The B-C’s Teachers’ Federation says it’s deeply concerned that the more infectious COVID-19 variant that originated in the United Kingdom has been found in five schools in the Fraser Health region. President Teri Mooring says in a statement that it’s imperative health officials and communities around four Surrey schools and one in Delta do all they can to contain the virus. Fraser Health issued a notice yesterday that the U-K variant had been found at Woodward Hill elementary, A-H-P Matthew elementary, Kwantlen Park Secondary, Tamanawis (tah-MAN’-ah-wis) Secondary and Hellings Elementary in Delta, and all remain open. Moore says school districts should be able to make regional safety enhancements like mandating masks everywhere, changing
schedules or increasing online learning access. She adds there should also be widespread rapid testing when a variant of concern is diagnosed.
Canada is expecting its largest ever shipments of COVID-19 vaccine doses this week, with both Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech scheduled to make deliveries. The vast majority will come from Pfizer and BioNTech, with more than 475-thousand jabs due this week. Canada will also receive 168-thousand shots from Moderna. The BC government is still saying every person in BC that wants a vaccine shoulld have it by September. On friday we got a COVID-19 update with 508 new cases, 6 deaths. Dr Bonnie Henry will announce the weekends numbers this afternoon at 3pm
A White Rock Man rescued a dog that was stuck under the deck of his new home for 43 hours and was able to return the pup to its rightful owners. Wade Deisman thought his neighbors got a new puppy that just wouldn’t stop barking, until he realized the sound was coming from his backyard. Deisman went to his back porch and said felt shivers thinking there’s a chance the dog could be under there, adrenaline kicked in and he instantly taking his deck apart, until he was finally able to see the dog inside a well that was about four-feet deep under the deck. he fed him, was able to find a missing dog notification on craigslist, contact the owners and re connect them to their sweet. pup.
An in-patient unit at Vancouver General Hospital has been hit by an outbreak of COVID-19. Vancouver Coastal Health says unit T-10-C on the 10th floor of the Jim Pattison Pavilion tower is now closed to all admissions and transfers, while all but compassionate end-of-life visits to the unit are also cancelled. Five patients and two staff members have tested positive for COVID-19 and the health authority says enhanced cleaning, infection control measures and contact tracing are underway. The rest of the hospital, including the busy emergency room, remain open and are operating as usual.
B-C Ferries recorded net earnings of 98.4-million dollars in its latest quarter — thanks to 154.8-million dollars in federal-provincial Safe Restart funding. The ferry corporation says without the funding, it would have seen a loss of 56.4-million dollars for the three months ending December 31st. It says the COVID-19 pandemic continues to have a significant impact on its operations. Passenger traffic was down nearly 40 per cent and the number of vehicles carried was 22.3 per cent lower than in the same period a year earlier.
Nearly 1.1-million Canadians have now received a single dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines. Deliveries from Pfizer-BioNTech are now exceeding 400-thousand doses a week. But two vaccine developers in this country say a lack of federal funding early on during the COVID-19 pandemic kept homegrown shots from moving as quickly as their international counterparts. John Lewis, the C-E-O of Entos Pharmaceuticals in Alberta, says decisive and upfront funding of multiple vaccine candidates all the way through to the end was key to both their success and their Speed.
The cause of a Valentine’s Day blaze that damaged all 57 units in an apartment complex in Abbotsford remains undetermined but was likely linked to smoking. Assistant fire chief Ron Hull says a cause hasn’t been pinpointed because the building suffered too much damage. But he says the results “lean toward” smoking materials that weren’t properly discarded. No one was hurt in the fire, but several cats are missing and more than 100 people were left homeless.
The head of the teachers union in British Columbia is urging public health officials to expand guidelines on masks to include elementary students. This comes after seven schools reported cases involving a COVID-19 variant. Teri Mooring of the B-C Teachers Federation says school districts should be allowed to impose measures based on their needs. That’s because the variants were all found in schools in the Fraser Health region. Provincial health officer Doctor Bonnie Henry announced mandatory mask guidelines earlier this month for students in middle and high schools.
Surrey R-C-M-P say they ticketed 14 people after finding a “full house” of people failing to comply with COVID-19 restrictions while playing cards. Police say the group was caught gambling while not wearing masks during a compliance check on a business late last Thursday. They say the business was closed at the time and several people left through the back after officers knocked on the front door. The total value of tickets issued was just over five-thousand dollars.