Reports of domestic, intimate partner violence continue to rise during pandemic.
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Britain’s newly established quarantine hotels have received their first guests as the government tries to prevent new variants of the coronavirus from derailing its fast-moving vaccination drive.
Passengers arriving at London’s Heathrow Airport on Monday morning were escorted by security guards to buses that took them to nearby hotels.
Britain has given a first dose of coronavirus vaccine to almost a quarter of the population, but health officials are concerned that vaccines may not work as well on some new strains of the virus, including one first identified in South Africa.
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A mobile COVID-19 testing centre, run by Randox, is set up on the grounds of the Radisson Blu hotel near London’s Heathrow airport, which is now acting as a quarantine hotel for passengers arriving from ‘red list’ countries. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
Under the new rules, people arriving in England from 33 high-risk countries must stay in quarantine hotels for 10 days at their own expense. In Scotland the rule applies to arrivals from any country.
International travel has already been sharply curbed by the pandemic, and Britons are currently barred from going on overseas vacations.
Critics say the quarantine hotels are being set up too late, with the variant first discovered in South Africa already circulating in the country.
U.K. PM to set out reopening plan next week
On Sunday the British government reached its goal of giving the first of two doses of vaccine to 15 million of the most vulnerable people, including health-care workers and those over the age of 70.
Visiting a London vaccination centre on Monday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson praised the “unbelievable effort” by scientists, medics, pharmacists, members of the military and volunteers that had achieved Europe’s fastest vaccine rollout.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson meets people waiting for their vaccine during a visit to a coronavirus vaccination centre at the Health and Wellbeing Centre in Orpington, southeast London, on Monday. (Jeremy Selwyn/The Associated Press)
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the vaccination drive is now being extended to people over 65 and those with underlying health conditions. The government aims to give everyone over 50 a first shot of vaccine by the end of April, and the whole adult population by September.
Britain has had Europe’s worst coronavirus outbreak, with more than 117,000 deaths. Infections and deaths are now falling steadily, and the government says that on Feb. 22 it will announce a “road map” for easing a nationwide lockdown.
Johnson is under pressure from some members of his governing Conservative Party to lift the lockdown soon, allowing businesses to reopen and people to visit friends and family.
The prime minister, who has been accused of being too slow to lock Britain down last spring, then too quick to ease restrictions over the summer, now is striking a more measured tone.
“Although the vaccination program is going well, we still don’t have enough data about the exact effectiveness of the vaccines in reducing the spread of infection,” Johnson said at a news conference.
“We must be both optimistic but also patient, because we want this lockdown to be the last.”
What’s happening in Canada
As of 12:45 p.m. ET on Monday, Canada had reported 826,527 cases of COVID-19, with 35,526 cases considered active. A CBC News tally of deaths stood at 21,309.
COVID-19 vaccination is expected to ramp up across the country this week as manufacturer Pfizer-BioNTech begins boosting deliveries after a month-long slowdown.
The federal government says beginning this week, it expects to receive weekly shipments of more than 400,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine until at least April 4. That number represents a significant jump in vaccine shipments to Canada, which has received a total of about 928,200 Pfizer doses since December.
WATCH | Age-based vaccinating the easiest method, epidemiologist says:
Prioritizing by age is the easiest and simplest way for provinces to carry out the mass vaccination program required for COVID-19, says epidemiologist Dr. Christopher Labos. 7:01
In Newfoundland and Labrador, all students will make the switch to online learning by Thursday, as the English School District set out a staggered schedule to get children into virtual classrooms until at least Feb. 26.
Alert Level 5 was triggered late Friday with the confirmation that the B117 coronavirus variant, the variant initially detected in the United Kingdom, is now circulating in the province.
The province saw a massive spike in COVID-19 cases last week, with reported daily new cases reaching as high as 100 on Feb. 11. New cases have since declined, with the province reporting seven new cases on Monday.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald, the province’s chief medical of officer of health, confirmed that one person is in hospital with the virus, marking the first hospitalization since the outbreak of the coronavirus variant.
WATCH | Calls to pause reopening as variants detected across Canada:
There are calls for provinces to pause some reopening plans after several COVID-19 variants have been detected in all 10 provinces. Experts predict these variants could be dominant within weeks, with potentially dire consequences. 2:06
In Ontario, widespread testing for all residents at a Mississauga condominium is underway Monday after five cases of the coronavirus variant first detected in South Africa were identified at the location.
The Ontario government has nearly finished offering a first dose to all residents of long-term care homes and high-risk retirement homes in the province, retired general Rick Hillier, chair of the province’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution task force, said in a memo to medical officers of health and hospital CEOs.
