Monday marks one year since the first case of the virus that causes COVID-19 was confirmed in Canada, in a patient who came to Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital after returning from Wuhan, China.
While many of the lessons learned from the early days of the novel coronavirus are being applied in the pandemic’s second wave, concerns remain about inadequate protections in long-term care and the disproportionate impact of the virus on people of colour.
Among both long-term care residents and the general public, more people have now died of COVID-19 in Ontario during the second wave than in the six months after the global pandemic was declared in March.
“These are all preventable deaths,” said Dr. Nitin Mohan, an assistant professor at Western University in London, Ont., and a physician epidemiologist with the public health consulting firm ETIO.
Long-term care crisis continues
“The fact that we’re this far along in the pandemic and we’re still seeing the outbreaks and deaths in long-term care homes, it’s almost embarrassing that this is happening,” Mohan said in an interview.
Dr. Zain Chagla is an infectious disease specialist in Hamilton, Ont. (Craig Chivers/CBC)
Infectious diseases specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch of Toronto’s University Health Network calls what happened in Ontario’s long-term care homes last spring tragic.
“What’s more tragic is how it’s unfolding in the second wave, because there certainly could have been steps taken between wave one and wave two to significantly protect the most vulnerable population among us,” said Bogoch in an interview.
“What we’re seeing in the long-term care facilities just demonstrates, unfortunately, years and years of neglect,” he said. “It was awful to watch this unfold, but sadly, it was predictable.”
Uncertainties characterized early days
In the first two months of 2020, predictions varied about how Canada would be affected by the novel coronavirus first identified in China.
Public health officials and political leaders seemed to tilt more toward calming fears about COVID-19 than sounding the alarm.
There were repeated assurances that the risk in Ontario was low, that the general public should refrain from wearing masks. Well into March, officials were saying that no evidence could be found of community spread.
At a news conference inside the Ontario legislature on Jan. 25, 2020, officials announced Canada’s first confirmed case of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press)
“Those uncertainties in the early part of the pandemic were real because we just didn’t know,” said Bogoch.
Although he acknowledged that public health messaging adapted over time, Bogoch said it didn’t do so as fast as they would have liked.
The system was slow to acknowledge that the virus was not just being imported by travellers returning from a handful of distant countries, said Dr. Zain Chagla, an infectious diseases physician in Hamilton and an associate professor of medicine at McMaster University.
“I think the pivot from this being a travel disease to this being an endemic disease was done relatively late,” Chagla told CBC in an interview.
“There’s something to be said about understanding the evidence has changed and recognizing it quickly and making those changes quickly.”
Chagla said a crucial point came in late February when community transmission was identified in the U.S. and doctors in Canada were seeing people returning from the U.S. with COVID-19.
“There was no hope that this was not going to (spread in) Canada at that point,” he said. “I think probably that was the turning point to say, ‘OK, there is a risk here to us. We need to start invoking public health measures.’ ”
Ontario declared its state of emergency on March 17, and the federal government halted non-essential travel across the land border with the U.S. on March 20.
Mohan believes governments acted decisively to impose lockdown measures in the spring.
“We were dealing with something that was relatively new and unknown, getting data and making decisions in real time,” he said.
During the first two months of the pandemic, Ontario had limited capacity to test for COVID-19. Except for people who had travelled out of the country, most of the general public couldn’t get tested unless they were sick enough to go to hospital. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press)
Lack of testing hampered tracking
When experts look back to the early months of 2020, there’s a general consensus that Ontario’s hospital sector mobilized quickly to face COVID-19, readying for a potential surge of patients even as supplies of personal protective equipment were tight.
However there’s also strong agreement that Ontario’s limited capacity to test for the coronavirus hampered the ability to track its spread.
Until May, Ontarians couldn’t get a test for COVID-19 unless they met a strict range of criteria that excluded much of the general public.
Given the death rates in the first wave, scientists believe the actual number of infections in the spring was far higher than the officially reported case counts.
“There were some clear limitations in our testing capacities that are a result of poor funding models of public health,” said Mohan.
“In a once in a generation pandemic, when we need to act quickly and decisively, it’s hard to do that when you’re sort of building a plane in the sky.”
The ability of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to be transmitted by people before they showed any symptoms also confounded the experts.
Early on, officials put a big emphasis on screening people for symptoms such as fever and cough. Although that helped identify a significant proportion of cases, it sent an inaccurate message that people couldn’t spread the virus before showing symptoms.
