Pfizer's antiviral treatment for COVID-19, Paxlovid, has received Health Canada approval. It’s a combination of two different drugs, to be taken together twice a day for five days. Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos says the first doses are already here with more to come in March. He says the provinces and territories have been given preliminary information on deliveries, which will be done on a per capita basis.Canadian doctors have been anxious to get their hands on the medication as the Omicron wave is spreading so quickly. Canada bought one-million courses of the treatment for delivery thi

Police in Abbotsford say an Alberta man has been arrested in connection with the theft of a semi-truck in the Fraser Valley community. Constable Paul Walker says members of the Chilliwack RCMP attempted to stop the driver before he collided with another vehicle. Walker says police did not pursue the truck due to the man's driving behaviour and heavy fog but he later struck a concrete barrier and escaped before trying to steal a vehicle from a business complex, where members of the public intervened. He says 28 year old Rory Serna has been charged with multiple offences including dangerous ope

A BC Ferries spokesman says passengers should check for possible service disruptions before they arrive at a terminal because sailings have recently been cancelled due to staffing issues. Dan McIntosh says COVID-19 infections among employees, as well as seasonal cold and flu and winter storms could nix travel plans if vessels don't have enough employees to operate them as usual. He says staff have been cross-trained to do other duties and can be deployed on other routes, but that may not be enough if certain members of the crew, like the captain, or engineers, can't be on the job. Four sailin

Health Canada has approved Pfizer's antiviral treatment for COVID-19. The authorization posted to the Health Canada website this morning says the treatment is greenlighted for adult patients with mild or moderate COVID-19 who are also at high risk of becoming more seriously ill. Health Canada did not authorize it for use on teenagers. It is also not authorized for use on patients who are already hospitalized because of COVID-19.Paxlovid is a treatment that uses a combination of drugs to prevent the virus that causes COVID-19 from replicating once it has infected a patient.Clinical trials sho

A group representing truckers says drivers will stop delivering goods if the province doesn't ensure B-C's highways are cleared of snow and potholes are fixed. Ajay Toor, who speaks for the West Coast Trucking Association, says several drivers have been involved in serious crashes in recent weeks due to black ice and gaping holes that are dangerous. Toor says drivers who report problems to the DriveBC website are informed they should be emailing contractors, but it's impossible to figure out which of the 28 contractors are responsible for specific routes. The Transportation Ministry did not im

B.C. is reporting 2,275 new cases of COVID-19, including five epi-linked cases, for a total of 293,521 cases in the province.There are 35,943 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, and 251,846 people who tested positive have recovered. Of the active cases, 646 COVID-positive individuals are in hospital and 95 are in intensive care. The remaining people are recovering at home in self-isolation.The new/active cases include:813 new cases in Fraser HealthTotal active cases: 17,256523 new cases in Vancouver Coastal HealthTotal active cases: 9,397412 new cases in Interior HealthTotal active cases

Two more schools have declared functional closures in BC as illnesses and isolations due to the Omicron variant of COVID-19 leave a handful of elementary and secondary schools without enough staff to operate safely. Heritage Park Middle School in Mission is closed from today until next Thursday while Armstrong Elementary in Armstrong expects to reopen on Tuesday, as those two schools join Hazelton Secondary in northwestern BC and an independent Christian school in Surrey that declared functional closures earlier this week. BC School Trustees Association president Stephanie Higginson says, all

A section of Highway 1 through the southern Interior has reopened nearly two months after it was torn apart by slides and washouts. The 80 kilometre section between Lytton and Spences Bridge reopened this morning to general travel and some commercial traffic after it was damaged by severe storms in November. Parts of the route are cut to single lane travel and the Transportation Ministry is warning motorists to watch for advisories and expect delays. The Thompson Nicola operations manager for the Highways Ministry says the upgrades are far from over and work will continue through the winter a

Charges have been approved following the arrest by Metro Vancouver Transit Police of a suspect in the stabbing of a 67-year-old man on board a SkyTrain.As was previously reported by Transit Police, on December 4, 2021, shortly after 1:00 p.m., a man boarded an eastbound SkyTrain at Scott Road Station. As he attempted to sit down, he accidentally bumped into another man who was about to sit in the same seat. The victim ignored the accidental bump and moved to a different part of the train. Moments later, the suspect allegedly approached the victim, got close to his face and demanded an apology.