OTTAWA —
Ottawa Public Health says 67 more people in the city have tested positive for COVID-19.
OPH’s COVID-19 dashboard now shows 14,105 total cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began.
No new deaths were reported on Wednesday. The death toll from the pandemic stands at 434 residents.
The new figures Wednesday come as Ontario reports its lowest daily case count since October. Health officials added 847 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday and 10 new deaths. The province reported 53 cases in Ottawa on Wednesday.
However, officials note that fluctuating numbers due to an ongoing data issue at Toronto Public Health, may affect case totals.
The new cases in Ottawa follow reports from Ottawa Public Health of 31 new cases on Tuesday and 59 cases on Monday. Figures from Ottawa Public Health and from the province often differ due to different data collection times.
Ottawa Public Health says there have been seven total cases of the B.1.1.7 COVID-19 variant (first identified in the UK) and one case of the B.1.351 variant (first identified in South Africa).
The number of known active cases in Ottawa rose slightly on Wednesday, and key weekly averages remain firmly within the “Orange-Restrict” level.
Ottawa is in “Orange-Restrict” status under Ontario’s COVID-19 framework.
Ottawa Public Health data:
Reproduction values greater than 1 indicate the virus is spreading and each case infects more than one contact. If it is less than 1, it means spread is slowing.
The Orange-Restrict category of Ontario’s COVID-19 framework includes a weekly rate of cases per 100,000 between 25 to 39.9, a percent positivity of 1.3 to 2.4 per cent, and a reproduction number of approximately 1 to 1.1.
As of Feb. 17
*OPH says staff were able to extract additional doses out of several vials, which were given to residents. In a statement on its dashboard, OPH said, “Vaccine inventory is based on an expected 5 dose per vial supply. Occasionally, an additional dose (6th dose) is successfully extracted and administered to clients.”
The number of people in Ottawa with known active cases of COVID-19 rose on Wednesday to 447 after dropping to 435 on Tuesday.
The active case count has been slowly rising since Feb. 10, when Ottawa Public Health reported at 2021 low of 402 cases.
OPH added 55 newly resolved cases to its dashboard on Wednesday, bringing the city’s total number of resolved cases to 13,224.
There are 18 people in Ottawa hospitals with COVID-19 complications and three are in intensive care.
Of the people in hospital, one is under the age of 10, two are in their 40s (one is in the ICU), two are in their 50s, three are in their 60s, four are in their 70s (one is in the ICU), and six are in their 80s (one is in the ICU).
Ontario health officials say 33,977 COVID-19 tests were performed provincewide on Tuesday and 33,730 tests remain under investigation.
The Ottawa COVID-19 Testing Taskforce said on Tuesday that 1,662 swabs were taken at local assessment centres on Monday and labs performed 2,815 COVID-19 tests.
The average positivity rate for the week of Feb. 8 to 14 was 1.6 per cent.
The average turnaround from the time the swab is taken at a testing site to the result is 18 hours.
Ottawa Public Health is reporting COVID-19 outbreaks at 24 institutions in Ottawa, including long-term care homes, retirement homes, daycares, hospitals and schools.
There are seven active community outbreaks, two are linked to retail workplaces, two are linked to health workplaces, one is linked to a corporate/office setting, one is linked to a distribution centre, and one is linked to a warehouse.
The schools and childcare spaces currently experiencing outbreaks are:
The long-term care homes, retirement homes, hospitals, and other spaces currently experiencing outbreaks are:
A single laboratory-confirmed case of COVID-19 in a resident or staff member of a long-term care home, retirement home or shelter triggers an outbreak response, according to Ottawa Public Health. In childcare settings, a single confirmed, symptomatic case in a staff member, home daycare provider, or child triggers an outbreak.
Under provincial guidelines, a COVID-19 outbreak in a school is defined as two or more lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases in students and/or staff in a school with an epidemiological link, within a 14-day period, where at least one case could have reasonably acquired their infection in the school (including transportation and before or after school care).
Alberta’s minister of forestry and parks said the RCMP national security investigation team is involved in a probe looking into what caused a pipeline to rupture and catch fire west of Edmonton earlier this week.
On Tuesday, a wildfire was sparked following a natural gas pipeline rupture about 40 kilometres northwest of Edson, Alta. The fire has since been deemed under control.
“We have no indication of any kind of cause on that fire yet; the investigation is happening,” Forestry and Parks Minister Todd Loewen said at a wildfire-related news conference Thursday morning. “The national security investigation team of the RCMP are investigating the cause.