WATCH | Ontario to expand list of priority groups eligible for vaccine:
Adults aged 80 and over are among the priority groups next in line to get the COVID-19 vaccine in Ontario as part of the first phase of its rollout plan once supply increases. Greg Ross has more. 1:54
Ontario reported 981 new COVID-19 cases and 42 more deaths on Sunday. Due to the Family Day holiday, the province will not be posting case numbers on Monday.
Quebec reported 728 new cases and 16 additional deaths on Monday. It is the province’s lowest daily case increase since Sept. 26, when it reported 698 new cases.
Nova Scotia reported one new case on Monday. Premier Stephen McNeil said the recently low daily case count is proof the province’s public health orders are working.
New Brunswick reported one new case and one new death. According to a press release from the province, the person who died was a resident of Manoir Belle Vue, an adult residential facility in Edmundston.
Here’s a look at what else is happening across Canada:
What’s happening around the world
As of Monday afternoon, more than 108.9 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, with more than 61.1 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 2.4 million.
The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday listed AstraZeneca and Oxford University’s COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, widening access to the relatively inexpensive shot in the developing world.
A WHO statement said it had approved the vaccine as produced by AstraZeneca-SKBio and the Serum Institute of India.
Doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine make up the lion’s share of doses in the COVAX coronavirus vaccine sharing scheme, with more than 330 million doses of the shot due to begin being rolled out to poorer countries from the end of February.
The AstraZeneca-Oxford shot has been hailed because it is cheaper and easier to distribute than some rivals, including Pfizer-BioNTech’s, which was listed for emergency use by WHO late in December.
In the Asia-Pacific region, South Korea said on Monday it would not use AstraZeneca’s vaccine on people aged 65 and older, reversing an earlier decision, and scaled back initial vaccination targets due to delayed shipments from global vaccine-sharing scheme COVAX.
South Korea had said it would complete vaccinations on 1.3 million people by the first quarter of this year with AstraZeneca shots, but it slashed the target sharply to 750,000.
Australia and New Zealand have received their first vaccine deliveries and will begin rolling out inoculations in the coming week, while Melbourne and Auckland remained locked down following the emergence of new cases.
The first Australian shipment of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines is unloaded from a Singapore Airlines plane at Sydney International Airport on Monday. (Bianca De Marchi/Reuters)
“The eagle has landed,” Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt told reporters in Canberra on Monday as the first shipment of 142,000 doses of the vaccine developed by Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech touched down.
In Africa, Zimbabwe has received its first COVID-19 vaccines with the arrival early Monday of an Air Zimbabwe jet carrying 200,000 Sinopharm doses from China. It is one of China’s first shipments of vaccines to Africa, after deliveries to Egypt and Equatorial Guinea.
The first Sinopharm vaccines are a donation from China to the southern African country. President Emmerson Mnanagagwa’s government has purchased an additional 600,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine that are expected to arrive early next month, according to state media.
The first batch of vaccines for Zimbabwe has been successfully delivered. We start vaccinating Zimbabweans this week!<br><br>The faster our country is protected against this virus, the faster Zimbabwe’s economy can flourish.<br><br>God bless you all, god bless Zimbabwe! ???????? <a href=”https://t.co/u2noXMWcnR”>pic.twitter.com/u2noXMWcnR</a>
South Africa has reopened its major land borders with neighbouring countries after closing them last month to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
The country, which has seen a cumulative total of nearly 1.5 million cases and 47,000 deaths, has seen a decline in new cases and is set to start vaccinating its front-line health workers with Johnson & Johnson vaccines later this week.
Coronavirus case numbers are stabilizing in parts of the Middle East, but the situation remains critical with more than a dozen countries reporting cases of new variants, the World Health Organization said Monday.
Ahmed al-Mandhari, director of WHO’s eastern Mediterranean region, which comprises most of the Middle East, said in a media briefing from Cairo that at least one of the three new coronavirus variants was reported in the 13 countries, which he did not name. All three of the new variants are more contagious, according to WHO.
Israel’s largest health-care provider reported on Sunday a 94 per cent drop in symptomatic COVID-19 infections among 600,000 people who received two doses of Pfizer’s vaccine in the country’s biggest study to date.
Health maintenance organization Clalit, which covers more than half of all Israelis, said the same group was also 92 per cent less likely to develop severe illness from the virus.
“It shows unequivocally that Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine is extremely effective in the real world a week after the second dose, just as it was found to be in the clinical study,” said Ran Balicer, Clalit’s chief innovation officer.
