'It could be catastrophic': Woman says natural supplement contained hidden painkiller drug
A Manitoba woman thought she found a miracle natural supplement, but said a hidden ingredient wreaked havoc on her health.
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases attributed to the highly contagious Delta variant jumped 66 per cent in Canada this week.
Canada's chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam said as of Friday there are just over 2,000 confirmed cases of the variant.
Just three days ago, the Public Health Agency told The Canadian Press there were 1,187 confirmed cases.
"The Delta variant is now in all provinces and at least one of our territories," Tam said at the House of Commons health committee.
"Of course, as with all coronavirus cases, we may not know every single case that has occurred in Canada, hence my warning of precaution and the need to get two doses of vaccine into as many people as possible."
The variant was first identified in India but has now become the dominant strain in the United Kingdom where it is spreading rapidly, mostly among unvaccinated people.
It is believed to be at least 1.5 times as contagious as the Alpha variant first identified in the U.K. Alpha is, for now, the dominant variant in Canada, with more than 216,000 cases confirmed.
Public Health England reported Friday the number of confirmed Delta cases in the U.K. had grown 80 per cent in the last week, to almost 76,000. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had to delay plans to fully lift all public health restrictions next week, with plans to keep the final limitations in place at least another month.
Tam says the variant is a concern because one dose of vaccine isn't as effective against it and it underscores the need for Canada to keep picking up the pace on second doses.
Two doses of the vaccines Canada is using are believed to offer very good protection against Delta, and even one dose has been found to be good at preventing serious illness.
All provinces are warning against the existence of Delta. It is believed to be the driver of a major outbreak at the Kashechewan First Nation in northern Ontario, is involved in an outbreak at a Calgary hospital, and is worrying health officials in Waterloo, Ont., which is suddenly the province's COVID-19 hot spot.
Data on the variant in Canada, however, is limited and it hasn't yet been added to the Health Canada website reporting variant cases. Only Alpha, Beta (the B. 1.351 variant identified in South Africa, and Gamma (the P. 1 variant first identified in Brazil), are listed on Canada's website.
That site also hasn't adjusted the names to use the Greek alphabet now preferred by the World Health Organization. A spokeswoman for Health Canada told The Canadian Press in early June that Delta would be added to it in "the coming weeks."
When asked again this week, the same answer was provided.
Dr. Howard Njoo, the deputy chief public health officer, said data gathering on the variant hasn't been easy and there is a lag in reporting.
"There are obviously some issues we need to work on," he said, noting there "are probably more cases" than we have seen reported.
He said, however, the data provinces and territories do have suggest most of the Delta cases are being found in people who aren't vaccinated.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 18, 2021.
A Manitoba woman thought she found a miracle natural supplement, but said a hidden ingredient wreaked havoc on her health.
Hospital chaplain J.S. Park opens up about death, grief and hearing thousands of last words, and shares his advice for the living.
The World Health Organization is likely to issue a wider warning about contaminated Johnson and Johnson-made children's cough syrup found in Nigeria last week, it said in an email.
Police have released video footage of a dramatic takedown of a group of teens wanted in connection with an attempted carjacking in Markham earlier this month.
Canada called for 'all parties' to de-escalate rising tensions in the Mideast following an apparent Israeli drone attack against Iran overnight.
A woman who recently moved to Canada from India was searching for a job when she got caught in an online job scam and lost $15,000.
More money will land in the pockets of some Canadian families on Friday for the latest Canada Child Benefit installment.
The World Health Organization and around 500 experts have agreed for the first time on what it means for a disease to spread through the air, in a bid to avoid the confusion early in the COVID-19 pandemic that some scientists have said cost lives.
American millionaire Jonathan Lehrer, one of two men charged in the killings of a Canadian couple in Dominica, has been denied bail.
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.