Placing an entire city under quarantine to prevent the spread of a virus is inconceivable, unenforceable and ineffective — and in Canada would be against the law, experts say.
Steven Hoffman, a professor of global health, law and political science at York University, said he was shocked when he heard China had shut down Wuhan, a city of 11 million people that is the epicentre of a new coronavirus outbreak.
“It’s totally unprecedented in public health,” Hoffman said. “It reminds me of what we might see in movies.”
The virus, which is from the same family of viruses that cause the common cold, has so far sickened close to 600 people in China and killed at least 17. Other countries, including the United States, have reported cases of the illness in recent days.
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Canadian public health officials have said several people in two provinces — Quebec and British Columbia — are under observation for signs they may have contracted a coronavirus from China, but no confirmed cases have been reported.
Wuhan and the nearby cities of Huanggang and Ezhou — home to a total of 18 million people — were locked down on Thursday in an unprecedented effort to contain the deadly new virus.
0:46 WHO officials recommend exit screening for coronavirus at airports
WHO officials recommend exit screening for coronavirus at airports
Hoffman said such an extreme quarantine measure would never occur in Canada for a number of reasons.
“In Canada, such a broad, unspecific quarantine measure like this would certainly violate our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms because it would be a restriction on people’s rights that are not justifiable,” he said. “In the Canadian context, it’s inconceivable.”
He pointed to the federal Quarantine Act that gives the government the authority to isolate someone who is a risk to the public.
During the SARS outbreak, which killed 44 people in Canada 17 years ago, those who had the illness were quarantined in health-care facilities, Hoffman said, while those who came in direct contact with an infected person were in quarantine at their homes.
Plus, travel bans do not work, he said, because people who want to get out will find a way, which undermines the whole idea of a quarantine.
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“But from a scientific perspective, the travel ban in China is really intriguing,” he said. “If people are compliant and if there’s way to enforce it and to provide food to 20 million people, maybe it could work — I guess we’ll find out soon.”
0:51 ‘Five or six’ people under observation in Canada for signs of coronavirus
‘Five or six’ people under observation in Canada for signs of coronavirus
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization said Thursday the outbreak in China was not yet a global health emergency, but cautioned that the decision “should not be taken as a sign that WHO does not think the situation is serious or that we’re not taking it seriously.”
Large-scale quarantines are rare around the world, because of concerns about infringing on people’s liberties.
“To my knowledge, trying to contain a city of 11 million people is new to science,” said Gauden Galea, the WHO’s representative in China. “It has not been tried before as a public health measure. We cannot at this stage say it will or it will not work.”
Daniel Kollek, an emergency physician and a professor at McMaster University with a focus on disaster response research, scoffed at the idea of overarching travel bans, be it in China or Canada.
“People are shedding the virus before they’re sick — this is after the horse has bolted,” he said. “If you truly have contained everyone with illness and lock them down, you can shut it off. But that’s not feasible, so this kind of isolation doesn’t have any value.”
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One of the challenges provinces such as Ontario would be faced with in the case of an outbreak is hospital overcrowding, he said.
2:03 Wuhan stops outbound flights, trains to fight virus
Wuhan stops outbound flights, trains to fight virus
“Hospitals are overcrowded, emergency departments are overcrowded and we can’t get people into isolation rooms because they’re already occupied,” he said. “If you can’t isolate a patient, than the risk of communicating disease to other people is obviously higher.”
But Ontario’s Minister of Health Christine Elliott said current overcrowding in hospitals won’t be an issue.
“We have specific measures that will be in place,” Elliott said. “Anyone who is being tested in the future will be placed in isolation and that staff will be given the necessary protective equipment.”
Dr. Barbara Yaffe, Ontario’s associate chief medical officer of health, said they’ll be focused on both quarantine, should someone be infected with the coronavirus, and active surveillance, which means the local public health unit checks in with those who may have been exposed every day.
“With SARS our lessons learned were that full quarantine wasn’t really that necessary, it was more active surveillance is what we ended up doing toward the end and making sure the person doesn’t spread it any further,” she said.
MONCTON, N.B. – New Brunswick RCMP say two youths have been arrested after an emergency alert was issued Monday evening about someone carrying a gun in the province’s southeast.
Caledonia Region Mounties say they were first called out to Main Street in the community of Salisbury around 7 p.m. on reports of a shooting.
A 48-year-old man was found at the scene suffering from gunshot wounds and he was rushed to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Police say in the interest of public safety, they issued an Alert Ready message at 8:15 p.m. for someone driving a silver Ford F-150 pickup truck and reportedly carrying a firearm with dangerous intent in the Salisbury and Moncton area.
Two youths were arrested without incident later in the evening in Salisbury, and the alert was cancelled just after midnight Tuesday.
Police are still looking for the silver pickup truck, covered in mud, with possible Nova Scotia licence plate HDC 958. They now confirm the truck was stolen from Central Blissville.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MISSISSAUGA, Ont. – Golf Canada has set an impressive stretch goal of having 30 professional golfers at the highest levels of the sport by 2032.
The World Junior Girls Golf Championship is a huge part of that target.
Credit Valley Golf and Country Club will host the international tournament from Sept. 30 to Oct. 5, with 24 teams representing 23 nations — Canada gets two squads — competing. Lindsay McGrath, a 17-year-old golfer from Oakville, Ont., said she’s excited to be representing Canada and continue to develop her game.
