BC's top doctor is appealing for continued vigilance with COVID-19 public health orders as officials try to understand the prevalence of the UK and South African variants and how they entered communities. Doctor Bonnie Henry says that's part of the work being done before pandemic restrictions that have been in place since November are loosened as the province anticipates an increasing number of vaccines to be delivered in the coming weeks. Dr. Henry says that if the variants take hold as in parts of Ontario, a whole new pandemic could get underway so it's important not to undo the progress th

Health Canada regulators agree with Pfizer and BioNTech that you can regularly get six doses out of each vial of their COVID-19 vaccine.Health Canada's chief medical adviser Dr. Supriya Sharma says Canada is amending the label on the vials in Canada, which previously indicated the vials contained five doses.Now it will say there are six.The change won't affect how many doses Canada gets as Pfizer already began allocating vials for Canada's shipments based on each containing six rather than five.Canada's contract with Pfizer and BioNTech is to buy 40 million doses this year, with four million

Delhi Police has on Tuesday arrested actor-turned-activist Deep Sidhu for his alleged involvement in 26 January violence in the national capital."Deep Sidhu, an accused in 26th January violence case arrested," Delhi Police Special Cell said on Tuesday. "The investigation into the Republic Day violence is being conducted at three levels - local police, Special Cell and Crime Branch.The names of Punjabi actor Deep Sidhu and gangster Lakka Sadana were included in the FIR registered in connection with the violence at Red Fort in Delhi on January 26," Delhi Police said earlier while adding that Sid

BC will start a clinical trial on a COVID-19 drug therapy approved by Health Canada on an emergency basis for patients who are at risk of severe illness. Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says the trial on the drug bamlanivimab is expected to get underway by the beginning of March. The antibody drug has been studied elsewhere, and Henry says it would be given to patients within a certain time period after diagnosis. Health Minister Adrian Dix says the trial will be done at Surrey Memorial Hospital with the help of a one-million-dollar donation from a BC biotech company. The drug has

Chinese-Canadian community leaders say the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic has been magnified by racism. Vancouver police reported a surge in anti-Asian hate crime in 2020, with seniors being attacked and businesses vandalized. The president of the Chinese Canadian National Council for Social Justice, Amy Go, says the initial rhetoric around the COVID-19 virus, has been harmful to the Chinese-Canadian community. Some labelled it as the "Wuhan virus" or the "China virus." Go says grocery stores, restaurants and other businesses owned by Chinese-Canadians have been particularly affected by misi

A woman has died as extreme cold grips most of Western Canada and parts of the territories and northern Ontario. RCMP in Dawson Creek, B.C., say the woman's death, related to exposure, happened early Sunday morning while she was walking in that northeastern city. Investigators say she left a friend's house right next door around 1 a.m. but collapsed before arriving at her home. Environment Canada says temperatures in Dawson Creek skidded to a frigid -42.2 C on Sunday and wind chill is making conditions across much of north and central B.C. feel close to -45. The weather office says usually ba

An inmate serving time for first-degree murder has won a Federal Court battle that orders prison officials to return the memory card to his portable video game. Patrick Fischer asked the court to rule after the memory card for his PlayStation One game was confiscated in 2018 as he was transferred from maximum security to a medium-security prison in B.C.'s Fraser Valley. In the ruling, Justice Russel Zinn says not only did correction officials fail to "consider the facts surrounding Mr. Fischer’s possession and use of the memory card," they also failed to consider the "impact" of the decisio

Four provinces are relaxing their COVID-19 restrictions to start off the week.Ontario Premier Doug Ford has announced the state of emergency declared last month will expire tomorrow, but stay-at-home orders will remain in effect.Quebec is allowing dining in restaurants and working out in gyms in six less-populated regions of the province and re-openingnon-essential stores, personal-care salons and museums province-wide.Alberta restaurants are open for in-person dining, and allowing one-on-one training at gyms.Nova Scotia is relaxing restrictions on organized gatherings.

The Public Health Agency of Canada has listed its criteria for hotels seeking to participate in the mandatory three-day quarantine for returning travellers.The conditions posted online put the government one step closer to fulfilling its late-January pledge that all passengers returning from non-essential trips abroad will have to self-isolate in a federally mandated facility for up to 72 hours at their own expense.The government has not said when the measure, which aims to head off COVID-19 cases and contagious variants of the novel coronavirus at the border, will come into effect.To qualify