Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
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.
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
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.
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
William Nylander scored twice and Joseph Woll made 22 saves as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Thursday to force Game 7 in their first-round series.
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.
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.
The lawyer for a residential school survivor leading a proposed class-action defamation lawsuit against the Catholic Church over residential schools says the court action is a last resort.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.