Invasive and toxic hammerhead worms make themselves at home in Ontario
Ontario is now home to an invasive and toxic worm species that can grow up to three feet long and can be dangerous to small animals and pets.
Canadian governments should be ready to resume public health measures if another serious variant of COVID-19 emerges, even as they scale back mandates for masks and vaccines, the country's chief public health officer said Friday.
Several provinces have announced plans to put an end to COVID-19 restrictions, signalling a return to normalcy now that the Omicron wave is receding.
"We cannot remain at a heightened state of emergency forever. We have to begin to heal," Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said earlier this month, announcing the province would lift all remaining COVID-19 restrictions, including gathering limits and indoor masking rules, on March 1.
Chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam said Friday that she indeed hopes Canada is past the pandemic crisis and is now in a transition phase, headed toward recovery.
But it's still uncertain what the novel coronavirus that has upended life around the world nearly two years will do next, and she said Canada must be ready to bring some public health measures back if case counts begin to rise sharply again.
The latest data shows Canada is headed in a good direction.
Weekly case counts are down by 26 per cent nationally, Tam said, and the number of people with COVID-19 in hospitals and intensive care units has declined by more than 20 per cent since last week. There are still 6,228 new cases in Canada as of Feb. 24 and that figure is an underestimate, since many jurisdictions have restricted molecular tests to people at a high-risk.
Tam said it is possible things could change again in September, when respiratory viruses typically resurge.
"We need to be ready for the fall, in case we need to up our game again," she said.
But the goal, she says, will this time be to limit stiff restrictions in favour of "less heavy" measures such as mask mandates.
Several provinces have decided to pull back on the mandatory use of masks, particularly in schools, while others have promised to do away with them altogether.
In the United States, The Associated Press reported the Biden administration is expected to significantly loosen federal mask-wearing guidelines Friday, according to two people familiar with the matter, so most Americans will no longer be advised to wear masks in indoor public settings.
Even though masks will soon no longer be mandatory in many parts of Canada, Tam said they are still a fundamental layer of protection and urged Canadians to keep wearing them.
"People should choose to wear masks. It should be probably one of the most foundational layers that you can use," she said.
Switching away from mandates may be hard for some people, including businesses, because it comes down to personal choice, she said. That's why the government should empower people to make the best choices they can to protect themselves.
Even people who choose not to cover their faces shouldn't throw their masks in the bin just yet. They should be at the ready in the event another, more dangerous variant evolves, Tam said.
Traces of the BA.2 sublineage of the Omicron variant have already become more common in Canada, and account for about 10 per cent of confirmed cases, the latest data shows.
In countries such as Denmark, where BA.2 is dominant, it does not appear to cause more severe disease. But it has proven more transmissible than Omicron, which spread at an incredible rate.
"If a variant occurs and people are impacted severely, then I'm sure all these policies will again be re-examined," Tam said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 25, 2022.
Ontario is now home to an invasive and toxic worm species that can grow up to three feet long and can be dangerous to small animals and pets.
It's one thing to say you like Taylor Swift and her music, but don't blame CNN's AJ Willingham's when she says she just 'doesn't get' the global phenomenon.
An emergency slide fell off a Delta Air Lines jetliner shortly after takeoff Friday from New York, and pilots who felt a vibration in the plane circled back to land safely at JFK Airport.
Britney Spears has reached a settlement with her estranged father more than two years after the court-ordered termination of a conservatorship that had given him control of her life, their attorneys said.
George Mallory is renowned for being one of the first British mountaineers to attempt to scale the dizzying heights of Mount Everest during the 1920s. Nearly a century later, newly digitized letters shed light on Mallory’s hopes and fears about ascending Everest.
Although it's still unclear how much damage Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s candidacy can do to either Joe Biden or Donald Trump this election, Washington political columnist Eric Ham says what is clear is both sides recognize the potential threat.
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.
South Africa marked 30 years since the end of apartheid and the birth of its democracy with a ceremony in the capital Saturday that included a 21-gun salute and the waving of the nation's multicolored flag.
Taking place in May in Malmo, Sweden, the 68th annual competition will see acts from 37 countries vie for the continent’s pop crown in a feelgood extravaganza that strives — not always successfully – to banish international strife and division. And you don’t have to be in Europe to watch, or to help pick the winner.
As if a 4-0 Edmonton Oilers lead in Game 1 of their playoff series with the Los Angeles Kings wasn't good enough, what was announced at Rogers Place during the next TV timeout nearly blew the roof off the downtown arena.
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.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”