Italy is making life more uncomfortable for unvaccinated people as the holidays draw near, excluding them from indoor restaurants, theatres and museums to reduce the spread of coronavirus and encourage vaccine skeptics to get their shots.
Starting Monday through Jan. 15, Italian police can check whether diners in restaurants or bars have a “super” green health pass certifying that they are either vaccinated or have recently recovered from the virus. Smartphone applications that check people’s health pass status will be updated and those who have merely tested negative in recent days for COVID-19 will no longer be allowed into concerts, movies or performances.
The number of new COVID-19 infections in Italy has been on a gradual rise for the past six weeks, even before concerns arose about the new omicron variant. That’s a worrying trend as Italians plan holiday parties and getaways to spend time with friends and family. Christmas travel and holiday gatherings were strictly limited last year due to a steeper rise in contagion.
While both Germany and Austria are moving toward making vaccines obligatory, Italy is instead tightening restrictions on the unvaccinated at the most convivial time of the year — while allowing those who are vaccinated to go about life more or less as usual.
People walk along the Via Condotti luxury shopping street in central Rome on Sunday as the city brought in a regulation requiring people to wear masks outdoors in the city centre and in other busy shopping areas until Dec. 31. (Vincenzo Pinto/AFP/Getty Images)
Italy’s vaccination rate is higher than many of its neighbours, at 85 per cent of the eligible population aged 12 and older and 77 per cent of the total population. But people in their 30s, 40s and 50s have proved the most reluctant to get vaccinated, with nearly 3.5 million still not having received their first doses.
They are also the same age group that is now being hardest hit by the virus, according to Silvio Brusaferro, head of Italy’s National Health Institute.
Also starting Monday, people must have a health pass to access local public transportation and stay in hotels — that can be acquired also with a negative recent test. In Milan, the prefect said health passes will be checked before people are allowed onto the subway or buses.
With the holiday shopping season heating up, many cities including Rome and Milan have ordered mask mandates even outdoors.
Public health officials say vaccinations, along with prudent public behaviour including wearing masks in crowds, are key to reducing infection levels as winter weather pushes more activities indoors. They credit Italy’s relatively high level of immunization as one reason that the infection curve is not as steep as last winter, when broad restrictions were imposed with the spread of the delta variant.
“It is clear that after two years of the pandemic, we cannot easily close schools to physical classes and shut down economic activity,” said Gianni Rezza, the health ministry’s director of prevention.
“Therefore, you can try to keep the virus spread down with measures that are sustainable, and with proper use of the health pass. Then the big bet is on the vaccinations.”
-From The Associated Press, last updated at 7:30 a.m. ET
What’s happening across Canada
What’s happening around the world
People who just received a COVID-19 shot wait for their vaccine card to be processed at the Orange Farm, South Africa, multipurpose centre on Friday. South Africa has accelerated its vaccination campaign a week after the discovery of the omicron variant of the coronavirus. (Jerome Delay/The Associated Press)
As of early Monday morning, more than 265.9 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, according to a case-tracking database maintained by U.S.-based Johns Hopkins University. The reported global death toll stood at more than 5.2 million.
In Africa, South Africa is preparing its hospitals for more admissions, as the omicron variant pushes the country into a fourth wave of COVID-19 infections, President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Monday. Ramaphosa said in a weekly newsletter that omicron appeared to be dominating new infections in most provinces and urged more people to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
“We will soon be convening a meeting of the National Coronavirus Command Council to review the state of the pandemic. This will enable us to take whatever further measures are needed to keep people safe and healthy,” he said.
Meanwhile, Senegal recorded its first case of the omicron variant in a tourist who attended a demonstration in Dakar last month with about 300 people of varying nationalities, a testing lab said on Sunday.
In the Americas, Argentina has detected its first case of the omicron coronavirus variant in a person who had travelled from South Africa, the South American country’s Health Ministry said late on Sunday. Argentina joined Brazil, Mexico and Chile on the list of Latin American countries where cases of the new variant have been detected.
Students wash their hands before classes at Ricardo P. Cruz elementary school in Taguig city, suburban Manila, on Monday after authorities loosened restrictions to allow limited in-person classes in the capital city. (Ted Aljibe/AFP/Getty Images)
In the Asia-Pacific region, some children in the Philippines’ capital Manila returned to school on Monday after a near two-year suspension.
Meanwhile, health officials in Thailand and Nepal reported finding first cases of the omicron variant. In both countries, the cases were detected in foreign nationals, health officials said.
In the Middle East, a Jordanian court sentenced five senior health officials to three years in jail for causing the death of 10 COVID-19 patients following an oxygen outage in a major state hospital, state media said.
In Europe, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said his government would present a new package of pandemic restrictions this week in response to the new variant and was considering how to handle the approaching Christmas holidays.
“The situation is indeed not looking good…. We have many deaths,” Morawiecki told a news conference.
-From The Associated Press, Reuters and CBC News, last updated at 9:35 a.m. ET
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
