A protester blows a bicycle horn outside the Knesset in Jerusalem on Thursday, after Israel moved to further tighten its second countrywide lockdown amid soaring coronavirus case numbers. (Maya Alleruzzo/Associated Press)
Public health officials call for tighter restrictions, warn COVID-19 could spiral out of control
Infectious disease experts say Canadian health authorities must tighten restrictions again, or hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 will increase exponentially in the coming weeks. Canada reported 1,248 new cases Wednesday, and Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam has outlined projections that show new cases could climb to 5,000 daily by October if we continue on the current course.
“To date, we’re not moving fast enough to get ahead of this,” Dr. Michael Gardam, an infectious disease physician based at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto, told CBC News. “I think we’re being lulled into a false sense of security because of the low numbers of hospitalizations and deaths [relative to earlier in the pandemic]. But they will come in the next six weeks or so.”
He said asking people nicely to tighten their social circles is not going to be enough. Gardam said Canadians grew fatigued with the restrictions imposed on their social circles earlier in the year and won’t be eager to return to them unless pressed. “I think we’re going to have to be a lot more forceful,” he said. Right now, “people are playing fast and loose with bubbles all over the place.”
The actions taken in the next two weeks could change the trajectory of the pandemic in the months to come, said Laura Rosella, an epidemiologist and associate professor at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health. “There’s a lot of things with this pandemic that we can’t control, but we might be able to control who we interact with, especially socially, and who’s in our bubble,” said Rosella. “I would encourage everyone to rethink what their bubbles are given the new situation.”
Getting a handle on this COVID-19 surge means returning to restrictions implemented earlier in the pandemic, said Dr. Samir Gupta, a clinician-scientist at St. Michael’s Hospital and an assistant professor in the department of medicine at the University of Toronto. Speaking with Heather Hiscox on CBC Morning Live Wednesday, Gupta said Canadians “need to start making similar sacrifices to the ones we made the first time around,” which was successful with flattening the curve in the spring.
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IN BRIEF
Ontario sees 409 new COVID-19 cases, rolls out $1B updated testing and contact-tracing plan
Ontario reported an additional 409 cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, as Premier Doug Ford said his government will invest $1 billion to expand testing and contact-tracing capacity heading into flu season, including some $30 million to “prevent and manage outbreaks” in priority settings such as long-term care facilities, retirement homes and schools.
The province’s network of labs is currently facing a backlog of 53,840 test samples, the most since cases of the infection were first detected in January. During a media briefing, health officials said that publicly funded testing sites are moving away from offering tests to asymptomatic people. Instead, the province will return to a more targeted approach as hospitals, testing sites and labs have reported being overwhelmed by public demand for tests.
“We know that over the summer, when we opened up testing to anybody who wanted it, we did not find cases,” said Dr. Barbara Yaffe, Ontario’s associate chief medical officer of health. “Right now, we need to focus on people who are symptomatic, people who are contacts, people in outbreaks, or in very specific populations where we have designated that testing needs to occur. Your average person out there who is not exposed to a case … should not be going for testing. There’s no value. In fact, what we found is when there’s very little COVID in that group, what we end up with is false positives, which just complicates things even more.”
Testing of asymptomatic people will be limited to pharmacies, an initiative announced by Ford earlier this week. According to Matthew Anderson, president and CEO of Ontario Health, the province hopes to have capacity for up to 50,000 tests per day some time in October.
No one likes wearing a mask — but with COVID-19 cases rising, you should put it on more often than you think
Experts are warning that at this point in the pandemic, when the benefits of mask-wearing are growing clear and COVID-19 cases are rising rapidly, Canadians should be donning their masks as much as possible.
“Keep wearing your mask, as much as you can, especially with people you don’t live with,” Toronto’s medical officer of health, Dr. Eileen de Villa, stressed on Monday. Multiple experts who spoke to CBC News this week say that means keeping a mask on in a variety of settings, even if local bylaws don’t mandate it.
Dr. Zain Chagla, an associate professor of medicine at McMaster University and an infectious disease consultant at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, said masks are helpful when staying a couple of metres apart is challenging — “even if you’re on the patio, until you have to eat and drink, and then putting it back on afterwards,” he said. “We just have to kind of get people to make it a reflex.”
