Grandparents killed in wrong-way crash on Hwy. 401 identified
A 60-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman killed in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 earlier this week have been identified by the Consulate General of India in Toronto.
The World Health Organization decided Monday not to end to the COVID-19 global public health emergency it declared three years ago, even though the pandemic has reached what the international body calls an "inflection point."
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the WHO, said Monday "there is no doubt that we're in a far better situation now" than a year ago, when the highly transmissible Omicron variant was at its peak.
But Tedros warned that in the last eight weeks, at least 170,000 people have died around the world in connection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. He called for at-risk groups to be fully vaccinated, an increase in testing and early use of antivirals, an expansion of lab networks, and a fight against "misinformation" about the pandemic.
"We remain hopeful that in the coming year, the world will transition to a new phase in which we reduce hospitalizations and deaths to the lowest possible level," he said.
By declaring a global emergency, the WHO essentially sounded the alarm on a serious worldwide health risk that required international co-operation.
It triggered a legally binding response among WHO member countries, including Canada, and allowed the organization to make temporary recommendations to those countries to prevent or deal with the threat.
But in the three years since COVID-19 was designated an emergency, workers have begun to go back to the office, public health restrictions have lifted and masks are no longer mandatory in most places. Life is starting to resemble the pre-pandemic reality.
In Canada, public health officials credit this slow return to normalcy to the high rate of vaccination among Canadians, and the availability of therapeutic drugs to prevent and treat serious cases of infection.
Those life-saving therapies are not available everywhere in the world, Tedros reminded the WHO's COVID-19 emergency committee before they began their meeting Friday.
"The global response remains hobbled because in too many countries, these powerful, life-saving tools are still not getting to the populations that need them most — especially older people and health workers," he told them at the outset of the meeting.
The committee of global experts said in a statement Monday that they're still worried about "insufficient" vaccine uptake in low- and middle-income countries.
Even in countries with such tools at their disposal, public trust in those life-saving medicines has been undermined by disinformation campaigns. Health systems remain overwhelmed because of staff shortages and COVID-19 surveillance efforts have been massively scaled down.
The committee recommended the WHO come up with some other way to make sure countries stay focused on COVID-19 after the formal emergency designation is called off.
Moving past the emergency will require commitment from the WHO, member counties and international institutions to "developing and implementing sustainable, systematic, long-term prevention, surveillance, and control action plans," the committee said in a statement Monday.
That's because even when that designation is lifted, it won't mean the pandemic is over or that the threat has ended.
They suggest the international body issue recommendations to guide the long-term response to COVID-19 as it evolves.
The experts also want to know if calling off the emergency in the "coming months" will have implications for developing and authorizing vaccines, diagnostics, and treatments.
The committee will meet again in three months to reconsider ending the emergency designation.
Nothing much. At a press conference on Jan. 20, Canada's chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam said no matter what the WHO decided, Canada would continue to track cases, serious illnesses and deaths, as well as roll out vaccination campaigns.
Cases, hospitalizations and deaths associated with the virus spiked noticeably over Christmas and in early January, Tam said, but all now appear to be trending down.
"We mustn't, I think, let go of the gains that we've had in the last several years," she said.
"I think whatever the decision is made by the director-general of WHO, I think we just need to keep going with what we're doing now."
The final call was ultimately up to Tedros, but he was informed by the advice of the emergency committee.
The group was first struck in 2020 when the threat of COVID-19 first came to light, and have met every three months since to debate whether or not the emergency was still justified and to review temporary recommendations to member countries.
The committee voted Friday on whether or not to maintain the formal emergency designation, and Tedros announced his decision Monday.
It's difficult to say because COVID-19 is still spreading around the world, and it's going to be around for a long time, the WHO's committee of experts said in their statement Monday.
"There is little doubt that this virus will remain a permanently established pathogen in humans and animals for the foreseeable future," the committee's statement said.
"While eliminating this virus from human and animal reservoirs is highly unlikely, mitigation of its devastating impact on morbidity and mortality is achievable and should continue to be a prioritized goal."
The WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic a month and a half after designating it a global emergency, and at the time Tedros took pains to explain the two classifications are not one and the same.
"Describing the situation as a pandemic does not change WHO’s assessment of the threat posed by this virus. It doesn’t change what WHO is doing, and it doesn’t change what countries should do," Tedros said on March 11, 2020.
Last fall he declared the end of the pandemic was "in sight," but it is difficult to say when it will fully come into view.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 30, 2023.
With files from The Associated Press.
A 60-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman killed in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 earlier this week have been identified by the Consulate General of India in Toronto.
Three people have been arrested and charged in the killing of B.C. Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar – as authorities continue investigating potential connections to the Indian government.
Pius Suter scored with 1:39 left and the Vancouver Canucks advanced to the second round of the NHL playoffs with a 1-0 victory over the Nashville Predators on Friday night in Game 6.
TD Bank Group could be hit with more severe penalties than previously expected, says a banking analyst after a report that the investigation it faces in the U.S. is tied to laundering illicit fentanyl profits.
A Quebec man who pleaded guilty to threatening Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier François Legault has been sentenced to 20 months in jail.
RCMP say human remains found in a rural area in central Saskatchewan may have been there for a decade or more.
A source close to singer Britney Spears tells CNN that the pop star is 'home and safe' after she had a 'major fight' with her boyfriend on Wednesday night at the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood.
As Wegovy becomes available to Canadians starting Monday, a medical expert is cautioning patients wanting to use the drug to lose weight that no medication is a ''magic bullet,' and the new medication is meant particularly for people who meet certain criteria related to obesity and weight.
Drew Carey took over as host of 'The Price Is Right' and hopes he’s there for life. 'I'm not going anywhere,' he told 'Entertainment Tonight' of the job he took over from longtime host Bob Barker in 2007.
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 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.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.