Provincial health officials says uncertainty about new variants BA.2
Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 02 Mar, 2022 11:05 AM
British Columbia's provincial health officer says there are still some uncertainties about new variants, including B-A-point-2, with some cases present in B-C.
Doctor Bonnie Henry says the province is prepared for a potential uptick in COVID-19 cases during the next respiratory season.
She says the province will integrate wastewater surveillance testing into its regular surveillance of respiratory illness including influenza, and also include other pathogens to get a periodic snapshot of what else may be circulating in communities.
Henry says a decline in hospitalizations, immunity from vaccination and the availability of at-home rapid tests point the way forward to normal activities like high school graduations, which young people need to feel connected to others.
Homicide investigators say they believe the targeted shooting that left four people dead in a Richmond, B.C., home was a murder-suicide. The victims were all members of the same family and include a 71-year-old father, a 58-year-old mother, their 23-year-old son and a daughter, aged 21.
Kate Ryan-Lloyd, who was Craig James's deputy at the time of the 2012 payment, told a B.C. Supreme Court trial that she gave back the $118,000 benefit after James failed to provide her with a good explanation to justifying the payment.
Dr. Bonnie Henry says that's possible in part because 90 per cent of residents aged 12 and over have received two doses of vaccine, though more people need to get a booster shot for longer-lasting protection.
In an interview with The Canadian Press, Trudeau says the "freedom convoy" is no longer a protest against the federal vaccine mandate for cross-border truckers and has morphed into a forum for a small minority of "very angry" people opposed to all public health measures to curb the spread of COVID-19, some of whom espouse violence.
The BC Prosecution Service announced in April it was not in the public interest to pursue criminal contempt charges against protesters, but a B.C. Supreme Court ruling last month found CN could continue its own legal action.
The High Commission of India in Ottawa and RCMP released the identities of the four who died. They were Jagdish Baldevbhai Patel, a 39-year-old man; Vaishaliben Jagdishkumar Patel, a 37-year-old woman; and their children Vihangi Jagdishkumar Patel, an 11-year-old girl; and Dharmik Jagdishkumar Patel, a three-year-old boy.
