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The 2024 wildfire season has begun, and it's shaping up to follow last year's unprecedented destruction in kind, with thousands of square kilometres already consumed.
It's been more than two years since the start of the pandemic, and yet, new data shows that nearly a quarter of Canadians are still reporting high levels of anxiety – numbers largely unchanged since 2020.
University of Waterloo researchers examined survey data collected by Mental Health Research Canada and funded by Mitacs. The survey found that 23 per cent of Canadians are facing high anxiety while 15 per cent are experiencing high depression.
"Before the pandemic, these levels were at around four or five per cent. It's an increase of four or five times, so it's concerning," Gustavo Betini, a University of Waterloo PhD student, who has been studying the long-term mental health impacts of COVID-19, told CTV News Channel on Saturday.
Betini says it's especially concerning that even with high levels of vaccination and few remaining COVID-19 restrictions in Canada, the rates of anxiety and depression have changed very little since the polling began in April 2020.
"It's surprising for us that these levels … haven't changed since 2020, when we started this polling. So, this is concerning going forward," he said.
Younger Canadians and individuals from marginalized groups, like the LGBTQ2S+ community, are more likely to face high levels of pandemic-induced anxiety and depression, Betini says.
"One thing that we see very commonly is that younger adults are struggling a little bit more compared to the general population. The same is true for women, especially women with young children and health-care providers, and members of the LGBTQ+ community," Betini said.
For those who become infected with the virus and experience long-haul COVID-19 symptoms, it can be even harder to keep their mental health in check.
The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) has documented reports of more than 100 potential symptoms of long COVID. The most common ones, according to PHAC, include fatigue, memory problems, anxiety, depression and even post-traumatic stress disorder.
At the University of Toronto, Dr. Roger McIntyre, professor of psychiatry and pharmacology, has been leading a trial looking at better understanding how long COVID affects the brain.
"What we're trying to do is we're trying to better understand what is occurring in the brain in people who are experiencing this very debilitating, very complex syndrome post-COVID," he told CTV News Channel on Saturday.
McIntrye says inflammation due to an immune response to exposure of the virus may be one culprit when it comes to pinpointing why some people are having long COVID symptoms. He says his trial is also testing a treatment that affects the immune systems, which can also benefit
"aspects of the brain fog and the fatigue that are so ubiquitous in this condition."
It's unclear how many people are affected by long COVID symptoms. Early data from the World Health Organization showed that 10 to 20 per cent of those infected with the virus could go on to become COVID long-haulers, but Tam said on Friday that more up-to-date research indicates it could actually be as high as 50 per cent.
But in the absence of treatment options, McIntyre says for now, prevention via vaccination is the most important tool to prevent long COVID symptoms.
"The best treatment always is prevention. And we have a signal in our literature that's telling us if you get vaccinated … the probability of you having long COVID may be less. The severity of long COVID may be less," he said. "As we think about protecting ourselves, the vaccine is clearly an important tool for us."
With files from The Canadian Press
The 2024 wildfire season has begun, and it's shaping up to follow last year's unprecedented destruction in kind, with thousands of square kilometres already consumed.
Veteran TSN broadcaster Darren 'Dutch' Dutchyshen, one of Canada’s best-known sports journalists, has died. He was 57. His family says 'he passed as he was surrounded by his closest loved ones.'
A ‘lifetime of abuse’ led Dallas Ly to snap and repeatedly stab his mother inside their Leslieville apartment in 2022 but he never intended to kill her, his defence lawyers argued during at his murder trial in Toronto on Thursday.
A burgeoning track star says his dream of going to the Olympics is being derailed by a deportation order after Immigration officials rejected his family’s claim for asylum
A father has been charged with second-degree murder in the stabbing death of his 34-year-old daughter in southern Quebec.
A medical examiner says a Massachusetts teen who participated in a spicy tortilla chip challenge died from ingesting a substance 'with a high capsaicin concentration.'
A Montreal father who kidnapped his daughter who has autism and lied to police when they asked where she was should serve three years in prison, a Crown prosecutor said.
The province’s health minister and solicitor general are urging Toronto to rescind its request to decriminalize simple possession of small amounts of drugs for personal use, calling the proposal 'misguided' and 'disastrous.'
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he has "issues" with the Progressive Conservative government of New Brunswick.
A Starbucks fan — whose name is Winter — is visiting Canada on a purposeful journey that began with a random idea at one of the coffee chain's stores in Texas.
Members of Piapot First Nation, students from the University of Winnipeg and various other professionals are learning new techniques that will hopefully be used for ground searches of potential unmarked grave sites in the future.
ALS patient Mathew Brown said he’s hopeful for future ALS patients after news this week of research at Western University of a potential cure for ALS.
When Adam Kirschner wrote 'Slap Shot,' he never imagined the song would be embraced by his favourite team.
A team is ready to help an entangled North Atlantic right whale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
A $200 reward is being offered by a North Vancouver family for the safe return of their beloved chicken, Snowflake.
Two daughters and a mother were reunited online 40 years later thanks to a DNA kit and a Zoom connection despite living on three separate continents and speaking different languages.
Mother's Day can be a difficult occasion for those who have lost or are estranged from their mom.
YES Theatre Young Company opened its acclaimed kids’ show, One Small Step, at Sudbury Theatre Centre on Saturday.