“Had we known clearly that there was pre-symptomatic transmission, I think the way we would have handled things would have been much different,” said Chagla.
Dr. Isaac Bogoch is an infectious disease specialist at the University Health Network in Toronto. (Craig Chivers/CBC)
He said quarantines would have been imposed on travellers sooner and the way public health officials traced cases would have changed significantly.
Chagla, Bogoch and Mohan all say too little was done to protect people in racialized and low-income communities.
The one-year anniversary of the virus in Canada comes amid signs that the second wave is starting to recede, albeit with warnings that new case numbers will only continue to drop if public health restrictions stay in place.
There are also fears that highly contagious variants of the coronavirus could either prolong the second wave or drive an even more widespread third wave before the bulk of the population gets vaccinated.
Thousands of new infections are still being reported every day across the country, and the average daily number of deaths is not expected to decrease for weeks.
About 200,000 Canadians have contracted COVID-19 in the past month alone. The case fatality rates among different age demographics suggest that hundreds of those will die.
“It’s hard for me to reconcile with the mistakes being made in the second wave,” said Mohan.
It has been a difficult start to the NFL season for quarterback Bryce Young and the Carolina Panthers.
Carolina has dropped its opening two games after Sunday’s 26-3 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers. And Young, the first player taken in the ’23 NFL draft, was 18-of-26 passing for 84 yards with an interception while being sacked twice.
As a result, veteran Andy Dalton will start Sunday when Carolina faces the Las Vegas Raiders (1-1).
According to the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp., the Chargers’ win was the most accurately predicted moneyline selection by Proline bettors. A whopping 92 per cent of wagers were on Los Angeles beating Carolina with 92 per cent also picking the Chargers to cover -4.5.
In other action that went in favour of Proline bettors: Kansas City edged Cincinnati 26-25 (86 per cent correctly selected the Chiefs to win); Houston got past Chicago 19-13 (81 per cent); the New York Jets defeated Tennessee 24-17 (78 per cent); Pittsburgh beat Denver 13-6 (76 per cent), Washington beat the New York Giants 21-18 (73 per cent); and Seattle toppled New England 23-20 (62 per cent).
However, only five per cent of bettors had the Raiders upsetting Baltimore 26-23.
And there was one winner of Proline’s second week main NFL pool of $407,613.
In NFL futures bets after the second week of the season, the odds for offensive player of the year got shorter for running backs Breece Hall (Jets) and Bijan Robinson (Atlanta) and Detroit receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown. But they got longer for running backs Kyren Williams (Rams), Christian McCaffrey (San Francisco) and Jonathan Taylor (Colts).
Quarterbacks Bo Nix (Denver), Jayden Daniels (Washington) and Caleb Williams (Chicago) all had their odds for offensive rookie of the year go up while they went down for running back Ray Davis (Buffalo), tight end Brock Bowers (Raiders) and receiver Malik Nabers (Giants).
Quarterbacks Patrick Mahones (Chiefs), Aaron Rodgers (Jets) and Jalen Hurts (Eagles) all had their odds for regular season MVP go up. But quarterbacks Jordan Love (Packers), Lamar Jackson (Baltimore) and Joe Burrow (Cincinnati) all saw theirs go down.
Kansas City, Philadelphia and Houston had their Super Bowl odds increase while Green Bay, Baltimore and Cincinnati all decreased.
Not surprising, the week’s top events were all NFL games. In order, they were; Buffalo-Miami, Chicago-Houston, Cincinnati-KC, Raiders-Ravens; and Saints-Cowboys.
A Proline retail player cashed in a $26,183 winner from a $10 bet on a 12-leg major-league baseball parlay. Another won $24,602 from a $10 wager on a 12-leg NFL parlay.
A third received $1,737 from a $3 bet on a six-leg NFL parlay.
A digital bettor earned $2,927 from a $25 bet on a five-leg NFL parlay while a second had a $704.35 return from a $1 wager on a seven-leg NFL parlay.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich. (AP) — Lions coach Dan Campbell is selling his suburban Detroit home to get more privacy.
“There’s plenty of space, it’s on two acres, the home is beautiful,” Campbell told Crain’s Detroit Business. “It’s just that people figured out where we lived when we lost.”
He didn’t elaborate.
Campbell and wife Holly listed the 7,800-square-foot house in Bloomfield Hills for $4.5 million this week. A deal was pending within 24 hours, Crain’s reported.
Campbell was hired by the Lions in 2021. After a 3-13-1 record that season, the team has become one of the best in the NFL, reaching the NFC championship game last January.