Edmonton-based health policy expert Timothy Caulfield agreed that people should strive to wear a mask around anyone from outside their own household. “If it’s an indoor environment and you can’t get that good two-metre space all the time, think about wearing a mask — even if it’s family members,” said Caulfield, Canada Research Chair in health law and policy and research director of the Health Law Institute at the University of Alberta.
Liberals boost some COVID-19 benefits in new bill
The federal government tabled legislation Thursday to provide what it’s calling a “safe bridge” for Canadians who are still experiencing lost income due to COVID-19. The proposed new suite of measures aims to transition people from the Canada emergency response benefit (CERB) to an employment insurance program with expanded eligibility or to one of three new recovery benefits. Bill C-2 also provides for a 10-day sick leave benefit — something the NDP had demanded.
During a news conference in Ottawa, Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough said the CERB was introduced quickly at a time when most of the economy was at a standstill. As the country moves into economic recovery mode, the government is better placed to deliver financial support in a more sophisticated way, she said. “I think we’ve created, in Bill C-2, a much more elegant balance between the need to not disincentivize work but also support people who, regardless of effort, still aren’t working or have significantly reduced hours,” she said.
Qualtrough said the past few months have exposed gaps in the EI system, which is why the government wants to modernize it to better reflect Canada’s current labour market. Measures in the legislation offer greater flexibility on the work hours required for the EI benefit, making it easier for people to qualify for a one-year period.
In Quebec, the first confirmed case of COVID-19 was traced back to as early as Feb. 25, according to the study, but it and other early cases were well contained and did not lead to sustained transmission. “It was a trickle at first,” said Jesse Shapiro, an associate professor in the department for human genetics and head of genome sciences at McGill, noting that it was easier to manage the few cases of COVID-19 in the province at that time.
That trickle turned into a rush of new arrivals after the province’s early spring break, with hundreds of travellers returning to Quebec after travelling abroad. The study, which has not been peer reviewed, suggests what many already suspected: the early break, which began Feb. 29, was a key factor in the spread of the virus before the lockdown in mid-March.
According to the study, nearly one-third of the infections in Quebec came through Europe, with 12 per cent coming from France. Just under 31 per cent of the virus samples studied came from the Caribbean and Latin America, and around 24 per cent came from the United States. Few transmissions appeared to come from Asia.
AND FINALLY…
Disney postpones Black Widow, West Side Story
From left, president of Marvel Studios Kevin Feige, Scarlett Johansson, David Harbour, Florence Pugh, O-T Fagbenle, director Cate Shortland and Rachel Weisz of Marvel Studios’ Black Widow stand on stage at the San Diego Comic-Con last year in San Diego, Calif. (Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)
The Walt Disney Co. has further postponed its next mega-movies from Marvel, including Black Widow, while also postponing Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story a full year in the company’s latest recalibration due to the pandemic.
Ten of Disney’s top films shuffled release dates Wednesday, uprooting several of the company’s major fall releases. The Scarlett Johansson Marvel movie Black Widow, last set for Nov. 6, heads now to May 7 of next year. Instead of opening next month, Kenneth Branagh’s murder mystery Death on the Nile moves to Dec. 18. That was the date set for West Side Story, but Spielberg’s musical will instead debut in December 2021.
Disney didn’t entirely abandon the season. The Pixar release Soul remains on the calendar for late November. But the delays of Disney’s upcoming blockbusters reinforce the growing exodus from 2020 among the movies that hadn’t already uprooted to next year.
“Communication is one of the most important skills you require for a successful life.” — Catherine Pulsifer, author.
I’m one hundred percent in agreement with Pulsifer, which is why my evaluation of candidates begins with their writing skills. If a candidate’s writing skills and verbal communication skills, which I’ll assess when interviewing, aren’t well above average, I’ll pass on them regardless of their skills and experience.
Why?
Because business is fundamentally about getting other people to do things—getting employees to be productive, getting customers to buy your products or services, and getting vendors to agree to a counteroffer price. In business, as in life in general, you can’t make anything happen without effective communication; this is especially true when job searching when your writing is often an employer’s first impression of you.
Think of all the writing you engage in during a job search (resumes, cover letters, emails, texts) and all your other writing (LinkedIn profile, as well as posts and comments, blogs, articles, tweets, etc.) employers will read when they Google you to determine if you’re interview-worthy.
