 52 hospitals between Aug. 14, 2020 and April 1, 2021. Roughly half received a 10-day course of remdesivir while the other half got the usual level of care.
Among participants not on ventilation at the start of the study, eight per cent of the remdesivir group -- 46 patients -- went on to require a ventilator compared to 15 per cent, or 89 patients, who received standard care.
The study also found patients on remdesivir came off oxygen and ventilators sooner.
Evidence has been mixed on the effect of remdesivir in people with COVID-19. The World Health Organization recommended against using it to treat the virus in November 2020, saying at the time "there is currently no evidence that remdesivir improves survival and other outcomes."
Remdesivir, which is administered intravenously, is a repurposed antiviral medication originally developed to treat hepatitis C.
Dr. Robert Fowler, a senior scientist at Sunnybrook and co-author of the study, said earlier recommendations against remdesivir stemmed from premature data that didn't show a statistically significant impact on COVID-19 patients.
He said the Canadian trial results could reverse opinions on the treatment, however.
"We'll probably help a number of other countries that have similar health-care systems in terms of resources to say: 'OK. ... (remdesivir) seems it has a number of positive effects," Fowler said.
"It will probably move the needle towards people having much more confidence the medication is effective for certain outcomes."
Fowler said he expects the WHO to release results from the Solidarity trial's other participating nations within the next couple of months.
The Canadian arm, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, collected more detailed data than some other countries and included patients across a range of ethnicities.
The study also looked at in-hospital mortality, which was slightly lower in the remdesivir group at 18.7 per cent, compared to 22.6 in the control group. Fowler said those figures weren't statistically significant "in absolute terms."
While the study period ended before Omicron arrived in Canada, Fowler said remdesivir is likely to have the same effect on those hospitalized with the variant.
He added that effective COVID-19 treatments are critical at this stage of the pandemic as soaring case counts have overwhelmed health-care systems across the country.
Publication of the study came two days after Health Canada authorized use of the take-home Pfizer antiviral pill Paxlovid, meant to reduce hospitalizations in those at higher risk of severe COVID-19 disease.
"It becomes critical that your next line of treatments are effective and growing," Fowler said.
"I would say, luckily, and with a lot of hard work behind it, there are an increasing number of medications, this one included ... to help patients survive and to get out of hospital sooner."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 19, 2021.
Barnacles, bright yellow devices used to make sure parking scofflaws pay their tickets, could soon be making their way to cities across Canada.
An Airbnb in Montreal's Verdun borough was the source of much frustration from neighbours who say there were constant parties at the location. It has been taken down from the app, but housing advocates remain upset about short-term rentals.
A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former U.S. President Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said.
He decided to spend Christmas somewhere that wouldn't involve snowstorm disasters. She was spending the holidays with family, travelling for the first time outside of her native country of Venezuela. 23 years later, they're still in love.
One day after a Montreal police officer fired gunshots at a suspect in a stolen vehicle, senior officers were telling parliamentarians that organized crime groups are recruiting people as young as 15 in the city to steal cars so that they can be shipped overseas.
RCMP say the fire that prompted a state of emergency in a Labrador town is now under control.
Thirteen victims of the Columbine High School shooting were remembered during a vigil Friday on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the shooting that was the worst the nation had seen at the time.
An Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza's southernmost city killed at least nine people, six of them children, hospital authorities said Saturday, as Israel pursued its nearly seven-month offensive in the besieged Palestinian territory.
Soulful gospel artist Mandisa, a Grammy-winning singer who got her start as a contestant on 'American Idol' in 2006, has died, according to a statement on her verified social media. She was 47.
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a grade four student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.
When Les Robertson was walking home from the gym in North Vancouver's Lower Lonsdale neighbourhood three weeks ago, he did a double take. Standing near a burrow it had dug in a vacant lot near East 1st Street and St. Georges Avenue was a yellow-bellied marmot.
A moulting seal who was relocated after drawing daily crowds of onlookers in Greater Victoria has made a surprise return, after what officials described as an 'astonishing' six-day journey.
Just steps from Parliament Hill is a barber shop that for the last 100 years has catered to everyone from prime ministers to tourists.
A high score on a Foo Fighters pinball machine has Edmonton player Dave Formenti on a high.
A compound used to treat sour gas that's been linked to fertility issues in cattle has been found throughout groundwater in the Prairies, according to a new study.