“I’m really grateful to be here,” said McGrath on Monday after a news conference in Credit Valley’s clubhouse in Mississauga, Ont. “It’s just such an awesome feeling being here and representing our country, wearing all the logos and being on Team Canada.
“I’ve always wanted to play in this tournament, so it’s really special to me.”
McGrath will be joined by Nobelle Park of Oakville, Ont., and Eileen Park of Red Deer, Alta., on Team Canada 2. All three earned their places through a qualifying tournament last month.
“I love my teammates so much,” said McGrath. “I know Nobelle and Eileen very well. I’m just so excited to be with them. We have such a great relationship.”
Shauna Liu of Maple, Ont., Calgary’s Aphrodite Deng and Clairey Lin make up Team Canada 2. Liu earned her exemption following her win at the 2024 Canadian Junior Girls Championship while Deng earned her exemption as being the low eligible Canadian on the world amateur golf ranking as of Aug. 7.
Deng was No. 175 at the time, she has since improved to No. 171 and is Canada’s lowest-ranked player.
“I think it’s a really great opportunity,” said Liu. “We don’t really get that many opportunities to play with people from across the world, so it’s really great to meet new people and play with them.
“It’s great to see maybe how they play and take parts from their game that we might also implement our own games.”
Golf Canada founded the World Junior Girls Golf Championship in 2014 to fill a void in women’s international competition and help grow its own homegrown talent. The hosts won for the first time last year when Vancouver’s Anna Huang, Toronto’s Vanessa Borovilos and Vancouver’s Vanessa Zhang won team gold and Huang earned individual silver.
Medallists who have gone on to win on the LPGA Tour include Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., who was fourth in the individual competition at the inaugural tournament. She was on Canada’s bronze-medal team in 2014 with Selena Costabile of Thornhill, Ont., and Calgary’s Jaclyn Lee.
Other notable competitors who went on to become LPGA Tour winners include Angel Yin and Megan Khang of the United States, as well as Yuka Saso of the Philippines, Sweden’s Linn Grant and Atthaya Thitikul of Thailand.
“It’s not if, it’s when they’re going to be on the LPGA Tour,” said Garrett Ball, Golf Canada’s chief operating officer, of how Canada’s golfers in the World Junior Girls Championship can be part of the organization’s goal to have 30 pros in the LPGA and PGA Tours by 2032.
“Events like this, like the She Plays Golf festival that we launched two years ago, and then the CPKC Women’s Open exemptions that we utilize to bring in our national team athletes and get the experience has been important in that pathway.”
The individual winner of the World Junior Girls Golf Championship will earn a berth in next year’s CPKC Women’s Open at nearby Mississaugua Golf and Country Club.
Both clubs, as well as former RBC Canadian Open host site Glen Abbey Golf Club, were devastated by heavy rains through June and July as the Greater Toronto Area had its wettest summer in recorded history.
Jason Hanna, the chief operating officer of Credit Valley Golf and Country Club, said that he has seen the Credit River flood so badly that it affected the course’s playability a handful of times over his nearly two decades with the club.
Staff and members alike came together to clean up the course after the flooding was over, with hundreds of people coming together to make the club playable again.
“You had to show up, bring your own rake, bring your own shovel, bring your own gloves, and then we’d take them down to the golf course, assign them to areas where they would work, and then we would do a big barbecue down at the halfway house,” said Hanna. “We got guys, like, 80 years old, putting in eight-hour days down there, working away.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
NEW YORK (AP) — Fenway Park has the Ted Williams seat. And now Citi Field has the Grimace seat.
The kid-friendly McDonald’s character made another appearance at the ballpark Monday, when the New York Mets unveiled a commemorative purple seat in section 302 to honor “his special connection to Mets fans.”
Wearing his pear-shaped purple costume and a baseball glove on backwards, Grimace threw out a funny-looking first pitch — as best he could with those furry fingers and short arms — before New York beat the Miami Marlins at Citi Field on June 12.
That victory began a seven-game winning streak, and Grimace the Mets’ good-luck charm soon went viral, taking on a life of its own online.
New York is 53-31 since June 12, the best record in the majors during that span. The Mets were tied with rival Atlanta for the last National League playoff spot as they opened their final homestand of the season Monday night against Washington.
The new Grimace seat in the second deck in right field — located in row 6, seat 12 to signify 6/12 on the calendar — was brought into the Shannon Forde press conference room Monday afternoon. The character posed next to the chair and with fans who strolled into the room.
The seat is available for purchase for each of the Mets’ remaining home games.
“It’s been great to see how our fanbase created the Grimace phenomenon following his first pitch in June and in the months since,” Mets senior vice president of partnerships Brenden Mallette said in a news release. “As we explored how to further capture the magic of this moment and celebrate our new celebrity fan, installing a commemorative seat ahead of fan appreciation weekend felt like the perfect way to give something back to the fans in a fun and unique way.”
Up in Boston, the famous Ted Williams seat is painted bright red among rows of green chairs deep in the right-field stands at Fenway Park to mark where a reported 502-foot homer hit by the Hall of Fame slugger landed in June 1946.
So, does this catapult Grimace into Splendid Splinter territory?
“I don’t know if we put him on the same level,” Mets executive vice president and chief marketing officer Andy Goldberg said with a grin.
“It’s just been a fun year, and at the same time, we’ve been playing great ball. Ever since the end of May, we have been crushing it,” he explained. “So I think that added to the mystique.”