With so much of our communication today taking place via writing (email, text, collaboration platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Slack, ClickUp, WhatsApp and Rocket.Chat), the importance of proficient writing skills can’t be overstated.
When assessing a candidate’s writing skills, you probably think I’m looking for grammar and spelling errors. Although error-free writing is important—it shows professionalism and attention to detail—it’s not the primary reason I look at a candidate’s writing skills.
The way someone writes reveals how they think.
Clear writing = Clear thinking
Structured paragraphs = Structured mind
Impactful sentences = Impactful ideas
Effective writing isn’t about using sophisticated vocabulary. Hemingway demonstrated that deceptively simple, stripped-down prose can captivate readers. Effective writing takes intricate thoughts and presents them in a way that makes the reader think, “Damn! Why didn’t I see it that way?” A good writer is a dead giveaway for a good thinker. More than ever, the business world needs “good thinkers.”
Therefore, when I come across a candidate who’s a good writer, hence a good thinker, I know they’re likely to be able to write:
Emails that don’t get deleted immediately and are responded to
Simple, concise, and unambiguous instructions
Pitches that are likely to get read
Social media content that stops thumbs
Human-sounding website copy
Persuasively, while attuned to the reader’s possible sensitivities
Now, let’s talk about the elephant in the room: AI, which job seekers are using en masse. Earlier this year, I wrote that AI’s ability to hyper-increase an employee’s productivity—AI is still in its infancy; we’ve seen nothing yet—in certain professions, such as writing, sales and marketing, computer programming, office and admin, and customer service, makes it a “fewer employees needed” tool, which understandably greatly appeals to employers. In my opinion, the recent layoffs aren’t related to the economy; they’re due to employers adopting AI. Additionally, companies are trying to balance investing in AI with cost-cutting measures. CEOs who’ve previously said, “Our people are everything,” have arguably created today’s job market by obsessively focusing on AI to gain competitive advantages and reduce their largest expense, their payroll.
It wouldn’t be a stretch to assume that most AI usage involves generating written content, content that’s obvious to me, and likely to you as well, to have been written by AI. However, here’s the twist: I don’t particularly care.
Why?
Because the fundamental skill I’m looking for is the ability to organize thoughts and communicate effectively. What I care about is whether the candidate can take AI-generated content and transform it into something uniquely valuable. If they can, they’re demonstrating the skills of being a good thinker and communicator. It’s like being a great DJ; anyone can push play, but it takes skill to read a room and mix music that gets people pumped.
Using AI requires prompting effectively, which requires good writing skills to write clear and precise instructions that guide the AI to produce desired outcomes. Prompting AI effectively requires understanding structure, flow and impact. You need to know how to shape raw information, such as milestones throughout your career when you achieved quantitative results, into a compelling narrative.
So, what’s the best way to gain and enhance your writing skills? As with any skill, you’ve got to work at it.
Two rules guide my writing:
Use strong verbs and nouns instead of relying on adverbs, such as “She dashed to the store.” instead of “She ran quickly to the store.” or “He whispered to the child.” instead of “He spoke softly to the child.”
Avoid using long words when a shorter one will do, such as “use” instead of “utilize” or “ask” instead of “inquire.” As attention spans get shorter, I aim for clarity, simplicity and, most importantly, brevity in my writing.
Don’t just string words together; learn to organize your thoughts, think critically, and communicate clearly. Solid writing skills will significantly set you apart from your competition, giving you an advantage in your job search and career.
Nick Kossovan, a well-seasoned veteran of the corporate landscape, offers “unsweetened” job search advice. You can send Nick your questions to artoffindingwork@gmail.com.
MONTREAL – Politics, public opinion and salary hikes south of the border helped push Air Canada toward a deal that secures major pay gains for pilots, experts say.
Hammered out over the weekend, the would-be agreement includes a cumulative wage hike of nearly 42 per cent over four years — an enormous bump by historical standards — according to one source who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. The previous 10-year contract granted increases of just two per cent annually.
The federal government’s stated unwillingness to step in paved the way for a deal, noted John Gradek, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made it plain the two sides should hash one out themselves.
“Public opinion basically pressed the federal cabinet, including the prime minister, to keep their hands clear of negotiations and looking at imposing a settlement,” said Gradek, who teaches aviation management at McGill University.
