Municipalities facing billions in COVID-19 costs in 2021, Ontario fiscal watchdog says

The Big Boost continues today, promoting the booster dose to anyone over 18 who has had their second dose more than 3 months ago. Many vaccination centres will be open extended hours over the weekend to encourage people to get their booster.

RIDLEY, Pa. - Maureen Tribuiani said she knows her 87-year-old mother’s time is coming. It’s an indescribable pain, but one that was slightly alleviated knowing she was at least in good hands."We don’t know if it’s going to be weeks,or a month, or months, but she’s still at the end, and I want her happy and comfortable, and she was very comfortable there," Tribuiani said.She brought her mother, Mary "Mae" Doherty, to the 10-bed inpatient hospice unit at Taylor Hospital in Ridley Park back on Jan.

Health Minister Jason Copping explains why the Alberta government chose to start loosening COVID-19 health measures immediately instead of waiting for numbers to come down.

The blockade at the Ambassador Bridge is now into its fourth day. The structure links Windsor with Detroit and is critical for trade between Canada and the United States. Now, the blockade is beginning to impact jobs. Sean O’Shea reports.

Interim Conservative Leader Candice Bergen called on members of the trucker convoys blockading roads and highways across the country over opposition to COVID-19 public health measures to “take down the barricades, stop the disruptive action, and come together.”

Frustrations and conflicts tied to the trucker convoy in Ottawa are spilling over onto new fronts Thursday, with protesters mobilizing at the local airport. Global News spoke with one of the protesters during the attempt to cause traffic disruptions.

COVID-19-related hospitalizations and intensive care admissions across Ontario are behind the decision to lift Directive 2 – an initiative issued last month ordering hospitals to pause non-urgent and non-emergent surgeries and procedures. Timeline to lift all COVID-19 measures in Ontario coming soon, top doctor says But Hamilton Health Sciences’ president says “occupancy pressures” will hold back the city’s largest network with acute occupancy rates over 100 per cent at two of its major hospitals.“As we continue to face occupancy pressures well over 100 per cent and as high as 120 per cent of some of our sites, like the Juravinski, particularly, Hamilton Health Sciences is not yet in a position to resume business as usual or services on any significant scale,” HHS’s Rob MacIsaac told staff in a town hall.MacIsaac revealed ramp-up plans are proceeding “cautiously and gradually” but said a resumption of the services is not in the cards yet until executives are certain access to urgent and emergent care will not be affected.As of Thursday, combined Hamilton’s hospitals are treating 164 COVID patients – about 60 less than the same day last week.There are 19 patients in intensive care units (ICU), representing 15 less than last Thursday.HHS total adult ICU occupancy rate is at 89 per cent as of Feb.

Health Minister Jason Copping explains why the Alberta government chose to scrap its restrictions exemption program immediately.

Health Minister Jason Copping explains the reasoning behind the removal of masking mandates for children under 12 in Alberta.

CHERRY HILL, N.J. - ‘Who can it be knocking at my door?' isn't just the snappy opening line to a popular ‘80s song, authorities say it's actually an extremely important question. Police are reminding residents to know who is knocking before they open the door after an extra cautious Cherry Hill resident mistook an unidentified township worker for an imposter and warned others on social media. Officials said the confusion stemmed from the township worker using a personal car, but now the encounter is being used as a teaching moment.

The chief medical officer of health announced Thursday that extracurricular school activities and non-urgent, non-emergent surgeries are set to resume in Ontario. Erica Vella reports.

Ontario’s top doctor says a timeline for lifting all COVID-19 measures in the province is coming soon.Dr. Kieran Moore was asked during a COVID-19 media briefing Thursday whether the public can expect an update soon on when measures, including masking and the proof of vaccination system, will be lifted.“We will be reviewing the evidence and … the evidence is showing we’re making remarkable improvement in all of the key metrics in Ontario and that forces us to review all public health measures that are in play,” Moore said.

Medical officials and members of the travel industry are calling on the Canadian government to ease travel restrictions for fully vaccinated people. Shallima Maharaj reports.

Instagram, informing us that at this point the doctors have done everything that they can to help her. It seems at this point it’s just a case of waiting to see if it has been enough. Tyrese certainly is not losing faith.

