TORONTO —
Ahead of the anticipated arrival of more COVID-19 vaccine doses in the coming weeks, the province has now confirmed who will be prioritized next for its vaccination program.
In a memo sent out to local medical officers of health and hospital CEOs on Sunday, provincial officials said staff and essential caregivers in long-term care homes, high-risk retirement homes and First Nations elder care homes, along with any residents in these settings who have not yet received a first dose, are an “immediate priority” for vaccination.
“The provincial target of providing a first dose offer of vaccine to residents of all long-term care homes and high-risk retirement homes is arriving at completion. This includes work underway to make vaccinations available to First Nations elder care homes across the province,” the memo read.
“At this time, we are pleased to report that residents at all long-term care homes across the province have been given an opportunity for their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine.”
The groups that should be next in line, according to the province, include Indigenous adults in northern remote and higher risk communities and health-care workers with the highest risk of exposure to COVID-19.
The province has broken down health-care workers into four categories: highest priority, very high priority, high priority, and moderate priority.
Highest-priority health-care workers include all hospital and acute care staff in frontline roles with COVID-19 patients or those with a high-risk of exposure, including workers who perform “aerosol-generating procedures.”
Other workers identified in the highest priority group include “all patient-facing health-care workers involved in the COVID-19 response,” medical first-responders, including paramedics and firefighters, and community health-care workers serving specialized populations, including those who work at needle exchange or supervised consumption sites.
The province has identified “very high priority” health-care workers as those who work in acute care and other hospital settings not already identified in the previous category, along those who work in congregate and community care settings, including community health centres, birth centres, dentistry clinics, pharmacies, and walk-in clinics.
High priority health-care workers include those who work in community care settings with a lower risk of exposure, including mental health and addiction services and campus health-care workers.
Non-frontline health-care workers, including those who work remotely and do not require personal protective equipment, have been placed in the “moderate priority” category, the memo states.
The province said it has broken down health-care workers into these four categories due to the fact that demand for the vaccine will “initially exceed available supply,” which may result in the need to decide who gets the vaccine first. Highest priority health-care workers and very high priority health-care workers have been identified as groups who should be vaccinated “immediately.”
“When all reasonable steps have been taken to complete first-dose vaccinations of all staff, essential caregivers and residents of long-term care homes, high-risk retirement homes and First Nations elder care homes, first-dose vaccinations may be made available to the remainder of the Phase One populations,” the province said in its memo.
People in this category include all adults ages 80 and over as well as staff, residents, and caregivers in all retirement homes and other congregate care settings for seniors. All Indigenous adults, adult recipients of chronic home care, and health-care workers in the “high” priority level are also included in Phase One.
“To ensure equity and integrity in vaccine delivery, public health units and vaccination clinics should implement processes to fill last-minute cancellations, ‘no-shows’ and end-of-day remaining doses with people who are in groups identified in this memo as immediate and next priority for vaccination, and only to Phase One priority populations,” the memo read.
This directive comes after the head of Ontario’s COVID-19 vaccine task force admitted that hospitals gave some doses of the vaccine to non-frontline staff, including people working from home, because it was better to do that than to let the doses expire when people did not show up for their shot.
The province has also confirmed that in an effort to increase the number of first doses it administers during this “supply-limited time,” second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine will be administered no later than 42 days after the first shot.
This applies to all who receive their first dose with the exception of residents of long-term care, high-risk retirement and First Nations elder care homes, those 80 and older, and residents in other types of congregate care homes for seniors. Those groups will receive the second dose between 21 and 27 days after their first.
Only two COVID-19 vaccines, the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines produced in Europe, are approved for use in Canada and both companies have come up short in their recent shipments to the country.
About 922,234 people in Canada have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, approximately 2.43 per cent of the country’s population.
But the federal government has indicated that Canada expects to ramp up its vaccination effort this spring when the country receives an influx in vaccines next month.
Pfizer has promised to deliver on its goal to ship four million doses to Canada by the end of March.
In Ontario, an estimated 467,626 doses have been administered and 174,643 people are now fully vaccinated.
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.
