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.
Premier Francois Legault made the announcement as the province reported another daily record for virus-related hospitalizations. Of the 2,742 patients in Quebec hospitals with COVID-19 on Tuesday, 255 of them were in intensive care.
It's an idea that has been floated previously, to hive off the special benefits for new parents from the EI system, given the growth in demand for the leaves, although how to finance it has been a key stumbling block.
Zelenskyy delivered that message to Trudeau in their Tuesday morning telephone call, which came on the eve of a key meeting in Brussels between the 30-country NATO alliance and Russia.
56 per cent of respondents in the poll conducted by Leger and the Association of Canadian Studies agreed governments are making the right decisions to limit the spread of Omicron and keep the health system from being overrun.
Trudeau made the pledge in a statement issued late Monday after he spoke with provincial and territorial leaders, saying Ottawa will do all it can to help them cope with the fifth wave of the pandemic.
The latest atmospheric river to wash over British Columbia was expected to soak parts of the south coast with as much as 150 millimetres of rain in a series of waves that won't relent until Thursday, Environment Canada said. Rainfall warnings covered the west coast of Vancouver Island and the inner south coast, including Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley.
