'He didn't want to die': Family of Calgary man killed in standoff speaks out
Family of a Calgary man killed after a 30-hour standoff with police last week are speaking out, sharing details of the tense and heart-wrenching experience.
Canada's top doctor has said the latest wave of COVID-19 driven by the Omicron variant may have reached its peak.
But while the modelling appears encouraging, experts say the news should be interpreted with cautious optimism.
Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Theresa Tam told reporters on Friday that there are "early indications that infections may have peaked at the national level" based on daily case counts, test positivity, the reproduction number and wastewater data.
"I hope we're at or nearing the peak, but the problem that I have is where we've got some uncertainty in the counting now since we don't do as much PCR testing as we once did," Dr. Ronald St. John, former director-general of the Public Health Agency of Canada's Centre for Emergency Preparedness and Response, told CTV News Channel on Saturday.
Due to the shortages in PCR testing capacity, many people who develop COVID-19, particularly if they're not in a high-risk group and have mild or no symptoms, have been unable to get PCR tests.
"We can't count people who are asymptomatic, so we have to look at other datasets (like) wastewater concentration, things like that, to try to get an understanding of where we are." St. John said.
Dr. Jason Kindrachuk, an infectious disease expert at the University of Manitoba, says the news shows "some optimism that things will slowly get back to normal, what they were like prior to Omicron."
However, Tam said that hospitalizations and ICU admissions are still climbing across Canada and health systems remain under "intense strain." Kindrachuk says it's unclear how quickly we might start seeing hospitalizations and ICU admissions start to decrease.
"I think we've learned over and over again from the pandemic is that you know, cases rise and then hospitalizations lag behind … and that trend also stays in place when cases start to recede," he told CTVNews.ca over the phone on Saturday.
"You may be able to slow down that hospitalization rate over time, but you are still going to have pressure on a health-care system that that has been pushed to its limits."
Dr. Christine Palmay, a Toronto-based family physician, says the hospitalization and ICU data also leave out a lot of patients dealing with debilitating symptoms. She and her colleagues have seen numerous patients who have tested positive for COVID-19 and are struggling with the virus at home.
"They're not captured by ICU stats. They're not necessarily accessing ER, but they're not functioning," she said.
Several provinces have also reported that Omicron may be peaking or close to peaking. In Ontario, Health Minister Christine Elliott said cases are expected to peak this month, followed by a peak in hospitalizations and ICU admissions. Quebec also reported that hospitalizations declined for the third straight day on Saturday.
Wastewater data in B.C. and Alberta have also shown signs that the virus may have peaked. However, health officials in Manitoba and Saskatchewan say it's too early to tell.
When COVID-19 cases began to reach unprecedented highs throughout Canada last month, provinces and territories imposed numerous health measures affecting restaurants, movie theatres, gyms, in-person schooling and more. Now, some provincial and territorial governments have plans to lift some of these restrictions.
Kindrachuk says these restrictions, on top of the rollout of booster shots, appear to have helped plateau cases. However, as these restrictions start to ease, he notes that cases have the potential to rise again.
"When you start to remove those safety breaks, you have the potential that things could start to build back in the opposite direction. So, we have to do it very methodically and certainly with a lot of oversight," he said.
St. John says he's also worried about health measures being lifted too quickly.
"We have to wait and stick to our public health measures as long as possible until we can be absolutely sure that we're coming out of the woods, and I'm not sure that we are yet," he said.
Family of a Calgary man killed after a 30-hour standoff with police last week are speaking out, sharing details of the tense and heart-wrenching experience.
A family doctor in Toronto has been suspended for three months after a disciplinary tribunal found that he failed to follow proper protocols while examining a patient's breasts and made inappropriate comments about her body.
An Ohio mother whose 16-month-old daughter died after being left home alone in a playpen for 10 days last summer while she went on vacation was sentenced Monday to life in prison with no chance of parole.
In a Barrie courtroom on Monday, a retired high school teacher from the Niagara Region pleaded guilty to sexual touching and obtaining sexual services from a 15-year-old boy in Collingwood in 2021.
The company, which announced in January it was selling 20,000 of the electric vehicles in its fleet, or about a third of the EVs it owned, is now replacing the CEO who helped build up that fleet, giving it the company’s fifth boss in just four years.
Calgary police have charged five men in a pair of kidnappings last year that targeted innocent victims.
The demand for total solar eclipse glasses used to safely view the rare celestial event has been ramping up as sellers, along with astronomy and eye-care experts in Canada, warn that viewing the eclipse with the naked eye is dangerous.
A Canadian-born commander of the so-called Norman Brigade, a volunteer fighting group in Ukraine, has died.
Moose Jaw police say an 18-year-old woman who was at work has died from injuries she sustained in a collision with a vehicle being driven by her co-worker last Thursday.