Los Angeles is temporarily closing five mass vaccination sites including Dodger Stadium for lack of supply as hard-hit California faces continuing criticism over the vaccine rollout.
Mayor Eric Garcetti said the city would exhaust its supply of Moderna first doses — two are required for full immunization — forcing it to close drive-thru and walk-up vaccination sites Friday and Saturday.
According to the Los Angeles Times, however, the sites closed even earlier than expected afer running out of doses on Thursday.
They may not reopen until the city gets more supplies, perhaps next Tuesday or Wednesday. Smaller mobile vaccination clinics will continue operating.
Garcetti said Los Angeles uses about 13,000 doses in a typical day but received only 16,000 this week.
“This is not where I want to be,” Garcetti said. “It’s not where we deserve to be.”
California has now recorded the most confirmed deaths from the coronavirus with 45,496, edging past New York’s toll of 45,312, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
Other coronavirus numbers are improving in the state, however. The seven-day test positivity rate has fallen to 4.8 per cent, and the most recent daily number of confirmed positive cases was 8,390, down from 53,000 in December.
Supply constraints are slowing ambitious vaccination programs in the U.S., as massive sites capable of putting shots into thousands of arms daily in states including New York, California, Florida and Texas, as well as hospitals and pharmacies, beg for more doses.
The U.S. has seen more than 27.3 million cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began and more than 475,000 deaths, according to a tracking tool maintained by Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on Thursday predicted that it will be “open season” for COVID-19 vaccinations in the United States by April, as increased supply allows most people to get shots.
Speaking to NBC’s Today Show, the science adviser to President Joe Biden said the rate of vaccinations will greatly accelerate in the coming months. He credits forthcoming deliveries of the two approved vaccines, the potential approval of a third and moves by the Biden administration to increase the nation’s capacity to deliver doses.
Fauci said that “by the time we get to April,” it will be “open season, namely virtually everybody and anybody in any category could start to get vaccinated.” He cautioned it will take “several more months” to deliver injections to adult Americans but predicted the “overwhelming majority” of people in the U.S. could be vaccinated by the middle and end of the summer.
–From The Associated Press, Reuters and CBC News, last updated at 7 a.m. ET
What’s happening in Canada
N.L.’s election has been postponed as the province deals with a recent surge in COVID-19 cases, and as poll workers resign over fears of catching the virus. 2:04
Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, says people need to continue what they’ve been doing but with “even more diligence” to counter the more contagious variants that have been identified in several provinces.
Speaking at a briefing on Friday, Tam said that means keeping up “individual public health practices” to limit spread, protecting the vulnerable and allowing time for vaccination programs to expand.
As of Friday, eight provinces had reported more than 429 cases of the B117 variant, which was first detected in the U.K., she said.
There were also 28 recorded cases of the B1351 variant, which was first reported in South Africa, and one case of the P1 variant first reported in Brazil.
“At least three of these provinces are reporting evidence of community spread ” and variants have been “linked to outbreaks.”
As of 10:50 a.m. ET on Friday, Canada had reported 818,244 cases of COVID-19 — with 37,388 cases considered active. A CBC News tally of deaths stood at 21,106.
Ontario on Friday reported 1,076 cases of COVID-19 and 18 additional deaths. COVID-19 hospitalizations stood at 763, with 295 people in intensive care units.
Ontario is reporting 1,076 cases of <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#COVID19</a> and over 62,000 tests completed. Locally, there are 361 new cases in Toronto, 210 in Peel and 122 in York Region. <br> <br>As of 8:00 p.m. yesterday, 442,441 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered.
In Atlantic Canada, Nova Scotia reported no new cases of COVID-19 on Friday.
Newfoundland and Labrador on Thursday reported 100 new cases of COVID-19, by far the highest single-day case number in the province.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald, the chief medical officer of health, said there are now 210 active cases in the province, with 74 of the new cases in people under 20 years old.
