The coronavirus pandemic, once concentrated in older adults in Quebec and Ontario, is moving west and appearing in younger groups.
On April 15, Quebec and Ontario accounted for nearly 84 per cent of new daily cases. On Aug. 15, 23 per cent of new cases were in B.C. and another 23 per cent in Alberta. Ontario and Quebec had 24 and 18 per cent respectively.
This is representative of a new trend: While new daily case numbers in central Canada seemed to have generally stabilized recently, Western Canada’s keep growing.
Dr. Lynora Saxinger, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Alberta, said “it doesn’t really look like it’s slowing at this point,” in her province.
“I think it’s too soon to say that this appears to be the start of the second wave in British Columbia or Alberta,” said Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease specialist at Toronto General Hospital. But, he thinks it’s cause for concern.
In Alberta, much of the outbreak appears to be focused on Edmonton, which accounts for more than half of the active cases in the province. Edmonton now has more than twice as many active COVID-19 cases than Toronto – 636 as of Aug. 17.
In B.C., which was very recently thought of as a success story, Fraser Health Region has had the most new cases recently. The health region covers Surrey, Delta, Abbotsford and Burnaby.
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To Bogoch, the main culprit is young people.
“It’s 20-year-olds,” he said. “We’ve seen this tremendous shift from having a large number of cases in long-term care facilities to people in their 20s who are getting this infection either through social gatherings, or perhaps through other mechanisms – for example at work.”
2:01 Young COVID-19 survivor shares cautionary tale
Young COVID-19 survivor shares cautionary tale
On Friday, the Public Health Agency of Canada released data showing that since early July, the highest incidence of COVID-19 across Canada has been reported among people aged 20-39.
Stephen Hoption Cann, a professor of population and public health at the University of British Columbia, said that private indoor gatherings are a major driver of B.C.’s spread. “Obviously they’ve been trying to keep the message out, that people need to social distance. I think a lot of people just aren’t listening to that,” he said.
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“People have arranged private parties and things like that where they’re going beyond their social bubble.”
Saxinger agrees that social bubbles seem to have expanded lately.
“It really reads to me, in summary, like more people are in contact with more people and that the infection never has gone away,” she said. “And as soon as we start seeing more people contacting more people, we see cases go up.”
2:00 Edmonton on COVID-19 provincial watch list
Edmonton on COVID-19 provincial watch list
While hospitalizations are low in Alberta for now, she worries that in a few weeks, they will start to go up again. Typically, hospitalizations lag cases by two to four weeks, she said. Younger people are less likely to have severe illness, but they can spread it on to other more vulnerable people.
Many recent cases across Canada have been linked to public places. A recent Global News investigation, using data compiled by the Institute of Investigative Journalism (IIJ) at Concordia University, found that 505 cases between July 4 and Aug. 11 were linked to places like restaurants, bars and retail stores.
This data is likely incomplete though, as the federal government does not provide detailed statistics on where people got infected. B.C. regularly issues alerts to people though, of possible exposures, and they tend to name restaurants, clubs and airplanes as culprits.
Saxinger thinks that while there have been outbreaks linked to specific events – like one recently at an Edmonton church – there are still a lot of unexplained cases in Alberta where investigators aren’t sure where someone got the virus.
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This is trickier for public health authorities to track and contain, and indicates that the virus could be widespread in the community, she said.
Saxinger expects cases in Alberta to continue to rise, in contrast to much of the pandemic, where they were relatively low. “The fact that cases in Alberta were low for a long time might play into it,” she said. “I think having the infection seem to be out of sight, out of mind, might be playing a role in changes in behaviour.”
When people don’t see the threat or aren’t continually reminded of the danger, she explained, they tend to slowly go back to their old ways of life.
Part of the solution has to be more effective public health messaging to reach young adults, Bogoch said.
One strategy could be a harm-reduction approach. “I think it’s unrealistic to think that we can prevent people in their 20s from getting together in social gatherings,” he said.
So, you try to mitigate the harm. “A harm reduction approach is ensuring that that happens in the safest way possible,” he said, which could include emphasizing outdoor gatherings in smaller groups, which would have a lesser risk of transmitting the disease.
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2:08 “It’s not worth it”: COVID-19 survivor warns young partiers to stop ignoring rules
“It’s not worth it”: COVID-19 survivor warns young partiers to stop ignoring rules
Saxinger thinks there is one big takeaway from Western Canada’s recent experience with the virus:
“If you give it an inch, it takes a mile.”
— With files from Max Hartshorn, David Lao, Andrew Russell and Kerri Breen, Global News
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.
