Health

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is once more making some free COVID-19 tests available to all U.S. households as it releases its contingency plans with coronavirus cases ticking upward this winter.

Virtual-care clinics may be adding pressure to the overwhelmed health-care system, the Ontario Medical Association said Thursday, even as some patients and doctors say they are vital alternatives to an otherwise necessary visit to an emergency room.

VICTORIA — Sensitive personal health records of British Columbia residents, from mental health to sexually transmitted disease histories, are "disturbingly" vulnerable to leaks, the provincial privacy watchdog says.

HALIFAX — The planned redevelopment of a sprawling Halifax hospital complex is being reworked to add hundreds more beds and new facilities, the Nova Scotia government announced Thursday.

WHITINGHAM, Vt.

TORONTO — The Ontario government is expanding eligibility for the COVID-19 bivalent booster vaccine to children aged five to 11. The province says kids in that age group will be eligible for a bivalent dose starting Dec. 21.

BEIJING (AP) — A week after China dramatically eased some of the world's strictest COVID-19 containment measures, uncertainty remained Thursday over the direction of the pandemic in the world's most populous nation.

LONDON (AP) — Thousands of nurses walked off their jobs in England on Thursday, escalating a wave of industrial unrest in the U.K.

HONG KONG (AP) — The company that assembles Apple Inc.’s iPhones has announced it is easing COVID-19 restrictions at its largest factory in China that led thousands of workers to quit and drastically slowed production.

A study from the C.D. Howe Institute estimates Canada would have lost $156 billion in economic activity in 2021 had COVID-19 vaccines been rolled out six months later than they were. That would have been equivalent to about 12.