Why will all Alberta seniors be eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine Monday, the same day British Columbia begins giving out its first doses to seniors aged 90 and over who live outside long-term care?
It’s a question that’s been peppering social media on the West Coast as B.C. prepares to give the first shots of its mass vaccination program.
That’s despite the fact that Alberta had, as of March 12, administered 346,135 doses of vaccine, nearly 35,000 fewer than the 380,743 B.C. has.
2:10 B.C. businesses wary about enforcing any ‘vaccine passport’ program
B.C. businesses wary about enforcing any ‘vaccine passport’ program
Demographic factors
One of the biggest pieces of the puzzle is demographics, according to Lorian Hardcastle, an associate professor of law in the faculty of medicine at the University of Calgary.
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“B.C. has an older population than Alberta, and so it’s going to take longer to get through B.C.’s, say, eighty-five-pluses before it would take to get through Albertans’. B.C. also has more Indigenous people who were also prioritized in both provinces.”
According to the 2016 census, the differences are stark. British Columbia has more than 109,000 seniors over the age of 85, nearly 10,000 of them older than 95.
Alberta had just over 63,000 seniors older than 85, about 5,000 of them older than 95.
It was a factor B.C. Premier John Horgan was quick to point to Friday when asked about the pace of B.C.’s vaccine rollout.
“Many of the elderly in British Columbia used to be residents of Alberta and they make the decision in their elder years to spend quality time in beautiful British Columbia, move their residences here, and that’s absolutely fine by me,” he quipped.
“We have an older population than other provinces across the country, so that’s why we had to start with the 90-plus.”
That same census counted about 12,000 more Indigenous people living in B.C. than Alberta, further accounting for a difference in the speed of the aged-based rollout for the general population.
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Different priorities
The other major difference, according to Hardcastle, was the differing ways B.C. and Alberta have chosen to use their limited supply of vaccine on priority groups.
Both provinces made an early priority of vaccinating long-term care residents and staff, home-care workers and hospital workers who may come in contact with COVID-19 infected patients.
But B.C. went further, adding priority groups.
Those included essential visitors to long-term care facilities in its Phase 1. In Phase 2, this group expanded to include all hospital staff, doctors working in the community, and vulnerable groups living or working in some congregated settings such as jails or shelters.
“Alberta has really focused up to this point on an age-based strategy,” Hardcastle said.
Vaccine prioritization was a key reason given by B.C.’s Ministry of Health, when asked about the discrepancy between B.C. and Alberta cohorts.
“We are focusing on immunizing B.C.’s highest risk population first and we have been administering vaccines as quickly and safely as possible as vaccine supply arrives to B.C.,” a spokesperson said in an email.
Alberta also decided to use its supply of AstraZeneca vaccine differently than B.C., she said.
The vaccine is believed to be less effective in seniors, and so it has been flagged for deployment to other adult groups — in Alberta, that translated to adults over 50, as of March 10.
“I’m not sure that I agree with the decision to give it to healthy people in their 50s who are working from home and aren’t otherwise at risk,” she said.
“I do tend to prefer B.C.’s approach, which was to try and target groups that had some level of risk, for example, to workplace exposure.”
British Columbia is scheduled to begin administering the AstraZeneca vaccine this week. The province is also moving to immunize the entire adult population of Prince Rupert, amid persistent clusters of the virus there.
As B.C. and Alberta continue down their respective paths, Hardcastle said the gap between which age cohort is up for immunization could grow wider, especially in the current phase.
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But while that might be frustrating for regular British Columbians hoping to get back to life as usual, Hardcastle said B.C.’s approach is not necessarily a bad idea.
“There are thousands and thousands of family doctors, and so that could put B.C. behind in terms of its age groups even further than Alberta,” she said.
“But I don’t necessarily think that’s a problem — I think those workers are certainly exposed to it. And we don’t want health-care workers in the community getting sick and not being able to work.”
Rather than which age group is getting their shot at the moment, she suggested the public look instead at how many doses of vaccine the province has actually administered.
“And if they fall behind, I think that’s a good metric on which to hold their feet to the fire as opposed to focusing on the fine-grained details of why particular provinces are ahead with respect to specific groups, because there may be demographic reasons or other choices about who’s at risk that might lead to that,” she said.
While B.C. opened vaccine registration early for people aged 85 years old and up last week, it remains unclear if that move will result in the over-80 group also being bumped up.
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The province is aiming to have immunized 400,000 people by early April.
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