“My understanding, since the cause was unknown, that’s standard practice for them to come in on anything that’s unknown.”
RCMP said as of Tuesday, initial reports had shown no signs of foul play.
Global News has reached out to the RCMP for more information. On its website, the RCMP states it has a wide range of national security-related mandates and responsibilities. It says its national security criminal investigations program involves critical infrastructure protection and critical incident management.
Officials say the investigation into what caused the TC Energy pipeline to break could take months or even years.
The Canada Energy Regulator had investigators on site on Wednesday. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada is also investigating the incident.
The rupture sparked a blaze that could be seen for kilometres, sending large flames and plumes of smoke into the air.
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No injuries were reported, and officials said the fire was never a threat to any surrounding communities.
“I want to commend the Yellowhead County Fire Department, industry and our wildfire team for the timely manner that this fire was brought under control,” Loewen said Thursday.
“Fast information sharing between all parties facilitated an effective wildfire response.”
The wildfire sparked by the pipeline rupture is located about 28 kilometres northeast of Obed Lake. More than 30 firefighters were expected to be in the area Thursday to continue working on the wildfire.
— with files from The Canadian Press
— more to come…
© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
A St. John’s woman says she won’t be paying many more visits to Tim Hortons, after an email from the coffee chain led her to believe that she’d won a new boat — when she hadn’t won anything at all.
“I go to Tim’s quite a lot, seven days a week. I’m afraid now that’s going to change to no days a week,” Carol Evans told CBC News on Thursday.
Evans said she received an email from Tim Hortons on Wednesday afternoon while on a break from her work as an licensed practical nurse.
The email recapped the prizes she’d won in the annual Roll Up the Rim to Win contest, but there was one extra prize included — a brand new boat and trailer, valued at about $55,000.
Unfortunately, the excitement was over by the time she got home from work.
“I was just so excited, really excited. I thought I really won a boat and a trailer, $55,000 worth, and to find out at five to six, I had an email from them come in telling me it was a technical error,” she said.
“I don’t get my boat and I don’t get my trailer.”
Carol Evans of St. John’s was elated when she got an email from Tim Hortons saying she won $55,000 worth of prizes. Another email from the coffee giant a few hours later, telling her it was an error, had her crushed — and fuming.
Evans said her win was the talk of her co-workers.
“I work with about a hundred people in the run of a day, and more than that outside the OR, and everybody was so happy for me. They couldn’t believe it, I finally won something in my life,” she said.
“But to find out a few hours later I didn’t, it was disappointing, very disappointing.… I cried, it was so sad.”
Although she may not have taken it out on the water, Evans said winning would have meant a lot to her, like helping fund her retirement after more than five decades in nursing.
“I could have sold the boat and trailer and had some money, paid off some bills, probably could have, who knows, retired after 55 years of work,” she said.
In an emailed statement to CBC News on Thursday, Tim Hortons said the message was meant to show what each customer won over the course of the contest — and the boat was included by mistake.
“We developed a Roll Up To Win recap email message with the best intentions of giving our guests a fun overview of their 2024 play history.
“Unfortunately there was a human error that resulted in some guests receiving some incorrect information in their recap message.”
The company didn’t disclose how many people across the country received the email, but CBC News spoke to another person in western Newfoundland who got it.
Others in Edmonton, Hamilton and Brampton, Ont., were also told they’d won the boat.
By Wednesday afternoon, a Facebook group had formed with more than 200 people expressing outrage about the mistake and threatening to file lawsuits.
Tim Hortons sent the affected customers a letter, telling them to disregard that winning email and that it was sent as a result of “technical errors.”
“Unfortunately, some prizes that you did not win may have been included in the recap email you received. If this was the case, today’s email does not mean that you won those prizes,” the letter read.
“We apologize for the frustration this has caused and for not living up to our high standards.”
It’s a familiar story for Tim’s, however, as last year, its app mistakenly informed users they’d won $10,000.
Evans said two years of big mistakes just isn’t fair. She’d like to see Tim Hortons move away from the Roll Up to Win smartphone app and back to paper cups.
“It’s not fair to the public who spend their hard-earned money to go into Tim’s and buy their coffee every day, buy their lunch, and then think they won a prize and all of a sudden you learn, three hours later, you didn’t win a prize, and it’s not fair.”