Download the FOX 5 DC News App for Local Breaking News and WeatherAccording to The Post, Monique Miles falsely claimed Donald Trump won the election, praised the Capitol rioters as "patriots" and espoused conspiracy theories about voter fraud on Facebook. The newspaper reported it had obtained screenshots of the posts, authenticated them with people who interacted with Miles, and shared them with the office of Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares.A spokeswoman for Miyares confirmed Miles’ resignation and said that her posts had been unknown to the office before Thursday morning."The Attorney General has been very clear - Joe Biden won the election and he has condemned the January 6th attack," spokeswoman Victoria LaCivita said in a statement to The Associated Press.READ MORE: Virginia's new attorney general removes 2 lawyers at public universitiesThe Post reported that the social media comments from Miles were not publicly visible but that Miles said they had not been deleted.Miles, who could not immediately be reached by the AP for comment, told The Post in an email that the posts were being taken out of context and were shared in a "character assassination to stir up controversy.""The posts were made at a time when the news was still developing re: the facts around the election, the court cases, the Rally on the Ellipse and what happened at the capitol," Miles said in the email, the Post reported.

Los Angeles - Ye, commonly known as Kanye West, is threatening to cancel his performance at Coachella over comments Billie Eilish made about rapper Travis Scott at a recent concert.The rapper posted a screenshot to his Instagram Thursday regarding Eilish’s reported comments about Scott at a concert in Atlanta. "Billie Eilish dissed Travis Scott at her concert after she stopped the show to give her fan an inhaler! ‘I wait for the people to be okay before I keep going,’" the post West screenshotted read. In the comments, West wrote, "COME ON BILLIE WE LOVE YOU PLEASE APOLOGIZE TO TRAV AND TO THE FAMILIES OF THE PEOPLE WHO LOST THEIR LIVES."He continued: "NO ONE INTENDED THIS TO HAPPEN TRAV DIDN’T HAVE ANY IDEA OF WHAT WAS HAPPENING WHEN HE WAS ON STAGE AND WAS VERY HURT BY WHAT HAPPENED AND YES TRAV WILL BE WITH ME AT COACHELLA BUT NOW I NEED BILLIE TO APOLOGIZE BEFORE I PERFORM." At a recent concert, Eilish was seen stopping her show to make sure a fan who could not breathe was given an inhaler and seemingly dissed Travis Scott by saying "I wait for the people to be OK before I keep going."Billie Eilish performs onstage during her "Happier Than Ever" tour opener at Smoothie King Center on February 03, 2022 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Live Nation) Scott was the headliner for the sold-out Astroworld Festival in NRG Park in Houston in November, which was attended by an estimated 50,000 people.

Helmets of the Los Angeles Rams and Cincinnati Bengals sit in front of the Lombardi Trophy. (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images) WASHINGTON - And then there were two. On Sunday, Feb.

LAS VEGAS - Nevada and its casinos have rescinded requirements for people to wear masks in public, joining most other U.S. states lifting restrictions that were imposed to limit the spread of the coronavirus.Democratic Gov.

Quebec logs 35 new deaths as hospitalizations continue to drop Health Minister Christian Dubé has said he would introduce a bill in March to lift the state of emergency, but he has also said it would be up to the opposition as to whether the legislation passes before June.Eric Duhaime, the leader of the Conservative Party of Quebec, which has one seat in the province’s legislature but has seen its support rise in recent polls, said he thinks the government is delaying the introduction of the bill to avoid scrutiny.Quebec’s Public Health Act requires the government to submit a report on the state of emergency, including details about contracts that were awarded without public tenders, within a specific period after the emergency order is lifted. If the bill is passed in June, Duhaime told reporters in Quebec City on Thursday that the government could avoid tabling that report until after an October election.“The (legislature) will not be in session until November,” he said.

Peterborough Public Health reported a new death and hospitalized case along with 26 new lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to data released late Thursday afternoon. Timeline to lift all COVID-19 measures in Ontario coming soon, top doctor says The health unit’s COVID-19 tracker, issued at 4:22 p.m., reported the following data for the jurisdiction of Peterborough, Peterborough County, Curve Lake First Nation and Hiawatha First Nation: 54 since the pandemic was declared. The health unit says death reported Thursday was a woman in her 90s who was vaccinated.: 26 since the Wednesday, Feb.

Dr. Kieran Moore was asked on Thursday about the eventual removal of COVID-19 restrictions in the province, including mask mandates and proof of vaccination.

Canada brought home another four more medals on day 6 of the Beijing Olympics with a bronze in freestyle skiing, a bronze in speed skating, a bronze in alpine skiing — a first-time podium placement for the country in the event — and a silver in snowboard cross.

The Washington Post is reporting that Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials are telling vaccine providers to prepare for a Feb 21 rollout of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 6 months to 4 years, just 1 week after advisers from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are set to vote on an emergency authorization of the vaccine.

A cross-sectional study of more than half a million National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division 1 athletes and 3.5 million nonathletes suggests that participation in collegiate athletics was not tied to higher COVID-19 test positivity in the 2020-21 academic year.

Ontario’s top medical official, Dr.

