Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry has announced the first case in B-C of a person developing a rare blood clot after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine. Henry says the woman in her 40’s is receiving treatment in the Vancouver Coastal health region and is in stable condition. She says the clotting disorder is rare and treatable and the AstraZeneca vaccine is safe and effective. Henry also says the issue of blood clots linked to AstraZeneca has only been connected to first doses, not the second She also reported 694 new cases of COVID-19 yesterday, along with one new death.
the scene and was charged yesterday in Arsenault’s death.
We’re finally getting a better sense of how prevalent COVID-19 cases are in B.C.’s communities, and it’s only because of leaked documents from the BC Centre for Disease Control. A pair of internal reports, each over 45 pages long, obtained by the Vancouver Sun show data for the last week of April. They reveal, among other things, details of COVID-19 case counts and vaccinations at the neighbourhood level, as well as breakdowns about variants of concern. The data shows more precisely the areas within Fraser Health that saw the highest rate of new infections, and that of all positive test samples, about 78 per cent were presumed to be a variant of concern. Dr. Caroline , an infectious disease modeller at Simon Fraser University, says there’s an argument to be made to make this kind of data public. “So if I see that rates are high in my neighbourhood, or positivity is high in my neighbourhood, I might actually use that information to decide not to go somewhere, and that’s great,”She says in addition to helping people make personal choices, the information can also help the public understand certain decisions, like restrictions. However, she admits there are some downsides. For example, there could be complacency from people who see they don’t live in a hot spot. While she would like to see more information shared, Caroline understands there are also privacy concerns that need to be taken into consideration.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says his government is willing to work with Ontario on further limiting the number of people allowed to enter the province. But he says Premier Doug Ford has yet to follow up on a request for tighter rules made last week. Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party issued an ad yesterday, accusing the prime minister of failing to appropriately restrict travel into the province. Trudeau says finger-pointing won’t help Ontarians as the province grapples with the third wave of COVID-19.
The RCMP say officers did not hand out any tickets at a road block set up to enforce a ban on non-essential travel between three health regions in the province. Corporal Chris Manseau also says none of the 127 vehicles stopped in the Manning Park area were forced to turn around. Manseau says Mounties want people to stay home and they would consider it a success if no tickets are issued due to the new travel restrictions. The R-C-MP say three other roadblocks will be set up over the weekend in the Boston Bar, Old Toll Booth and Lillooet areas.
British Columbia’s minister of mental health and addictions says the province must “do more and do better” after a suspected overdose death of a 12-year-old girl from Vancouver Island. Sheila Malcolmson says she first needs to learn more details about the case of Ally Thomas, who died April 14th. Ally’s mother, Adriana Londono, says the family tried to get her support but was only given a list of counsellors — an avenue Ally wasn’t willing to take. Malcolmson today announced a new app for people ages 12 to 24 to access counselling, primary care and peer support, called Foundry BC.