(Matt Robinson/ Vancouver Sun) — Children in B.C. have borne social, educational and economic costs from the COVID-19 pandemic and they will also face its mental health consequences.

That is among the key messages in a new report intended to help policy-makers support kids during the pandemic and beyond.

The study was   …

(Jackie Dunham/ CTV News) — While the holidays are often a difficult time for people experiencing loneliness, this year may be harder than most as pandemic-related restrictions keep loved ones apart.

This increased isolation has led some experts to worry that it will cause an uptick of loneliness, anxiety, and depression  …

(Josh Pringle/ CTV News) — With the Christmas season getting underway, Ottawa’s medical officer of health is urging people to avoid crowded places and close contact with people outside your household to help limit the spread of COVID-19 and protect loved ones over the holidays.

And while the first doses of COVID-19  …

(Christine Birak/ CBC News) — Those who are pregnant or breastfeeding will have to weigh their own risks when deciding whether to be vaccinated to protect against COVID-19 because it hasn’t been studied in clinical trials, Canadian doctors say.

Without data on the safety of the vaccines during pregnancy and breastfeeding,  …

(Kate Dubinski/ CBC News) — Four months after it allowed a handful of palliative care patients to use psilocybin as a way to relieve end-of-life suffering, Health Canada has cleared the way for more than a dozen health professionals to use the psychedelic drug themselves to help develop therapies for future use.

Health   …

(Margaret Gallagher/ CBC News) — A regular dose of nature could be a potent prescription for reducing pandemic-related stress in heath-care workers.

That’s what the B.C. Parks Foundation is hoping to accomplish with the launch of its Nature Therapy Campaign. The program aims to provide up to 10,000  …

(John Anderer/ Study Finds) — The news about coronavirus and children just got a lot worse. A troubling study by researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia reports a “high proportion” of children infected with SARS-CoV-2 show elevated levels of a biomarker tied to blood vessel damage.

Making matters worse,  …

(Benjamin Shingler, Sean Gordon/ CBC News) — There is sadness, but most of all boredom.

Linda Foy, an octogenarian grandmother of three who lives in Montreal West, recently decided to knit a hat for her daughter because, well, she couldn’t think of anything better to do.

Behind the ennui lurks frustration.

“I’m  …

(Dr. Narayana Subramaniam/ The Wire) — The recent publication of a high-profile study from India showing that patients with severe COVID-19 infections were more likely to have low vitamin D levels as well, and that the death rate was significantly higher among those with low vitamin D, has caused a flutter in the medical  …

(Tina Hesman Saey, Jonathan Lambert/ Science News) — The recent success of some coronavirus vaccines in late-stage clinical trials has inched us closer to the end of the pandemic — a glimmer of hope in a long year of living with the virus.

Now, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is gearing up to consider emergency use authorization  …