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Heat, overdoses contributed to excess deaths during the pandemic Data from Statistics Canada this week revealed coronavirus infection, extreme heat and drug overdoses contributed to 30,146 excess deaths in the country between March 2020 and the end of December 2021. Although the report found COVID-19 accounted for most of those deaths, it said the pandemic likely had “indirect consequences” such as delayed health care and increased substance abuse. StatCan found there were 4,494 excess deaths among Canadians younger than 45 from May 2020 through December 2021. Most of those deaths were not caused by COVID-19, but rather other causes "such as overdoses," according to the report. And last summer, a record-breaking heat wave in Western Canada led to more than 3,500 deaths in British Columbia and Alberta over a two-week period ending July 10, according to the report. Global News reporters Sean Boynton and Jamie Maraucher have more here. 
Surgery backlogs persist as a result of COVID: report Although Canada’s pandemic-driven surgery backlog is starting to clear up, patients are still facing repeated delays for elective procedures, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) data. Although wait times decreased over an 18-month period between April 2020 and September 2021, patients had to experience repeated delays for surgeries such as cataracts or hip and joint replacements as resources were prioritized for more urgent procedures like hip fracture repair, radiation therapy and cancer surgery. "We can see there's been some rebounding in the surgeries and many are back up to near levels that they were pre-pandemic, but we still have the surgeries that weren't done," said Tracy Johnson, director of health system analytics at CIHI. "We expect it to be a continuing problem for a little while.” Read more from Saba Aziz and Jamie Mauracher here. 
Q: I've been dealing with a COVID-19 infection for the first time. Eight days after first testing positive, I finally got a negative result. However, I still have a cough and can't smell or taste. Could I still be contagious to those around me? How do I know when it's safe to see people again? “The vast majority of people no longer carry active virus past about a week, but rapid tests and PCR tests can detect viral fragments for longer,” says Lynora Saxinger, an infectious diseases physician and associate professor at the University of Alberta. Saxinger noted COVID-19 mostly spreads between two and five days after symptoms begin, but that can vary. For example, people who are severely immunocompromised — such as transplant recipients and cancer patients — may carry the virus for longer, Saxinger said. “However, in most people a positive rapid test later in infection does not necessarily mean that you are still infectious – especially after the first week,” she said. “Isolating during active symptoms is still recommended for at least five days and longer (up to 10 days) if still unwell with core symptoms like fever and cough.” After 10 days, most people would no longer be infectious, Saxinger added. Saxinger said that some COVID symptoms such as loss of smell and fatigue can linger “well past the period of being infectious to others.” | 
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