Ontario reported more than 6,000 new COVID-19 cases in the past two days, as the province entered a month-long shutdown on Saturday to curb rising infections.
Provincial health officials logged 3,009 new cases today and 3,089 cases on Friday.
The Ministry of Health did not report numbers yesterday due to the Good Friday holiday.
The last time the province logged more than 3,000 coronavirus cases was on Jan. 17 with 3,422 infections.
The seven-day rolling average of new cases now stands at 2,552, compared to 1,944 seven days ago.
Provincial health officials also reported 39 more virus-related deaths in the past two days. None of the latest fatalities were among long-term care home residents.
Most of the latest deaths were among those 60 and older, with 21 between 60 and 79 years old and 17 aged 80 and up. Ontario’s virus-related death toll now stands at 7,428.
Another 98 lab-confirmed highly-contagious variants of concern were identified over the past two days with 89 of the dominant B.1.1.7 variant, three of the B.1.351 variant and six of the P.1 variant.
In addition, nearly 2,100 cases that have screened positive for a variant of concern are awaiting whole genome sequencing to confirm their lineage, with a total of 24,459 cases waiting for further testing to confirm which variant they are.
More than 3,700 people have recovered from the disease in the past two days, resulting in 23,190 active cases of the virus across the province today.
Ontario labs processed more than 121,400 tests in the past two days.
More than 25,000 tests are under investigation.
The province’s positivity rate stands at 5 per cent, compared to 4.8 per cent two days ago, according to the Ministry of Health.
Most of the new cases continue to be in the Greater Toronto Area.
Toronto logged 954 today, while 434 cases were reported in Peel Region, 348 in York, 138 in Durham and 91 in Halton.
Meanwhile, Hamilton logged 146 new cases, while 145 new infections were reported in Middlesex-London and 205 in Ottawa.
Of Ontario’s 34 public health units, 14 reported 30 or more new COVID-19 cases.
As coronavirus infections continue to climb across the province, hospitalizations continue to remain elevated.
The Ministry of Health says there are currently 796 people hospitalized due to COVID-19 infection across the province, compared to 1,162 on Friday.
The government has said that hospitalizations are typically under reported on the weekends due to delayed reporting from hospitals and public health units.
Of those hospitalized, 451 are in intensive care units, up by 16 from the previous day, and 261 are breathing with the assistance of a ventilator.
The director of critical care at Michael Garron Hospital Dr. Michael Warner says the provincial shutdown won’t be effective in driving down case counts and hospitalizations.
“The GTA is on fire with COVID-19, as are the hospitals that serve them and unless something changes now this situation will get so far out of control that I don’t even want to consider what we might have to do if things don’t change,” he said.
To date, there have been over 358,500 lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases and 327,940 recoveries in the province since the first case emerged in Ontario last January.
More than 321,400 people in Ontario have been fully vaccinated against the disease since mid-December. All vaccines that are currently being administered in the province require two doses for full immunization.
As of Friday evening, over 2.4 million doses have been given to people in the province, with more than 59,500 doses administered yesterday alone.
Indoor dining, along with gyms and hair salons must close but essential businesses and non-essential retail are allowed to remain open with capacity limits.
Although a stay-at-home order is not in effect, the government is encouraging people to stay home unless they need to leave for essential reasons, including going to work, buying food, medical reasons and exercise.
Toronto Mayor John Tory told reporters on Saturday that the latest numbers are “deeply troubling” and that Ontario Premier Doug Ford made the right decision in implementing a shutdown.
He added that he’s in favour of considering additional measures to control COVID-19 transmission.
“I just think we’re at a very crucial point right now where the vaccines are getting administered. We had almost 40,000 people sign up [at Toronto vaccination clinics] in the last day or two which is great but we need to get caught up. And in order to get caught up we have to bring the level of infection down and that’s really going to involve people following the rules,” he told reporters while attending the Daily Bread Food Bank’s spring food drive in Etobicoke.
The Ministry of Health will not be releasing COVID-19 numbers tomorrow due to the Easter long weekend but the numbers will be posted on Monday.
The numbers used in this story are found in the Ontario Ministry of Health’s COVID-19 Daily Epidemiologic Summary. The number of cases for any city or region may differ slightly from what is reported by the province, because local units report figures at different times.
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.