Faced with rising COVID-19 case numbers in the St. John’s area, the province’s chief electoral officer on Thursday delayed voting in almost half of the province’s 40 districts. In 18 districts, in-person voting will be rescheduled and won’t go ahead as planned on Saturday.
There were two new cases of COVID-19 in both New Brunswick on Thursday, and no new cases reported in Prince Edward Island.
In Quebec, health officials reported 1,121 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday and 37 additional deaths. COVID-19 hospitalizations in the province stood at 874, with 143 people in intensive care units.
In Manitoba, Premier Brian Pallister announced a plan to procure a made-in-Canada vaccine that is currently in early trial stages.
The province on Thursday reported 90 new COVID-19 cases and three additional deaths. Health officials in Manitoba said the number of people with all conditions in intensive care has dropped below 100 this week. That’s still above pre-pandemic capacity but down sharply from a spike in the fall.
Manitoba is the first province to buy its own COVID-19 vaccine rather than relying on the federal government. 1:53
Saskatchewan reported 114 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday. Health officials said there were 187 people in hospital, with 24 patients with the virus in intensive care.
In neighbouring Alberta, health officials reported 351 new cases of COVID-19 and 16 more deaths from the virus.
Across the North, Nunavut reported three new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday in the community in Arviat, while health officials in the Northwest Territories reported one new case. There were no new cases reported in Yukon.
Here’s a look at what else is happening across Canada:
-From The Canadian Press and CBC News, last updated at 10:50 a.m. ET
What’s happening around the world
A student gets a bag of food during a distribution organized by Linkee, a solidarity solution to food waste, in Paris on Thursday. (Benoit Tessier/Reuters)
As of early Friday morning, more than 107.8 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, with more than 60.3 million of those cases listed as recovered or resolved in a database maintained by Johns Hopkins University. The global death toll stood at more than 2.3 million.
In Europe, Portugal is getting more help from its European Union partners to ease pressure on hospitals crunched by the pandemic, with France and Luxembourg the latest countries to offer medical workers.
The Portuguese health ministry said France is sending a doctor and three nurses, while Luxembourg is providing two doctors and two nurses. The health ministry said in a statement late Thursday the medics should arrive next week.
The German army sent eight doctors and 18 nurses earlier this month to help at a Lisbon hospital. The number of COVID-19 patients in hospital and in intensive care fell Thursday for the third straight day, but Portugal’s seven-day average of daily deaths remained the world’s highest, at 1.97 per 100,000 people, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Nurses tend to a patient in a COVID-19 intensive care unit at the Curry Cabral hospital in Lisbon, Portugal on Thursday. (Armando Franca/The Associated Press)
In Germany, the health minister said he will consider introducing penalties for people who jump the queue for coronavirus vaccines. Jens Spahn told reporters in Berlin on Friday that there had been several such reports in recent days and the government would discuss with parliament “whether sanctions in this area could make sense.”
Spahn had previously downplayed the issue of queue jumping, but persistent reports have surfaced of senior officials in hospitals and cities getting the vaccines before doctors and nurses. This week the Catholic bishop of Augsburg acknowledged receiving the vaccine, despite being far down the priority list.
Patient rights campaigners warned Spahn last year that Germany’s complicated vaccination system could open the door to corruption and queue jumping, but the ministry rebuffed repeated calls for criminal penalties.
In Africa, South Africa has secured millions of doses of Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer vaccines to fight the highly infectious COVID-19 variant that is dominant in the country.
Kenya is going ahead with its plan to inoculate its citizens using AstraZeneca’s vaccine, while Zimbabwe has bought 600,000 shots from China’s Sinopharm, in addition to 200,000 China has donated.
In the Asia-Pacific region, the first batch of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine arrived in Japan on Friday, local media reported, with official approval for the shots expected within days as the country races to control a third wave of infections ahead of the Olympic Games.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Friday the country’s COVID-19 inoculation program will likely begin on Feb. 20, brought forward by the earlier receipt of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine than originally anticipated.
