Britain’s main nurses’ union warned Monday that exhaustion and surging coronavirus cases among medical staff are pushing them to breaking point, adding to pressure on the government for new restrictions to bring down record-high infection numbers driven by the Omicron variant.
Patricia Ma
Ontarians 18 and older will be able to book a COVID-19 vaccine booster through the provincial portal this morning, as long as it has been at least three months since getting the second shot.
The province announced Wednesday that it was expanding eligibility in an effort to bolster defences against the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
rquis, England director for the Royal College of Nursing union, said the situation over the next few weeks looked “very bleak,” as growing absences from sickness and self-isolation hit hospitals struggling to clear a backlog of postponed procedures and treat normal winter sicknesses alongside coronavirus cases.
“In many places they’re already under immense stress and pressure, and so they are starting to go off sick themselves with COVID, but also mental and physical exhaustion,” she told the BBC. “So, staff are looking forward now thinking, ‘Oh my goodness, what is coming?’”
Having repeatedly promised that there will be no repeat of last year’s lockdown-marred Christmas, Prime Minister Boris Johnson faces an agonizing choice: wreck the holiday plans of millions or face a tidal wave of cases and disruption.
s figure skaters twirl around a busy Nathan Phillips Square rink outside his city hall office window, Mayor John Tory is troubled about the year ahead.
Another pandemic budget the city can’t afford, rising cases of a fast-moving variant of COVID-19 that threatens another holiday season together and uncertainty about Toronto — which he often refers to as the “economic engine” of the country — revving back to life in 2022 as hoped.
If the mayor had a wish list this holiday season, it would include this: committed funding from the provincial and federal governments for the cost of shelter and to cover the lack of TTC fares, the arrival of previously promised money to fight gun violence and agreement on council for a path forward on housing options across the city.
