Grandparent scam: London, Ont., senior beats fraudsters not once, but twice
It was a typical Tuesday for Mabel Beharrell, 84, until she got the call that would turn her world upside down. Her teenaged grandson was in trouble and needed her help.
Russian authorities are shortening the required isolation period for people infected with COVID-19 from 14 to seven days as the country faces another surge of COVID-19 cases, this time driven by the highly contagious Omicron variant.
Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova, who runs the country's coronavirus task force, said Tuesday that health officials were "optimizing our approaches to quarantine and testing of our citizens, including shortening the quarantine period to seven days."
Golikova added that other policy changes will be adopted in the coming days, without elaborating. She also didn't explain the rationale for cutting the isolation period. Earlier rules required a two-week isolation period for those who test positive, with a mandatory follow-up test on day 11.
Russia already has by far Europe's worst death toll in the pandemic at over 322,000 deaths by its official tally, a number that other statistics suggest is a significant undercount.
The daily number of coronavirus infections confirmed in Russia has doubled over the past week, going from over 15,000 on Jan. 10 to 31,252 on Tuesday. Officials say the surge could end up as the country's biggest yet but so far haven't announced any major restrictions to stem it.
Anna Popova, the head of Russian public health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, said last week that new daily cases might reach six figures. President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia has "a couple of weeks" to prepare for the unprecedented wave.
Golikova said Tuesday that 1,682 Omicron cases have been officially confirmed in Russia so far, but the actual number is much higher. The new variant is already dominating in Moscow, the outlying region and St. Petersburg, Russia's second largest city, she said.
Rospotrebnadzor said a total of 1,241 Omicron cases have been registered in Moscow as of Tuesday.
The recent surge of infections hasn't so far led to a spike in hospitalizations, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin noted Tuesday.
"So far we are not seeing the same proportion of severe cases as with delta," Mishustin said, adding "we need to be prepared for any course of events."
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that authorities were not discussing another nationwide lockdown.
Russia had only one national lockdown, in 2020, although many Russians were ordered to stay off work for a week in October 2021 amid a jump in reported cases and deaths. On Friday, the government decided to indefinitely postpone introducing restrictions for unvaccinated people, which would have been extremely unpopular among vaccine-hesitant Russians.
Just about half of Russia's population of 146 million has been fully vaccinated, even though Russia boasted about being the first country in the world to approve and roll out a domestically developed coronavirus vaccine.
In Moscow, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin extended his orders obligating companies to keep at least 30% of staff working from home and people older than 60 to stay at home until April 1, but said at this point there was no need for any additional restrictions
The Russian capital on Tuesday reported 8,342 new infections, more than twice the figure just a week ago.
Russia's state coronavirus task force has registered over 10.8 million confirmed infections and 322,678 deaths since the start of the pandemic. Russia's state statistics agency, which uses broader counting criteria, puts the death toll much higher, saying the overall number of virus-linked deaths between April 2020 and October 2021 was over 625,000.
It was a typical Tuesday for Mabel Beharrell, 84, until she got the call that would turn her world upside down. Her teenaged grandson was in trouble and needed her help.
The deaths of four people on a farm near the Saskatchewan village of Neudorf have been confirmed a murder-suicide.
Genetic analysis has shed light on a long-standing mystery surrounding the fates of U.S. President George Washington's younger brother Samuel and his kin.
The Parole Board of Canada has granted full parole to one of three men convicted in the brutal murders of three McDonald's restaurant workers in Cape Breton more than 30 years ago.
Ontario released its annual sunshine list Thursday afternoon, noting that the largest year-over-year increases were in hospitals, municipalities, and post-secondary sectors.
Rainfall warnings of up to 90 millimetres and other alerts have been issued for six Canadian provinces, according to the latest forecasts.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump is officially selling a copy of the Bible themed to Lee Greenwood’s famous song, 'God Bless the USA.' But the concept of a Bible covered in the American flag has raised concern among religious circles.
A bus carrying worshippers headed to an Easter festival plunged off a bridge on a mountain pass and burst into flames in South Africa on Thursday, killing at least 45 people, authorities said.
Calgary police shut down a number of bridges into and out of the downtown core as officers dealt with a distraught individual. The incident lasted almost 20 hours.
B.C. conservation officers recently seized a nine-foot-long Burmese python from a home in Chilliwack.
A New Brunswicker will go to bed Thursday night much richer than he was Wednesday after collecting on a winning lottery ticket he let sit on his bedroom dresser for nearly a year.
The Ontario government is introducing changes to auto-insurance, but some experts say the move is ill-advised.
A Toronto restaurant introduced a surprising new rule that reduced the cost of a meal and raised the salaries of staff.
Newfoundland’s unique version of the Pine Marten has grown out of its threatened designation.
A Toronto man is out $12,000 after falling victim to a deepfake cryptocurrency scam that appeared to involve Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
It started small with a little pop tab collection to simply raise some money for charity and help someone — but it didn’t take long for word to get out that 10-year-old Jace Weber from Mildmay, Ont. was quickly building up a large supply of aluminum pop tabs.
There’s a group of people in Saskatoon that proudly call themselves dumpster divers, and they’re turning the city’s trash into treasure.
Ontario is facing a larger than anticipated deficit but the Doug Ford government still plans to balance its books before the next provincial election.