Campbell’s home was built in 2013 for Igor Larionov, a Hockey Hall of Fame member who played for the Detroit Red Wings.
The likely buyers are “huge” Lions fans, said Ashley Crain, who is representing Campbell and the buyers in the sale.
Ariella Kimmel and Mandi Johnson were grabbing a bite to eat in Vienna, when their August trip to the Austrian capital was upended.
The Canadian duo had travelled to the city to see Taylor Swift in concert only to learn her shows would be cancelled because of two men plotting to launch an attack on fans outside the venue, Ernst Happel Stadium.
While Kimmel and Johnson were disappointed they weren’t going to be able to see Swift perform, they made the most of the remainder of their trip. However, the experience serves as a buyer’s beware for Canadians considering jet setting to see their favourite artists or teams.
“If you’re travelling to these concerts, it’s really hard to protect yourself,” said Kimmel, a Toronto-based vice-president at a public affairs firm who had previously travelled with Johnson to see Swift in Las Vegas, Nashville and Stockholm.
Such trips can make lifelong memories when they go off without a hitch, but cancellations and rescheduled events are common because of artist illnesses, poor ticket sales, security threats, unruly weather and natural disasters.
In the last year alone, Jennifer Lopez and the Black Keys scuttled touring plans after tickets had been sold, while Bruce Springsteen, Usher and Pink had to tell fans they couldn’t take the stage mere hoursbefore show time.
Between airfares, hotels, travel expenses and tickets, last-minute cancellations can leave globe-trotting eventgoers out hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars.
“Regrettably, unpredictability has always been a reality of the industry but it’s increasingly common that there might be things that are going to interrupt your plans, especially plans that you’re really excited about,” said Jenny Kost, the Calgary-based global director of strategic sales initiatives at Corporate Traveller Canada.
“It’s a tricky one because the airline or hotel understands the reason behind your travel but its likelihood of happening or not happening is a little bit outside of their purview.”
Because Swift is known to power through shows even when sick, Kimmel never imagined a concert she was headed to would ever be cancelled, but she always booked plane tickets and hotels that could be rescheduled or refunded — a move she recommends to others travelling for events.
“It’s like common sense, you never know what’s going to happen,” Kimmel said.
However, making use of the rescheduling and refund options her hotel booking and airline tickets had weren’t an option for Kimmel this time because she had already been in Austria for a few days and had very little of her stay left when Swift cancelled.
Had the show been nixed before Kimmel left home, the flexibility baked into the bookings would have been useful, though Kost said such arrangements aren’t cheap.
“There is a cost associated with that that’s not insignificant,” she warned, estimating these kinds of bookings can add hundreds of dollars to your bill and have lots of quirks in the fine print.
The better bet is travel insurance, Kost said. It’s often cheaper than flexible fares and hotel bookings and can reimburse customers for accommodations and flights they have to drop or swap when an event gets cancel or an emergency strikes.
Kost opted for such insurance when she journeyed to Paris to see Swift over the summer and bought it again in a cab on her way to Mexico for a wedding. The insurance cost her about $150 for a week, but when she had to extend her stay because she fell ill, it covered the cost of all of her accommodations.
She doesn’t encourage people to wait until the last minute to buy the insurance like she did because buying it early can provide some reprieve when an event you’re travelling to is cancelled well in advance.
Travel costs aside, people heading out-of-town for events that wind up cancelled also have to consider whether they will get the money they spent on entry fees and tickets back.
In Kimmel and Johnson’s case, they paid Ticketmaster about $300 per seat. They learned just after the cancellation that they would be refunded — but not for an $85 transaction fee they were charged when purchasing the tickets.
“We paid $85 to not see her but I guess that in the grand scheme of what we were going to pay, it’s not a lot at all,” Kimmel said.
They did not opt to buy insurance on their tickets, which Ticketmaster offers through Allianz Global Assistance for $8, plus tax. Allianz’s vice-president of marketing and insights Dan Keon said the insurance offers coverage up to $1,000 per ticket.
In addition to offering refunds if an event is cancelled by a venue or promoter, the coverage can provide a reimbursement for a variety of situations. Those include if you are facing a serious medical issue or death, have a family member in life-threatening condition, are summoned by the military or are delayed in arriving at the venue because of a common transportation carrier.
If you’re going to opt into the insurance, Keon said review the terms ahead of time, so you understand exactly what scenarios you will be covered in.
The insurance, for example, can’t be used in the event of a pandemic, war or natural disaster.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
