Unvaccinated NBA star won’t be welcomed back to the Nets until he’s fully able to participate in all team activities
The Brooklyn Nets have said thanks but no thanks to Kyrie Irving’s offer to be a part-time player for their National Basketball Association team. Due to public safety concerns regarding the pandemic, the unvaccinated Irving won’t be allowed to play games in New York. According to the city mandate, anyone entering an indoor gym/arena –…
We need to understand and address the concerns of the vaccine-hesitant
By Gaauree Chawla Research associate Frontier Centre for Public Policy As of Sept. 7, the Ontario government requires all workers in high-risk settings to either take the COVID-19 vaccine, provide a medical reason for refusing vaccination or undergo regular testing and education. This includes workers in health-care, educational and child-care settings. Ontario won’t make vaccines…
We need a lot more ‘we’ people than ‘me’ people – in professional sports and everywhere else
National Basketball Association training camps are in full swing and 50 or so players (of about 530 total) have yet to receive a single COVID-19 vaccine dose. That’s an issue NBA executives and coaches were hoping to avoid. This summer, league officials proposed a mandate requiring all players to be vaccinated against COVID in order…
A University of Alberta engineering duo is getting a boost from the university’s newly formed commercialization engine, imYEG, to get a new device for people with breathing challenges to market. Medical devices that assist people who have a low level of oxygen in their blood have evolved from large stationary tanks of compressed oxygen to…
Politicians and bureaucrats need to stop ignoring the data
Ontario updates its citizens regularly on the province’s hospital and ICU (Intensive Care Unit) statistics, using a dedicated website. It frequently tweets about these numbers, too, through the accounts of premier Doug Ford and health minister Christine Elliott. The statistics generally contain a breakdown between vaccinated and unvaccinated patients. For instance, as of September 27,…
First Indigenous president of the Canadian Medical Association speaks about what it will take to overcome inequities
On Canada’s newly-declared National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, we asked Dr. Alika Lafontaine to take stock of the state of reconciliation in health care. Lafontaine, an anesthesiologist at Queen Elizabeth II Hospital in Grande Prairie and associate clinical professor in the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, was recently chosen as the…
The pandemic may have presented a golden opportunity for the industry to reflect on its future
Did we have too many restaurants before the COVID-19 pandemic? Did the pandemic only wipe out ‘extra’ restaurants in Canada? With the labour shortage, the cost of food ingredients exploding, and the list of regulations growing almost every year, making a restaurant profitable has become difficult. Certainly, the pandemic has presented a golden opportunity for…
Solving poverty in our communities goes far beyond charities and social agencies. Graduates with business, civic planning, arts and other backgrounds have just as much to contribute as social workers, according to University of Alberta poverty researcher Maria Mayan. “We have great young thinkers within our university who want to make a difference in the world…
Any sane person understands that plastic-phobia is irrational and a non-problem
Canadian governments, like many around the world, are once again in the grip of toxic plastic-phobia: an irrational and potentially harmful fear of plastics. Proposals to ban “single-use” plastics (under varying definitions) are all the rage across Canada, where the plastic-phobes, like locusts, have re-emerged from the obscurity imposed on them by the imminent spectre…
Impact of COVID on tourism greater than 9/11, SARS, '08 economic crisis combined
The COVID-19 crisis led to significant travel restrictions around the world. Canada has totally or partially closed its borders to tourists and non-essential travellers. Travel between provinces has also been restricted. Provinces such as New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador banned non-essential travel or all travel between provinces. And we were told not…
Kids anxious about heading back to school after a year of pandemic lockdown can best be helped by parents and teachers getting themselves grounded and present, says a University of Alberta education expert. Connecting with how their bodies respond to stress or fear can help adults deal with any stress or trauma children are experiencing,…
Active students have better grades, enhanced memory, lower absenteeism and better behaviour
The physical activity levels of our young people were already trending downward when COVID-19 hit. The pandemic made things worse. Kids around were stuck at home, forced to try to learn virtually. An online math class is one thing. A physical education class at home is nearly impossible. During the pandemic, physical education has been…
Printing money to address short-term needs will lead to inflation and dampen any potential economic recovery
The financial consequences of COVID-19 and the shutdown of economies are difficult to evaluate. But some of those consequences have begun to appear and could hinder economic recovery. Inflation is one of these harmful consequences. In the United States, consumer prices jumped 4.2 per cent in the 12 months through to April, up from 2.6…
The pandemic is making scapegoats of those that only yesterday we called fellow citizens and neighbours
American writer Lance Morrow recently identified our current moment as the golden age of stupidity. No evidence exists that the author of America: A Rediscovery and Second Drafts of History was peeping across the border watching the 2021 Canadian federal election when he made the claim. That’s probably a good thing. Morrow's language might have…
Blood transfusions from people who recovered from the disease didn’t help patients improve
Giving severely ill COVID-19 patients a blood transfusion from donors who have already recovered from the virus did not help them improve. In some cases, according to a major Canadian-led clinical trial reporting results in Nature Medicine, it made them sicker. “Convalescent plasma had been found to boost immunity in patients infected with some other viral…
The Brooklyn Nets have said thanks but no thanks to Kyrie Irving’s offer to be a part-time player for their National Basketball Association team. Due to public safety concerns regarding the pandemic, the unvaccinated Irving won’t be allowed to play games in New York. According to the city mandate, anyone entering an indoor gym/arena –…
