Widow looking for answers after Quebec man dies in Texas Ironman competition
The widow of a Quebec man who died competing in an Ironman competition is looking for answers.
Americans fully vaccinated against COVID-19 should go back to wearing masks in indoor public places in regions where the coronavirus is spreading rapidly, U.S. health authorities said on Tuesday.
In a toughening of guidance issued earlier this month, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also recommended all students, teachers and staff at schools for kindergarten through 12th grade wear masks regardless of whether they were vaccinated.
U.S. coronavirus cases have been rising due to the highly contagious Delta variant, which emerged in India but has quickly spread and now accounts for more than 80% of U.S. coronavirus cases.
U.S. President Joe Biden said that increased vaccination and mask wearing would help the United States avoid the pandemic lockdowns, shutdowns and school closures that the country faced in 2020. “We are not going back to that,” Biden said.
The CDC said that 63.4% of U.S. counties had transmission rates high enough to warrant indoor masking and should immediately resume the policy. Manhattan, Los Angeles and San Francisco meet the transmission criteria as does the entire state of Florida, but Chicago and Detroit do not.
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten praised the new CDC mask guidance in a statement, calling it "a necessary precaution until children under 12 can receive a COVID vaccine and more Americans over 12 get vaccinated."
The CDC's previous guidance for schools only called for unvaccinated students to wear masks.
However, the new CDC recommendations are not binding and many Americans, especially in Republican-leaning states, may choose not to follow them. At least eight states bar schools from requiring masks.
Dr. Isaac Weisfuse, a medical epidemiologist at Cornell University Public Health, said the change was warranted but believes resistance was likely among some people. "I think we will get blowback because I think people might view it as backtracking," he said.
The United States leads the world in the daily average number of new infections, accounting for one in every nine cases reported worldwide each day. The seven-day average for new cases has been rising sharply and stands at 57,126, still about a quarter of the pandemic peak.
Two months ago, when the CDC announced that fully vaccinated people could shed their face coverings, COVID-19 was on the decline. Vaccinations have since slowed dramatically and only 58% of people eligible are fully vaccinated.
New studies show that fully vaccinated people who become infected carry as much virus as unvaccinated people do, suggesting they may be able to transmit the infection to others, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told reporters on a telephone briefing.
"We felt it was important for people to understand that they could pass the disease onto someone else," she said.
On Monday, the Biden administration confirmed it will not lift any existing international travel restrictions, citing the rising number of COVID-19 cases and the expectation that they will continue to rise in the weeks ahead.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Additional reporting by Nandita Bose; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien, Bill Berkrot and Cynthia Osterman)
The widow of a Quebec man who died competing in an Ironman competition is looking for answers.
Former NDP leader Tom Mulcair says that what's happening now in a trash-littered federal park in Quebec is a perfect metaphor for how the Trudeau government runs things.
The world is seeing a near breakdown of international law amid flagrant rule-breaking in Gaza and Ukraine, multiplying armed conflicts, the rise of authoritarianism and huge rights violations in Sudan, Ethiopia and Myanmar, Amnesty International warned Wednesday as it published its annual report.
A photographer who worked for Megan Thee Stallion said in a lawsuit filed Tuesday that he was forced to watch her have sex, was unfairly fired soon after and was abused as her employee.
Facing pushback from physicians and businesspeople over the coming increase to the capital gains inclusion rate, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his deputy Chrystia Freeland are standing by their plan to target Canada's highest earners.
The Senate passed legislation Tuesday that would force TikTok's China-based parent company to sell the social media platform under the threat of a ban, a contentious move by U.S. lawmakers that's expected to face legal challenges.
People living near a wildfire burning about 15 kilometres southwest of Peace River are being told to evacuate their homes.
The U.S. Senate has passed US$95 billion in war aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, sending the legislation to President Joe Biden after months of delays and contentious debate over how involved the United States should be in foreign wars.
A Winnipeg man said a single date gone wrong led to years of criminal harassment, false arrests, stress and depression.
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.”
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 4 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.