Australia’s second-largest city will begin its third lockdown due to a rapidly spreading COVID-19 cluster centred on hotel quarantine.
The five-day lockdown will be enforced across Victoria state to prevent the virus spreading from the state capital Melbourne, Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said. Only international flights that were already in the air when the lockdown was announced would be allowed to land at Melbourne Airport.
It’s a necessary circuit breaker to limit further spread of COVID-19, officials said. A highly contagious strain, first reported in the U.K., was detected at a quarantine hotel in Melbourne. 1:32
A population of 6.5 million people will be locked down from 11:59 p.m. until the same time on Wednesday because of a contagious variant of the virus first detected at a Melbourne Airport hotel that has infected 13 people.
In the Americas, Mexico’s health ministry on Thursday reported 10,677 new confirmed coronavirus cases and 1,474 more fatalities from COVID-19, bringing the overall total to 1,968,566 cases and 171,234 deaths. The government said the real number of infected people and the death toll in Mexico are both likely significantly higher than reported levels.
In the Middle East, Israel began reopening its education system on Thursday after a more than six-week closure due to the surge in coronavirus infections.
-From The Associated Press and Reuters, last updated at 7 a.m ET
Demands for government intervention in Air Canada labour talks could negatively affect airline competition in Canada, the CEO of travel company Transat AT Inc. said.
“The extension of such an extraordinary intervention to Air Canada would be an undeniable competitive advantage to the detriment of other Canadian airlines,” Annick Guérard told analysts on an earnings conference call on Thursday.
“The time and urgency is now. It is time to restore healthy competition in Canada,” she added.
Air Canada has asked the federal government to be ready to intervene and request arbitration as early as this weekend to avoid disruptions.
Comments on the potential Air Canada pilot strike or lock out came as Transat reported third-quarter financial results.
Guérard recalled Transat’s labour negotiations with its flight attendants earlier this year, which the company said it handled without asking for government intervention.
The airline’s 2,100 flight attendants voted 99 per cent in favour of a strike mandate and twice rejected tentative deals before approving a new collective agreement in late February.
As the collective agreement for Air Transat pilots ends in June next year, Guérard anticipates similar pressure to increase overall wages as seen in Air Canada’s negotiations, but reckons it will come out “as a win, win, win deal.”
“The pilots are preparing on their side, we are preparing on our side and we’re confident that we’re going to come up with a reasonable deal,” she told analysts when asked about the upcoming negotiations.
The parent company of Air Transat reported it lost $39.9 million or $1.03 per diluted share in its quarter ended July 31. The result compared with a profit of $57.3 million or $1.49 per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue totalled $736.2 million, down from $746.3 million in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Transat says it lost $1.10 per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of $1.10 per share a year earlier.
It attributed reduced revenues to lower airline unit revenues, competition, industry-wide overcapacity and economic uncertainty.
Air Transat is also among the airlines facing challenges related to the recall of Pratt & Whitney turbofan jet engines for inspection and repair.
The recall has so far grounded six aircraft, Guérard said on the call.
“We have agreed to financial compensation for grounded aircraft during the 2023-2024 period,” she said. “Alongside this financial compensation, Pratt & Whitney will provide us with two additional spare engines, which we intend to monetize through a sell and lease back transaction.”
Looking ahead, the CEO said she expects consumer demand to remain somewhat uncertain amid high interest rates.
“We are currently seeing ongoing pricing pressure extending into the winter season,” she added. Air Transat is not planning on adding additional aircraft next year but anticipates stability.
“(2025) for us will be much more stable than 2024 in terms of fleet movements and operation, and this will definitely have a positive effect on cost and customer satisfaction as well,” the CEO told analysts.
“We are more and more moving away from all the disruption that we had to go through early in 2024,” she added.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