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The new regulations will take effect in Bowen Island, Tofino, Pemberton and 14 other communities on Nov. 1
Published Apr 18, 2024 • Last updated 2 hours ago • 5 minute read
With less than two weeks before B.C.’s short-term rental restrictions take effect, visitors staying at an Airbnb, Vrbo or other short-term rental homes are told to check with their hosts to make sure they are not staying in illegal accommodations.
Guests should ask hosts if they are compliant with the new rules, said B.C.’s housing minister, even as he reassured guests they won’t be on the hook.
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“The responsibility to comply with the rules fall with the hosts and the short-term rental platforms,” said Ravi Kahlon at a news conference with Premier David Eby in Langley on Thursday. “We encourage people to continue to explore beautiful British Columbia, and stay in legal short-term rental accommodations.”The new regulations set to take effect on May 1 would restrict short-term rentals to principal residences and either a secondary suite or a laneway home/garden suite on the property.
They apply to more than 60 B.C. communities with populations of more than 10,000 people, as well as 17 smaller communities, including Bowen Island, Tofino, Osoyoos, Pemberton, and Gabriola Island, which have decided to opt in. For these communities, the rules will take effect on Nov. 1.
The new legislation carries penalties of $500 to $5,000 a day per infraction for hosts and reach as high as $10,000 a day for platforms.
Eby said the province’s principal residence requirement is meant to crack down on speculators while allowing homeowners to rent out spaces in their principal residences if they choose to do so.
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He acknowledged the restrictions could put some property owners’ investment and retirement plans into disarray, but made no apologies, saying people with money to invest should put their money elsewhere.
“Do not compete with individuals and families who are looking for place to live with your investment dollars,” Eby said, adding the government will “tilt the deck every single time toward that family.”
The government has set up a provincial enforcement unit, currently staffed by four people, to conduct investigations into alleged non-compliant units.
The enforcement will be largely done digitally and includes the use of a short-term rental data portal that’ll help local governments monitor and enforce regulations.
Municipalities with their own short-term rental restrictions can upload non-compliant properties to the portal, said Kahlon. Platforms will have five days to verify whether the units are on their sites. Local governments without short-term rental licensing can report properties they believe are not compliant.
The platforms will be required to remove non-compliant listings at the request of local or the provincial governments and provide the province with a monthly update of short-term listings on their sites, said Kahlon.
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Companies such as Expedia and Booking.com are working to get ready for the new rules, and he’s hopeful other platforms will follow suit by May 1.
Airbnb said it has been in discussions with the provincial government for months and plans to comply with the new rules, but predicts they will harm the province’s tourism sector by taking extra income away from residents and limiting accommodation options for people, while doing little to improve the housing crunch for residents.
“They’re doing this because they say there’s going to be an impact on housing, that this will free up more housing for people,” said Nathan Rotman, Airbnb’s policy lead in Canada. “That is just not true.”
Despite several years of Airbnb restrictions in Vancouver, for example, rents have gone up while vacancies stayed low, he said.
Kahlon said the pending rules are already having a positive impact on housing availability with short-term rentals being converted to long-term use or being put up for sale.
In March, more than 19,000 entire homes in B.C. were listed as short-term rentals for most of the year, said the province. Even if half of those units are returned to the long-term market, that’ll make a “substantial difference” in communities, said Kahlon.
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Eby said there has been a “massive upswing” in hotel construction in key tourist areas as an unintended result of the new policies.
Bowen Island, a small community of 4,200 whose council voted in March to opt into the province’s short-term rental regulations, has seen increased pressure from tourists and housing demand in recent years.
The decision was council’s way “to balance what is appropriate use in residentially-zoned neighbourhoods while still allowing property owners to still do what they want with their properties,” said Mayor Andrew Leonard.
The principal residence requirement still allows for Airbnb and other short-term rentals on the island, he pointed out. “The vast majority of short-term rental operations are unaffected. This just keeps it in the homes of homeowners instead of speculators.”
Some communities, including Parksville’s Resort Drive area, were granted an exemption last month under the province’s exemption for strata hotel or motels. The area was purpose-built as tourism accommodation more than two decades ago.
The new legislation is being challenged in B.C. Supreme Court by Victoria-based groups and the Westcoast Association for Property Rights, who are calling for a review of the new rules and compensation for financial losses.
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According to Airbnb, Airbnb bookings and related spending generated around $2.5 billion in B.C. in 2023 and created 25,000 jobs.
The company says that for every $100 spent on an Airbnb booking, guests also spent about $229 on other travel spending.
More than three quarters of hosts polled by the company say they use their Airbnb earnings to cover rising costs of living, especially housing.
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