The Inevitable Next Pandemic

A new network medicine study finds that melatonin usage may prevent COVID-19 infection, though large-scale trials are needed. Researcher Feixiong Cheng, PhD, discusses his team’s findings.

It’s cheap, widely available and might help us fend off the virus. So should we all be dosing up on the sunshine nutrient?

Thus far, regulatory bodies have failed in this duty.

The first human case of a flu strain similar to a virus circulating in pigs has been reported in the UK. The individual concerned experienced mild illness and fully recovered.

It took pressure from 239 scientists for the WHO to even admit the new coronavirus may spread via aerosols, but in Japan, they're focusing on solutions.

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

Childhood vaccine refusal is a globally contentious topic, with some jurisdictions addressing it with punitive policies. Media discourse influences ho…

With a longtime vaccine skeptic serving as the country’s top health official, the movement is likely to make further inroads.

The economy is plummeting, and millions of Americans need to get back to work. But experts say some arguments for reopening the economy now are short-sighted or flawed.

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 …

Now is the time to learn from the COVID-19 response through an action-oriented independent inquiry focused on accountability. Reforms to data generation, access and use are essential.

The provincial government encourages you to get vaccinated. But are they going to force a choice on that? No, they are not. Are they going to try? Not much.

A wildfire is a better metaphor for this pandemic. We should get used to this and accept that complete normality is a long way off.

The neglected middle child of mental health can dull your motivation and focus — and it may be the dominant emotion of 2021.

The revelations in journalist Bob Woodward’s new book about what U.S. President Donald Trump knew about the threat posed by COVID-19 in the early days of the pandemic have prompted new questions about the Canadian government’s response to the virus, given how much intelligence is shared between the two countries.

Most people believe human rights are broadly based and it's illegal to discriminate between categories of employees. Not true

Facts, data and analytics about biomedical matters

Country failed to collect and share data, masking issues and inequalities, according to editorial in British Medical Journal

The global pandemic has deepened an epidemic of loneliness in America. This report from Making Caring Common, a project of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, explores who is lonely, the many causes of loneliness, and ways to alleviate it.

One simulation of an uncontrolled disease outbreak concluded with riots and the National Guard on the streets.

For years the writer laughed off being mistaken for fellow author Naomi Wolf. Then her ‘double’ drifted into a world of conspiracy theories and became a favoured guest of Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson. With the US standing on a political precipice, suddenly the stakes were a lot higher

Looking back on our conversation with the author and activist on how the left let the far right build a mirror world of negative politics — and how it can change

Ontario is facing a huge spike in cases of measles with the virus rapidly spreading among mostly unvaccinated residents.

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Canada isn’t the beacon of social democracy that many progressive Americans imagine. But when faced with the coronavirus crisis, the US’s inept political class and for-profit health system couldn't even match a country with a moderate welfare state and functional government.

A new modeling study offers a stark look at caseloads in the next two decades if current trends hold. Can the nation’s healthcare system handle the strain?