No one knows when a fresh surge of COVID-19 cases will emerge in Canada, but experts agree numbers are poised to rise and could very well explode in surveillance blindspots.
One need only look to South Korea, where infections spread anew through Seoul’s nightclubs and bars, to see how quickly containment successes unravel when undetected cases spark flareups.
Of course, nightclubs remain closed in Canada, but the infection risk of a vast array of public spaces is being tested for the first time in coming weeks — retail stores, golf ranges, bar patios and some offices among them.
A “tried and true” principle with any respiratory virus is that infection risk is lower outside and in larger spaces where germs can dissipate, says Dr. Camille Lemieux, medical lead for the COVID-19 assessment centre at Toronto’s Western Hospital.
That’s opposed to small, confined areas with poor ventilation, but the speed of this novel coronavirus to find human hosts is what’s most concerning, says Lemieux.
“The one thing about COVID that I think has a lot of people stymied is the rapidity with which it spreads when it gets a foothold,” says Lemieux, also chief of family medicine at the University Health Network in Toronto.
Even with containment, the virus is circulating in the community thanks to a small percentage of people with mild and no symptoms who don’t even know they are sick, adds Dr. Gerald Evans, medical director of infection control at the Kingston Health Sciences Centre.
Evans says “second waves are inevitable” as regions open up, using the term loosely to mean any uptick big or small. He cautions against suggesting one sector of public life — such as the tennis court — is safer from the virus than others.
“If people start congregating around campfires and other things in parks, and then large groups of golfers are getting together and hanging out, that could facilitate transmission,” says Evans, also chair of the division of infectious diseases at Queen’s University.
If Evans were to guess, he says a Canadian resurgence is very likely to start among younger adults who resume social activities, suggesting they’re more likely to risk exposure and will have been largely shielded from infection.
“They have been in literal isolation now for months,” Evans notes.
“So, when we start to open restaurants, and we start to open social venues, I think what we saw in Korea is a distinct possibility of what might emerge here.”
This may sound obvious but wherever it happens, it’ll be precisely where we are not looking, says Lemieux, which is why ramped-up testing and contact tracing measures are critical as millions of Canadians consider increased exposure.
She stressed the need for aggressive surveillance that can quickly respond to any signs of resurgence.
“The only way we can do that is by allowing broad-based testing of the public,” says Lemieux, a vocal critic of testing rates in Ontario.
“We really need to be on a seek-and-destroy kind of strategy right now where we’re actually actively going and looking for pockets of transmission of the virus.”
As with case numbers, relaxed measures vary from province to province — licensed daycares can reopen Tuesday in New Brunswick, some classroom activity has already resumed in Quebec, while hair salons and restaurant patios recently opened in Manitoba.
Evans suggests Ontario should have waited another “two to four weeks” before allowing a slew of reopenings set for Tuesday, which include construction sites, dog grooming, and some brick-and-mortar stores.
It’s clear though, that political and medical leaders are wary of possible setbacks: Premier Doug Ford urged businesses to only open if they were absolutely ready and asked residents to continue limiting their outings, while on Friday the Ontario Medical Association encouraged those who venture out to wear a mask.
Patrick Saunders-Hastings, an epidemiologist and consultant with the management consulting firm Gevity Consulting Inc., says a phased approach should allow public health to recognize and respond to warning signs before an exponential increase occurs.
And because the infection rate is on the decline, provinces should be able to stamp out threats posed by every new case.
“We are better able to conduct that sort of ‘test, trace and isolate’ framework than we were earlier on in this outbreak,” Saunders-Hastings suggests.
When it comes to labour risk, larger businesses have greater capacity than small ones to enforce public health guidelines and even augment them with their own contact tracing and staff education efforts, he says.
“We see a great degree of diversity in the types of strategies that are being looked at — whether it’s screening for fevers, whether it’s the use of phone applications to conduct contact tracing on site and adherence to social-distancing,” says Saunders-Hastings, adding that ongoing physical distancing rules mean most offices will only be able to bring back 20 to 40 per cent of employees.
While industrial settings such as meat plants have already suffered COVID-19 outbreaks, he cautions against assuming where the next workplace outbreak could occur, noting adherence to safety guidelines can falter anywhere.
Existing prevalence of COVID-19 infections offer little guidance, too, says Evans, noting it’s tempting to assume infection risk is lower in his city of Kingston, Ont., than Toronto.
He fears what might happen if big-city dwellers hit the road for a day trip, bringing the virus to a region highly susceptible precisely because counts are low.
“If the virus were to be reintroduced either from, say, Toronto or Montreal where there’s more activity, then there is a larger population that could get it so a second wave would look potentially worse here.”
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.