After late-night talks at a hotel near Toronto’s Pearson airport, the country’s biggest airline and the union representing 5,200-plus aviators announced early Sunday morning they had reached a tentative agreement, averting a strike that would have grounded flights and affected some 110,000 passengers daily.
The relative precariousness of the Liberal minority government as well as a push to appear more pro-labour underlay the prime minister’s hands-off approach to the negotiations.
Trudeau said Friday the government would not step in to fix the impasse — unlike during a massive railway work stoppage last month and a strike by WestJet mechanics over the Canada Day long weekend that workers claimed road roughshod over their constitutional right to collective bargaining. Trudeau said the government respects the right to strike and would only intervene if it became apparent no negotiated deal was possible.
“They felt that they really didn’t want to try for a third attempt at intervention and basically said, ‘Let’s let the airline decide how they want to deal with this one,'” said Gradek.
“Air Canada ran out of support as the week wore on, and by the time they got to Friday night, Saturday morning, there was nothing left for them to do but to basically try to get a deal set up and accepted by ALPA (Air Line Pilots Association).”
Trudeau’s government was also unlikely to consider back-to-work legislation after the NDP tore up its agreement to support the Liberal minority in Parliament, Gradek said. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, whose party has traditionally toed a more pro-business line, also said last week that Tories “stand with the pilots” and swore off “pre-empting” the negotiations.
Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau had asked Ottawa on Thursday to impose binding arbitration pre-emptively — “before any travel disruption starts” — if talks failed. Backed by business leaders, he’d hoped for an effective repeat of the Conservatives’ move to head off a strike in 2012 by legislating Air Canada pilots and ground crew to stick to their posts before any work stoppage could start.
The request may have fallen flat, however. Gradek said he believes there was less anxiety over the fallout from an airline strike than from the countrywide railway shutdown.
He also speculated that public frustration over thousands of cancelled flights would have flowed toward Air Canada rather than Ottawa, prompting the carrier to concede to a deal yielding “unheard of” gains for employees.
“It really was a total collapse of the Air Canada bargaining position,” he said.
Pilots are slated to vote in the coming weeks on the four-year contract.
Last year, pilots at Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and American Airlines secured agreements that included four-year pay boosts ranging from 34 per cent to 40 per cent, ramping up pressure on other carriers to raise wages.
After more than a year of bargaining, Air Canada put forward an offer in August centred around a 30 per cent wage hike over four years.
But the final deal, should union members approve it, grants a 26 per cent increase in the first year alone, retroactive to September 2023, according to the source. Three wage bumps of four per cent would follow in 2024 through 2026.
Passengers may wind up shouldering some of that financial load, one expert noted.
“At the end of the day, it’s all us consumers who are paying,” said Barry Prentice, who heads the University of Manitoba’s transport institute.
Higher fares may be mitigated by the persistence of budget carrier Flair Airlines and the rapid expansion of Porter Airlines — a growing Air Canada rival — as well as waning demand for leisure trips. Corporate travel also remains below pre-COVID-19 levels.
Air Canada said Sunday the tentative contract “recognizes the contributions and professionalism of Air Canada’s pilot group, while providing a framework for the future growth of the airline.”
The union issued a statement saying that, if ratified, the agreement will generate about $1.9 billion of additional value for Air Canada pilots over the course of the deal.
Meanwhile, labour tension with cabin crew looms on the horizon. Air Canada is poised to kick off negotiations with the union representing more than 10,000 flight attendants this year before the contract expires on March 31.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
HALIFAX – Ottawa is negotiating a $500-million bailout for Nova Scotia’s privately owned electric utility, saying the money will be used to prevent a big spike in electricity rates.
Federal Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson made the announcement today in Halifax, saying Nova Scotia Power Inc. needs the money to cover higher costs resulting from the delayed delivery of electricity from the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric plant in Labrador.
Wilkinson says that without the money, the subsidiary of Emera Inc. would have had to increase rates by 19 per cent over “the short term.”
Nova Scotia Power CEO Peter Gregg says the deal, once approved by the province’s energy regulator, will keep rate increases limited “to be around the rate of inflation,” as costs are spread over a number of years.
The utility helped pay for construction of an underwater transmission link between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, but the Muskrat Falls project has not been consistent in delivering electricity over the past five years.
Those delays forced Nova Scotia Power to spend more on generating its own electricity.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
