Health officials in British Columbia say specific students and staff at a Maple Ridge high school will receive COVID-19 tests after a person at the school had close contact with someone carrying a new strain of the virus that causes the illness.Fraser Health says Garibaldi Secondary School remains open while efforts are underway to manage the exposure because the variant strain is not one currently in the community. Mutations of COVID-19 are known to spread more quickly, but doctors say they do not seem to cause more severe illness, interfere with the effectiveness of vaccines or affect testi

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada’s air carriers have agreed to suspend service to the Caribbean and Mexico beginning this Sunday. The restriction will remain in place till April 30th. Speaking outside his home in Ottawa this morning, Trudeau said this involves flights with Air Canada, WestJet, Sunwing and Air Transat. Trudeau also announced that all international flights will only be allowed to land at one of four airports: Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal. Passengers entering Canada must also undergo a PCR test for COVID-19 upon arrival, then self-isolate at an approved hot

Vancouver Coastal Health says 288 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in Whistler from the start of the year through Tuesday. It says most of them are young people in their 20s and 30s who live, work and socialize together. The health agency is urging Whistler residents and potential visitors to continue to follow public health restrictions to lower the rising number of COVID-19 infections. It says Whistler experienced a similar spike in cases in November, which was resolved in early December. B.C. reported 546 new cases, including five epi-linked cases, for a total of 66,265 cases. There a

The man overseeing the country's national vaccine rollout says Canada is getting 149,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccine over the next two weeks. That's only one-fifth of what had been promised before the company slowed production in a bid to ramp up operations in Belgium. Canada has been saying for several weeks that the shipments would return to normal in mid-February, but Maj. Gen. Dany Fortin now says Pfizer is sending 335,000 doses the week of Feb. 15, which is still only 91 per cent of the previous delivery schedule. Fortin says the deliveries still are based on five doses per vial.

The review of Rideau Hall that led governor general Julie Payette to resign found dozens of people who called the working conditions there hostile, negative, toxic or poisoned. The government released the review by Quintet Consulting Corp. Wednesday evening.It's heavily redacted, primarily to protect participants' privacy, and whole pages of details are blacked out or removed.But the review says representative comments about Rideau Hall include phrases such as "the definition of a poisoned work environment," and "humiliation," "disrespect" and "condescension." It says participants reported ye

BC is reporting 485 new cases of COVID-19 and four more deaths. That brings the death toll in the province to 1,172 and total cases to 65,719. Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says BC's first case of COVID-19 was confirmed one year ago, and that year has shown one case can turn into thousands. She says it has also shown that following public health restrictions can keep people safe and push the curve of the outbreak back down again. To date, 124,365 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in B.C., 4,160 of which are second doses. There is one new health-care facility outbre

Members of a Metro Vancouver homicide team are focused on a pockmarked car and casing-littered street as they investigate a suspected deadly attack in Langley, B.C.An online post from the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team confirms its members have joined Langley RCMP officers probing what happened in a residential area of the municipality.A tent is set up over an idling Honda Civic with numerous holes in its windshield and the area beside the car is shrouded from view while dozens of evidence markers dot the street nearby.RCMP are also investigating at least one burning vehicle in an are

Health officials in British Columbia say the number of new daily cases of COVID-19 is too high and they are repeating calls for everyone's help to bend the curve. The province recorded 407 new COVID-19 cases Tuesday, bringing the total number of confirmed active infections to 4,260. Among those, 313 people are hospitalized, including 71 in intensive care. An additional 14 people died in the past day and the death toll in B.C. from COVID-19 rose to 1,168. Health Minister Adrian Dix and provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry say in a joint statement that now is the time for anyone who has p

Canada's anxiety-laden COVID-19 vaccine programs are facing further threats as Europe warns drug makers it might impose export controls on European-made vaccine doses. But Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he has received assurances that all vaccines Canada has contracted for, will be delivered on schedule. All of Canada's current vaccine doses from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna are made in Europe. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says Europe will set up a "vaccine export transparency mechanism" so it knows exactly how many doses are being produced in the bloc and where they a