In the Americas, Brazil has confirmed cases of the variant of the novel coronavirus first discovered in the U.K. in two states and in the federal district of Brasilia, according to a statement from the health ministry on Sunday. The government said it has not yet confirmed cases of the variant first identified in South Africa.
A woman dressed as a superhero performs in the ‘Desliga da Justica’ street band in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday. Their performance was broadcast live on social media for those who were unable to participate in the carnival due to COVID-19 restrictions. (Bruna Prado/The Associated Press)
Brazil has the world’s highest number of coronavirus deaths after the United States and more than 9.8 million confirmed cases. The variant of the virus first discovered in Brazil is circulating in 10 states, the health ministry said.
In Europe, the first shipment of a COVID-19 vaccine developed in China will arrive Tuesday in Hungary, the first country in the European Union to approve it.
In a video on Facebook on Monday, State Secretary Tamas Menczer said 550,000 doses of the vaccine developed by Chinese state-owned company Sinopharm will be transported by jet from Beijing, enough to treat 275,000 people with two doses each. The first shipment will undergo testing by the National Public Health Center before inoculations begin, Menczer said.
A French medical team was due to start work Monday at a hospital in Portugal, which for more than three weeks has been the country in the world with most COVID-19 deaths by size of population.
The French doctor and three nurses arrived amid signs that a month-long lockdown, which is being extended to at least March 1, is paying off. On Sunday, just over 4,800 COVID-19 patients were in hospital, down from a Feb. 1 peak of close to 7,000.
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WINNIPEG – Police in Winnipeg say one person has died and three more were injured after a pickup truck smashed into a bus shelter on Portage Avenue during the morning commute.
Police say those injured are in stable condition in hospital.
It began after a Ford F150 truck hit a pedestrian and bus shelter on Portage Avenue near Bedson Street before 8 a.m.
Another vehicle, a power pole and a gas station were also damaged before the truck came to a stop.
The crash forced commuters to be rerouted and knocked out power in the area for more than a thousand Manitoba Hydro customers.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
KAMLOOPS, B.C. – A 35-year-old man has been charged with second-degree murder after his mother’s body was found near her Kamloops, B.C., home a year ago.
Mounties say 57-year-old Jo-Anne Donovan was found dead about a week after she had been reported missing.
RCMP says its serious crime unit launched an investigation after the body was found.
Police say they arrested Brandon Donovan on Friday after the BC Prosecution Service approved the charge.
TORONTO – Strength in the base metal and technology sectors helped Canada’s main stock index gain almost 100 points on Friday, while U.S. stock markets climbed to their best week of the year.
“It’s been almost a complete opposite or retracement of what we saw last week,” said Philip Petursson, chief investment strategist at IG Wealth Management.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 297.01 points at 41,393.78. The S&P 500 index was up 30.26 points at 5,626.02, while the Nasdaq composite was up 114.30 points at 17,683.98.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 93.51 points at 23,568.65.
While last week saw a “healthy” pullback on weaker economic data, this week investors appeared to be buying the dip and hoping the central bank “comes to the rescue,” said Petursson.
Next week, the U.S. Federal Reserve is widely expected to cut its key interest rate for the first time in several years after it significantly hiked it to fight inflation.
But the magnitude of that first cut has been the subject of debate, and the market appears split on whether the cut will be a quarter of a percentage point or a larger half-point reduction.
Petursson thinks it’s clear the smaller cut is coming. Economic data recently hasn’t been great, but it hasn’t been that bad either, he said — and inflation may have come down significantly, but it’s not defeated just yet.
“I think they’re going to be very steady,” he said, with one small cut at each of their three decisions scheduled for the rest of 2024, and more into 2025.
“I don’t think there’s a sense of urgency on the part of the Fed that they have to do something immediately.
A larger cut could also send the wrong message to the markets, added Petursson: that the Fed made a mistake in waiting this long to cut, or that it’s seeing concerning signs in the economy.
It would also be “counter to what they’ve signaled,” he said.
More important than the cut — other than the new tone it sets — will be what Fed chair Jerome Powell has to say, according to Petursson.
“That’s going to be more important than the size of the cut itself,” he said.
In Canada, where the central bank has already cut three times, Petursson expects two more before the year is through.
“Here, the labour situation is worse than what we see in the United States,” he said.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.61 cents US compared with 73.58 cents US on Thursday.
The October crude oil contract was down 32 cents at US$68.65 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was down five cents at US$2.31 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was up US$30.10 at US$2,610.70 an ounce and the December copper contract was up four cents US$4.24 a pound.
— With files from The Associated Press
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
