VATICAN CITY (AP) - Pope Leo XIV on Sunday denounced the "pandemic of arms, large and small," as he prayed publicly for the victims of the shooting during a Catholic school Mass in the United States. History's first U.S. pope spoke in English as he appealed for an end to the "logic of weapons" and f...

OTTAWA - Federal public servants were less likely to call in sick to work during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, new government data shows. The figures shared by the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat indicate that in 2020-21, when the pandemic had most office employees working entirely remotely, the average num...

TORONTO - Health Canada has authorized updated COVID-19 vaccines by Pfizer and BioNTech and by Moderna for use this respiratory virus season. Moderna says it will manufacture vaccine doses for the Canadian market in its new facility in Laval, Quebec and syringes will be filled in Cambridge, Ontario. News releases from ...

A new study suggests green space helped protect the mental health of city-bound Canadians during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. The peer-reviewed study suggests people who lived in urban areas with more greenery were less likely to be depressed in the first months of the pandemic. Those benefits were stronge...

TORONTO - National health data shows overdose deaths in Canada dropped in 2024 but the toll still remained much higher than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. A joint statement from the country's chief medical officers of health, chief coroners and chief medical examiners says 7,146 people died of opioid-related over...

TORONTO - The Canadian Institute for Health Information says more surgeries are being performed than before the pandemic - but wait times have still grown longer. The report released Thursday looked at wait times for hip and knee replacements, cataract procedures, cancer surgeries, MRIs and CT scans in 2019 and in 2024...

VANCOUVER - The British Columbia Supreme Court says a lawsuit by prison inmates alleging ill treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic can move forward as a class action against the federal government. Inmates claim they were "subject to inhumane rights restrictions" during the pandemic, including being confined...

TORONTO - Canada's gynecologists say COVID-19 vaccination is "strongly recommended" during pregnancy and while breastfeeding. The Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada issued the statement Wednesday, a day after U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. declared the shot no longer recommende...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo after congressional Republicans recommended that he be charged with lying over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, a person familiar with the matter said Tuesday. The U.S. attorney's office in Washingt...

OTTAWA - The federal government expects to spend about $7 million this fiscal year to store and maintain four custom-made, portable hospitals that cost taxpayers more than $200 million to buy - facilities meant to bolster overwhelmed hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic that were barely used. Early on in the pandemic...

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - A jury found the alleged ringleader of a massive pandemic fraud case in Minnesota guilty on all counts Wednesday for her role in a scheme that federal prosecutors say stole $250 million from a program meant to feed children in need. Aimee Bock - the founder of Feeding our Future, the group that prose...

Five years ago, the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic of the novel coronavirus, setting off a series of policies that transformed Canadians' lives for years. The WHO's declaration followed months of warning signs about the dangers of COVID-19, including mass lockdowns in China and Italy, and served a...

TORONTO - Doctors who were thrust into national fame when COVID-19 hit five years ago say they try to focus on positive feedback from the public rather than the angry backlash and threats of violence they faced. British Columbia public health chief Dr. Bonnie Henry still has a security detail to this day because of thr...

There had been warning signs for months. There were the reports of dangerous flu-like symptoms in Asia. News of the lockdown that kept tens of millions of people inside their homes in China. Here at home, the growing ubiquity of blue surgical masks. The advice to sing "Happy Birthday" while washing your hands...

VANCOUVER - Premier David Eby says protecting British Columbians from the potential impact of U.S. tariffs will be taken as seriously as the relief response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He says every decision being taken by his ministers, including plans for next month's budget, will be made through the lens of a "po...

EDMONTON - The organization representing Alberta physicians is calling out a government panel's COVID-19 report as "anti-science." Dr. Shelley Duggan, head of the Alberta Medical Association, says the report sows distrust by going against proven preventive health measures while promoting fringe methods. She s...

VANCOUVER - In early 2020, Lili Wu was already "armed to the teeth" whenever she ventured to public places near her home in Port Coquitlam, B.C. - face mask, sanitizer, protective eyewear and gloves. It was more than a month before the World Health Organization's March declaration of a global pandemic that in...

TORONTO - The Public Health Agency of Canada says federal funding for COVID-19 vaccines will stop this year and the provinces and territories will be responsible for buying them, as well as determining the timing of the vaccinations. The agency published the information online on Friday, along with the National Advisor...

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Former Ohio Health Director Amy Acton, who became a household name in the state in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, is running for governor. Acton, 58, a physician and public health expert who stood alongside Republican Gov. Mike DeWine for months during his daily coronavirus briefings, sa...

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Former Ohio Health Director Amy Acton, who became a household name in the state in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, is running for governor. Acton, 58, a physician and public health expert who stood alongside Republican Gov. Mike DeWine for months during his daily coronavirus briefings, sa...

OTTAWA - The auditor general says the small business loan program the federal government rolled out during the COVID-19 pandemic wasn't managed in a cost-effective way. Auditor general Karen Hogan says the Canada Emergency Business Account program wasn't managed with "due regard for value for money." The prog...

VANCOUVER - A Federal Court judge has dismissed an appeal by a "deeply religious" British Columbia health executive who said he was wrongfully denied employment insurance after being fired three years ago for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Darold Sturgeon was fired as executive director of medical affa...

QUÉBEC - Quebec's anti-corruption unit released its annual report today, saying the past 12 months were busy. The unit, know as UPAC, says 19 people were charged in criminal cases and 18 people were convicted during the 12 months ending March 31, 2024, while 265 individuals or companies were fined. The number of...

TORONTO - An expert panel of doctors and researchers say Canada needs to learn from the COVID-19 pandemic and take action before the next health emergency strikes. One of the six experts, Dr. Fahad Razak, says most scientists believe it's "only a matter of time" before another global health crisis hits. The p...

VANCOUVER - British Columbia's Conservative leader says comparing the Nuremberg trials or Nazi Germany to public health measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic is unacceptable and "deeply disrespectful to the memory of those who suffered" in the Holocaust. That's after video surfaced of Rustad saying his pa...

TORONTO - The Public Health Agency of Canada says it is not providing Novavax's COVID-19 vaccine this respiratory virus season, citing low demand. It says the manufacturer requires a minimum order of its updated protein-based vaccine, called Nuvaxovid, which far exceeds the uptake by Canadians last year. The agency say...

OTTAWA - The federal Liberals are creating a new agency to beef up Canada's ability to handle rapidly spreading infectious diseases and protect from future pandemics. Health Emergency Readiness Canada is tasked with boosting Canada's life-sciences sector and ensuring Canadians get faster access to vaccines, medical the...

Pfizer Canada says Health Canada has approved its updated COVID-19 vaccine that protects against one of the most recently circulating variants of the virus. The Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine, called Comirnaty, targets the KP.2 subvariant of Omicron, replacing the previous version which targeted the XBB.1.5 Omicron subva...