4. The Politics of Health

Since the pandemic, there has been a rise in new cancer cases, including rare and aggressive, late-stage cancers — and some physicians and researchers believe that COVID-19 may be behind this increase. Here's what you need to know.

Vaccines safe and immunogenic in most people with cancer.

It has not been shown that COVID-19 vaccines cause or accelerate cancer. Yet opponents of the vaccines say a new review article “has found that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines could aid cancer development.” The review conclusions are mainly based on the misinterpretation of a study on mRNA cancer vaccines in mice.

A new analysis from Oxford Population Health has found that pregnant women that are 30 years old or more, overweight, of mixed ethnicity or have gestational diabetes have a greater risk of

Objectives This study aimed to investigate the impact of pregnancy and pre-existing comorbidities on COVID-19 infections and associated complications of hospitalisation and mortality in women of reproductive age (WRA). The study also compared the risk of severe COVID-19 complications between pregnant women (PW) and non-pregnant women (NPW) with and without pre-existing comorbidities. Special focus was placed on some understudied comorbidities of immunosuppression, chronic renal disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Methods The study utilized anonymized patient-related information for a population of 7,342,869 WRA from the Mexican Ministry of Health data repository on COVID-19. Descriptive variables were characterized using frequencies, percentages, means, and standard deviations. Adjusted odds ratios (aORs) were used to assess the associations between risk factors and outcomes of hospitalisation and mortality. The study covered the entire COVID-19 pandemic period from January 30, 2020, to May 5, 2023. Results The findings revealed that PW were not more likely to get COVID-19 infections than NPW. PW with COVID-19 infections were more likely to require hospital admission, intubation treatments, and ICU admission compared to NPW with COVID-19. PW with immunosuppression had an increased odds ratio (aOR) of getting COVID-19 infections compared to NPW (PW: aOR = 1.0396; NPW: aOR = 0.8373). NPW with immunosuppression had higher risk of mortality (all-cause death: aOR = 1.7084; COVID-19-associated death: aOR = 1.4079) and hospitalisation (all-cause hospitalisation: aOR = 4.1328; COVID-19-associated hospitalisation: aOR = 3.0451) than NPW without immunosuppression. Renal disease was identified as a concerning pre-existing condition that increased the risks of COVID-19 associated mortality/hospitalizations and all-cause mortality/hospitalizations for both PW and NPW. NPW with renal disease had much higher odds ratio (aOR) of either COVID-19-associated-hospitalisations (NPW: aOR = 8.639; PW: aOR = 1.7603) or all-cause hospitalisations (NPW: aOR = 8.8594; PW: aOR = 1.786) than PW with renal disease. Conclusions This study provides valuable insights into the impact of pregnancy and pre-existing comorbidities on COVID-19 outcomes in WRA. The findings underscore the importance of considering demographic factors and pre-existing comorbidities in the management of PW with COVID-19. The study also highlights the need for further research to understand the unique impacts of different comorbidities, particularly immunosuppression and renal disease, on COVID-19 outcomes in WRA.

Canadian data suggests people who are pregnant face significantly higher risks of serious COVID-19 requiring hospitalization, ICU admission, or life support — a particular concern because pregnant people tend to have lower rates of vaccination.

Since first being identified in December 2019, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) as an etiological agent behind Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19), has caused three waves of a global pandemic, with a fourth in progress. ...

Nearly a year ago, New Zealand’s intelligence services warned of the ‘realistic possibility’ of future COVID-related violent extremism. How concerned should people be now?

OPINION: Conspiracy theories are another major tool in the propaganda kit.

Data from around the world support the general safety of the COVID-19 vaccines. Some people online, however, incorrectly claim that illegally obtained data from New Zealand show the vaccines have killed 13 million people worldwide. Experts say the analysis is bogus.

“When you reduce the quality of discourse down to street-fighting level,” it can raise the risk of violence, said a former consultant to U.S. intelligence services.

On any given day in B.C., the large majority of people in hospital intensive care units are unvaccinated. On Nov. 5, 59 of 64 COVID patients age 59 and younger in I…

Officials said 3.9 per cent of the 400,413 COVID-19 cases between Dec. 14 and June 26 involved partially vaccinated individuals and 0.4 per cent were in those fully immunized.

