Kristen Villebrun and Wendy Bush hoped they wouldn't have to pray for Chedoke Creek, but four years after they first raised alarm about the water's condition, they were part of an Indigenous full moon ceremony to do just that. About 50 people showed up near Princess Point on the dark and frigid Monday evening for the monthly ceremony, which was particularly special as it focused on Chedoke Creek. The body of water that runs into Cootes Paradise had about 24 billion litres of sewage and storm water runoff leak into it due to a gate being left open.
Go into any store these days and there's a mixture of people wearing masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and those who are opting not to wear one. It may have people feeling like they're in COVID-19 limbo. Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang, the Region of Waterloo's medical officer of health, says currently there's "no cut and dry threshold" when it comes to mask wearing and "it will vary according to individual comfort levels."
The University of Waterloo's wastewater monitoring shows an Omicron subvariant has been detected in Waterloo region. The BA.2 subvariant appears to be even more transmissible than the original Omicron mutation of COVID-19, says Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang, medical officer of health for the Region of Waterloo, but there's no evidence that it is a more severe mutation. The samples came from the water treatment plant in the City of Waterloo on Jan. 4 and 9 and from the University of Waterloo water treatment plant on Jan. 18, researcher Meghan Fuzzen told CBC Kitchener-Waterloo. They were independently confirmed by two different out-of-province labs.