On Thursday, due to a decrease in COVID-19 cases and higher rate of youth vaccinations, Ontario’s top doctor Dr. Kieran Moore announced schools have the green light to resume extra-curricular activities such as sports and musical practices – to which students could remove their face masks.

Bob Saget’s autopsy report showed that he had contracted COVID-19 at the time of his death. The report, which showed that he’d died from head trauma and internal injuries, also found that a test on his respiratory system showed that he was positive for COVID when he died on January 9.

RELATED: COVID-19 may make common pregnancy complications worse, study suggestsThe study bolsters evidence from small case reports and it confirms that placenta damage rather than an infection of the fetus is the likely cause of many COVID-19-related stillbirths, said Dr. Jeffery Goldstein, a pathologist at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.He was not involved in the study, which was published Thursday in Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine.RELATED: COVID-19 vaccines could temporarily impact length of menstrual cycles, study saysDr.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Astra Space, Inc. launched its first rocket from Florida on Thursday marking a historic milestone for the Alameda, California-based company.

HAZLETON, Pa. - DNA and a 20-year-old genealogy expert helped state police identify the man who abducted, raped and murdered a young girl in a case that rattled a Pennsylvania coal town nearly six decades ago, officials announced Thursday.State police exhumed the long-dead assailant's body last month and said his DNA precisely matched DNA left on the jacket of the victim, 9-year-old Marise Ann Chiverella, who was snatched on the morning of March 18, 1964, as she walked to school in Hazleton, about 80 miles (129 kilometers) north of Philadelphia.Her body was found that afternoon in a nearby waste coal pit. Authorities say she was raped and strangled.Police identified her killer as James Paul Forte, a bartender with a record of violent sexual assault, who died of natural causes in 1980 at age 38.

ATLANTA - While several studies already show that face masks and respirators effectively filter virus-sized particles and help reduce the spread of COVID-19 transmission, yet, another study is backing this evidence up. According to a study, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week, consistent use of a face mask or respirator in indoor public settings was associated with lower odds of a positive COVID-19 test. The study enrolled randomly selected California residents who had received a test result for COVID-19 between Feb. 18, 2021 and Dec.

Good Morning Britain host Piers Morgan has opened up on his fears for the Queen after Prince Charles tested positive for Covid-19 just two days after seeing her. Piers said he feels "deep unease" about the news.It is the second time Charles has contracted the virus, testing positive on Thursday (February 10) morning.

Patty Hajdu says the number of COVID-19 infections in First Nations communities has begun to decline, bringing hope that the worst of the Omicron wave has passed.Hajdu says she understands why Indigenous leaders are sounding an alarm that progress could be lost in regions where provincial governments are rapidly moving to lift public health orders.“Indigenous leaders obviously are concerned,” Hajdu said during a news conference Thursday. High anxiety levels expected in Canadians wary of COVID restrictions lifting - experts Daily active case counts in Indigenous communities have declined 13.2 per cent from last week.

A study in Qatar estimates that previous COVID-19 infection imparts 56% protection against future symptomatic infection caused by the highly transmissible Omicron variant, down from about 90% for other SARS-CoV-2 strains.The study, published yesterday in the New England Journal of Medici

COVID-19 update since Sunday, the Saskatchewan government reported 5,401 provincial PCR confirmed cases and 22 new deaths between Jan. 30 and Feb.

Super Bowl this weekend. The DHS said in a bulletin sent to local and state law enforcement agencies that it has received reports that truckers are planning to "potentially block roads in major metropolitan cities" in a protest against vaccine mandates and other issues. DHS said the convoy could begin in Southern California as early as this weekend, possibly disrupting traffic around the Super Bowl, and reach Washington in March in time for the State of the Union, according to a copy of Tuesday’s bulletin obtained by The Associated Press. It said that the protest could be disruptive and tie up traffic but that there have been no calls for violence. Meanwhile, the truck blockade by Canadians protesting the country’s COVID-19 restrictions is tightening the screws on the auto industry, forcing Ford, General Motors and other car companies to shut down plants or otherwise reduce production on both sides of the U.S.

Middlesex-London Health Unit said Thursday that anyone who visits any of its vaccine clinics will be able to choose between the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines.However, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is currently the only COVID-19 vaccine approved by Health Canada for children aged five to 11 years old. COVID-19 vaccine and booster tracker: How many Canadians are vaccinated? The MLHU’s decision impacts all of the health unit’s mass vaccination clinics, as well as the pop-up vaccination clinics hosted by the Middlesex-London Paramedic Service and the Community Hub COVID-19 vaccination clinics in schools.Since late December, the MLHU had been prioritizing the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for people age 29 and under and providing the Moderna vaccine to clients 30 and over, citing limited supply of the Pfizer vaccine.The health unit is hoping the ability to choose will help increase vaccine availability and uptake, noting that only 51.9 per cent of eligible residents aged 18 and older had received a third dose as of Jan.

