February 10, 2022

February 10th is the 41st day of the year. There are 324 days remaining until the end of the year.

Ontario is making 8.8 million boxes of free individual rapid tests available over the next two months.

The kits are available to the general public at thousands of grocery and pharmacy locations across the province.

A list of participating locations shows 22 retailers in Chatham-Kent. A full list of locations can be found at Ontario.ca/rapidtest.

The Ontario government is extending health-card renewals until the end of September.

Residents can continue using their expired health cards — and anyone who still has a red-and-white health card — to get care.

The deadline has been extended to September 30th for renewal, from the previous February 28th deadline.

The province says that anyone who is having difficulties renewing their health card can contact ServiceOntario at 1-866-532-3161 or go online to ServiceOntario.

To ensure all individuals can continue to access #HealthCare services, Ontario is extending the requirement to renew health cards until September 30.

Ontarians will continue to be able to use their expired health card to access insured health care. https://t.co/hks10bYgUF pic.twitter.com/rL4jLPz92V

— Ontario Ministry of Health (@ONThealth) February 9, 2022

The 2021 census data was released Wednesday.

The newly released census numbers put Canada’s population at 36,991,981 in the spring of last year, with close to 27.3 million Canadians living in one of Canada’s 41 large urban centres.

There are approximately 1.8 million more people living in Canada than there were five years ago. Immigration — not birth rate — was the driver in Canada’s population growth from 2016 to 2021.

The population of Chatham-Kent grew by 2.2%, up to 104,316 citizens.

The London region is one of Canada’s fastest-growing metro – and the fastest in Ontario – its population grew 10% in the last five years.

Ontario reported 2,059 people hospitalized due to the virus – a drop of more than 800 from a week ago.

Chatham-Kent Public Health only reports data on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. Yesterday no new deaths were reported and local hospitalizations were down to 9.

More hardware for Canada at the Winter Olympics.

Short-track speedskater Steven Dubois won a silver medal in the men’s 1,500 metres on Day 5.

Two medals to begin Day 6: Eliot Grondin wins a silver in snowboard cross.

Bronze medal win for Jack Crawford in alpine combined. Canada’s first ever Olympic medal in the alpine combined.

The mens hockey team will play their first game this morning against Germany at 8:10am.

Canada now has 10 medals; 1 Gold, 3 Silver and 6 Bronze – good for 12th overall.

Categorised in: 5 Things You Need To Know

This post was written by Chris McLeod