BREAKING Average hourly wage in Canada now $34.95: StatCan
Average hourly wages among Canadian employees rose to $34.95 on a year-over-year basis in April, a 4.7 per cent increase, according to a Statistics Canada report released Friday morning.
British health officials said Friday that 43,000 people may have been wrongly told they don't have the coronavirus because of problems at a private laboratory.
The U.K. Health Security Agency said the Immensa Health Clinic Ltd. lab in the central England city of Wolverhampton has been suspended from processing swabs after the false negatives.
Will Welfare, the agency's public health incident director, said it was working "to determine the laboratory technical issues" behind the inaccurate tests.
The issue was uncovered after some people who were positive for COVID-19 when they took rapid tests went on to show up as negative on more accurate PCR tests.
The health agency said that "around 400,000 samples have been processed through the lab, the vast majority of which will have been negative results, but an estimated 43,000 people may have been given incorrect negative PCR test results," mostly in southwest England. The incorrect results were given between Sept. 8 and Oct. 12.
The agency said it was "an isolated incident attributed to one laboratory" and people affected would be contacted and advised to get another test.
Immensa was awarded a 119 million-pound ($163 million) coronavirus-testing contract by the British government in October 2020. Chief executive Andrea Riposati said the company was "fully collaborating" with U.K. health authorities.
Alexander Edwards, an associate professor of Biomedical Technology at the University of Reading, said the problems were disappointing, but cautioned: "Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater."
"The majority of test results are correct, and it's worth remembering that our testing system has been built up from almost nothing at the start of the pandemic," he said.
Britain conducts about 1 million coronavirus tests a day and reported almost 40,000 new infections a day over the past week.
Tests are required for everyone visiting or returning to the U.K. from abroad. The government is easing those rules, however, announcing that starting Oct. 24 fully vaccinated travelers to England from most countries can take quick lateral flow tests rather than costlier PCR tests. People can take the tests at home and will have to send a photo to verify the results.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps acknowledged that the system would be "based on trust."
"Of course, the system requires people to be honest, like so many laws in this country," he said.
Average hourly wages among Canadian employees rose to $34.95 on a year-over-year basis in April, a 4.7 per cent increase, according to a Statistics Canada report released Friday morning.
A 4.2-magnitude earthquake was recorded west of Vancouver Island early Friday morning.
Andy Kim's 'Rock Me Gently' is marking a major milestone, as it celebrates its 50th anniversary.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.
Oprah Winfrey said on Thursday evening that she has long played a role in promoting unhealthy and unrealistic diets.
A southwestern Ontario woman has received an $8,400 bill from a hospital in Windsor, Ont., after she refused to put her mother in a nursing home she hated -- and she says she has no intention of paying it.
Toronto police say a man who allegedly attempted to access Drake’s Bridle Path property was taken to hospital on Thursday after an altercation with security guards.
If you're cruising down a highway and realize you have a flat tire, you may want to think twice before stopping to fix it on the side of the road.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
The stakes have been set for a bet between Vancouver and Edmonton's mayors on who will win Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
A grieving mother is hosting a helmet drive in the hopes of protecting children on Manitoba First Nations from a similar tragedy that killed her daughter.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
A P.E.I. lighthouse and a New Brunswick river are being honoured in a Canada Post series.