Countries without face mask mandates experienced significantly higher COVID-19 deaths per million than countries that enacted mask mandates, investigators report in a new study.

We extend previous studies on the impact of masks on COVID-19 outcomes by investigating an unprecedented breadth and depth of health outcomes, geographical resolutions, types of mask mandates, early versus later waves and controlling for other ...

Mask mandates were linked to slower uptick in COVID-19 deaths in a study analyzing data on 44 countries with a combined population of nearly 1 billion

Notes taken whilst preparing a paper on mask efficacy from Nov to Jan 2022. My previous paper on this was written in April 2020 and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science

Studies of a ‘future-proof’ vaccine candidate have shown that just one antigen can be modified to provide a broadly protective immune response in animals. The

Researchers from the California Institute of Technology say the “mosaic-8” vaccine could protect people from other coronaviruses, including SARS and MERS.

Provinces across the country are starting to lift their restrictions and this is how some of the hardest hit ones are faring.

In response to a poll by Research Co., 37 per cent of Canadians reported they were infected themselves, or someone in their household was infected after restrictions lifted.

Bridge Consulting examines the opportunities and challenges ahead for China’s mRNA vaccine industry in the post-COVID era. Having eschewed foreign-made mRNA products from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna during the peak of the pandemic in the hope of securing domestic alternatives, China and its sizeable biopharma industry now face a challenging path ahead to catch up to…

China's labs have spent years trying to create an mRNA vaccine - its own shots were less effective.

Having access to an mRNA vaccine will be critical to China’s ongoing COVID response.

Beijing approves the first vaccine of its kind as it looks to jumpstart its flailing economy

Purpose To improve understanding of the barriers and enablers to implementing gender and intersectional analysis during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. Methods We conducted a policy document analysis (n = 70) of equity-focused policies of the Canadian government published between March 2020 and August 2023. This analysis was complemented with 16 semi-structured key informant interviews with federal policy actors and leadership of civil society organizations. Results Pandemic policy documents demonstrated multiple commitments to address pandemic related inequities, with key informants describing collaborative approaches to implementing these policies, but also limits in terms of the urgent and diffused nature of pandemic response. Implementation gaps related to accessible information, health services and vaccinations were noted and attributed to a reliance on civil society actors who lacked sufficient and sustainable resources, and the behaviors of priority populations whose capacity to comply was limited by the same inequities the policies sought to address. Conclusion The Canadian federal government made concerted efforts to address the needs of a range of priority populations and equity issue areas within its pandemic response, with mixed results. Having a pre-established framework to guide implementation and related relationships overcame some of the urgency challenges related with pandemic response. However, implementation gaps reflected preexisting inequities shaped by broader economic, social and political systems which were infrequently addressed in pandemic policies. There is a need for greater understanding of policy implementation gaps during emergency and crisis response.

The pandemic created dangerous cracks in public confidence in science, governments and public health.

Tania Bubela and colleagues examine how fragmented responsibilities and accountability for public health data hindered Canada’s pandemic response Canada’s public health system was reformed after its 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak, which was the worst outside of Asia with 438 cases and 44 deaths.1 Ensuing national and provincial inquiries led to the creation of the national Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) to coordinate Canada’s preparation for and response to public health threats.2 Subnational public health agencies were also created or strengthened to function as regional centres for disease control.1 These actions should have put Canada in a good position to respond to the covid-19 pandemic.34 Despite these reforms, Canada experienced serious failures during the covid-19 pandemic. Memories faded rapidly after SARS, and if history is not to repeat itself, government and health system leaders must strengthen the country’s public health and healthcare systems in preparation for the next threat. Health authorities as well as all Canadians need to reflect on the crises of the past three years—what went well and why; what caused pandemic response failures, and what were their consequences? Here, in the first of a series of articles examining Canada’s response and setting out suggestions for a national inquiry, we examine the limitations of the country’s decentralised structure for public health decision making and missed lessons from the 2003 SARS-CoV-1 outbreak, particularly with regard to data infrastructure.5 Other articles in the series examine how research and data failed to inform public health responses tailored to community and population needs,6 the predictable failures in long term care,7 and Canada’s role in global vaccine inequity.8 Canada’s cumulative confirmed covid-19 death rate, as of June 2023, was 1372 per million population, exceeding the global average of 855 per million …