PHILADELPHIA - Investigators with the Philadelphia Police Department are offering a $20,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest in a homicide from January. According to police, the department is working to identify the people responsible for the death of an 18-year-old woman on Jan. 13, 2022.

CULPEPER, Va. - President Joe Biden on Thursday touted how his "Build Back Better" policies would limit the cost of prescription drugs and make life more affordable for U.S. families during an appearance in Virginia.Biden’s visit to the town of Culpeper, Virginia, came on the heels of the release of the U.S.

Boris Johnson ending Covid isolation rules is a "distraction" from the PM's lockdown party scandal, said Professor Devi Sridhar who is a member of the Scottish Government Covid-19 Advisory Group.

2022 Academy Awards are just over a month away and while the night is sure to be unforgettable with surprises and snubs, one thing will not be in the cards: covid-19 vaccinations.Hollywood’s biggest night won’t require COVID-19 vaccinations proof for anyone attending the event.The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, according to The Hollywood Reporter, is only asking for attendees to show a negative PCR test or a negative rapid antigen test on the day of the ceremony. Nominees, presenters and stars will gather on March 27 at Los Angeles’ Dolby Theater to celebrate the best and brightest in film.This year’s SAG Awards and Critics Choice Awards, on the other hand, will both require vaccinations.A rep for the SAG Awards (to be held on Feb.

The Queen is being monitored despite not showing any COVID-19 symptoms after her son Prince Charles contracted the virus for a second time Thursday.

Middlesex-London Health Unit reported seven deaths and 115 COVID-19 cases on Thursday, compared with three deaths and 189 cases last Thursday.The deaths involved three men and four women ranging in age from their 60s to 90s. Three were associated with long-term care.LHSC, meanwhile, is caring for 91 inpatients with COVID-19, 22 of whom are in adult critical care.As noted, LHSC is caring for 91 COVID-19 inpatients, with 22 inpatients in adult critical care.

NEW CASTLE, Del. - Delaware State Police is investigating a fatal pedestrian crash that took place on Wednesday evening. According to police, the incident happened near Frenchtown Road in the area of Quigley Boulevard around 5:58 p.m. A 21-year-old woman, who has not yet been identified, was walking on the right shoulder of eastbound Rt. 273.

DARBY TOWNSHIP, Pa. - Briarcliffe Fire Company has been shut down for at least the next 30 days as Delaware County officials investigate the alleged use of racial slurs on a recent virtual meeting. The fire company, located in Darby Township will not be receiving fire calls during the suspension. The suspension comes after a Jan. 27 virtual meeting between township fire companies and commissioners about a potential consolidation. According to a letter from the Goodwill Fire Company obtained by FOX 29, following the end of the meeting, a group of people remained on the call. The letter says there was then a group of people that could be heard discussing the meeting using foul language, and identifies those involved in the conversation as members of the Briarcliffe Fire Company. The conversation, which lasted an hour and 45 minutes, allegedly included racial slurs when discussing members of other fire companies and township residents.One of the Briarcliffe Fire Company members was also accused of making a joke about, Fanta Bility, a young girl who was killed in a shooting in Sharon Hill last fall.Derogatory and otherwise offensive comments were also allegedly made about other township officials.Township officials say the incident is under investigation, and that a criminal referral is expected to be made to the Delaware County District Attorney’s Office. MORE HEADLINES:In their letter, the Goodwill Fire Company Board of directors expressed their concern for the fire companies and safety of the community. "This is not appropriate and does not belong in the township," the letter read. Darby Township officials are scheduled to speak on the issue at 2 p.m.

PHILADELPHIA - The Philadelphia 76ers have reportedly agreed to a trade that would send Ben Simmons, Seth Curry and draft picks to the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for James Harden. ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reports that backup center Andre Drummond will also be heading to Brooklyn as part of the deal, and the 76ers will receive Paul Millsap as part of the deal. Wojnarowski reports that the picks Philadelphia is sending to Brooklyn include an unprotected 2022 first-round pick and a protected 2027 first-round pick.Harden and Simmons have dominated trade deadline headlines in recent weeks as the disgruntled Simmons had yet to suit up for the 76ers this season. Meanwhile the Nets were caught up in the rumor mill as they faced a risk of potentially losing Harden to free agency after the season and losing him for nothing. With Thursday's trade, the Sixers pick up a former league MVP in Harden to pair with MVP candidate Joel Embiid.