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B.C. to open AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines for ages 55 to 65 in Lower Mainland – CBC.ca
The B.C. government has announced that people aged 55 to 65 who are living in the Lower Mainland can register on Wednesday to receive a dose of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine.
The announcement on Tuesday came as provincial health officials reported 840 new cases of COVID-19 but no additional deaths.
In a statement, Health Minister Adrian Dix said anyone in the Vancouver Coastal and Fraser Health regions within that age range can call their local pharmacy to book a vaccination appointment.
Drop-in service may also be an option at more than 150 participating pharmacies. People must bring their personal health number with them.
The announcement comes one day after British Columbia health officials paused the use of AstraZeneca vaccines in people under the age of 55 in response to European reports of rare but potentially fatal blood clots.
Similar measures are being taken across Canada in response to recommendations from the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI).
Health officials said that pause presents an opportunity to use those doses to protect people with higher COVID-19 risks sooner.
“We know from the millions of doses used worldwide, and especially in the U.K., it is highly effective and the benefits to those over age 55 far outweigh the very real risks of getting COVID-19,” Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said in a statement.
“I encourage everyone in the Lower Mainland who is between 55 and 65 years of age to receive their safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine today.”
Active cases remain high
Henry and Dix also updated the province’s COVID-19 numbers on Tuesday, putting the number of hospitalized patients at 312, 78 of whom are in intensive care.
There are currently 7,062 active cases of coronavirus in the province — the highest number since Jan. 3 — with public health officials monitoring 11,164 people across B.C. who are in self-isolation due to COVID-19 exposure.
A total of 90,401 people who have tested positive for the virus have recovered, while 1,455 people in B.C. have died due to COVID-19 since the pandemic began early last year.
So far, 724,193 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in the province, with 87,319 of those being second doses.
B.C. recorded 320 new cases associated with variants of concern on Tuesday, bringing the total number of variant cases in the province to 2,553. Of those, 313 are active cases.
New restrictions in effect
On Monday, the province recorded 2,518 new cases of COVID-19 from over the weekend, with a record high 936 on Saturday.
To interrupt the escalating transmission, Henry announced new restrictions that are in effect until at least April 19.
They include the closure of all indoor dining establishments, the suspension of indoor adult group fitness classes and the temporary closure of the Whistler-Blackcomb ski resort.
Henry also outlined new school mask guidelines on Monday for children in elementary school to help curb the rise in cases. The new guidelines now recommend masks for all students down to Grade 4 in schools across the province.
Henry was joined by Premier John Horgan, who singled out British Columbians aged 20 to 39 as the cohort not paying enough attention to COVID-19 public health orders.
Whistler case count grows
Vancouver Coastal Health reported continued case growth in Whistler on Tuesday.
In a statement, VCH said that from March 22 to 28, 218 new cases of COVID-19 were detected in Whistler.
Between Jan. 1 and March 28, 1,120 cases were recorded in the Whistler community, the health authority said, 83 per cent of which occurred among people age 20 to 39 years.
VCH said the most common transmission locations in Whistler are household settings and social gatherings.
Tesla has promised to start selling cheaper models next year, days after a Reuters report revealed that the company had shelved its plans for an all-new Tesla that would cost only $25,000.
The news that Tesla was scrapping the Model 2 came amid a drop in sales and profits, and a decision to slash a tenth of the company’s global workforce. Reuters also noted increased competition from Chinese EV makers.
Tesla’s deliveries slumped in the first quarter for the first annual drop since the start of the pandemic in 2020, missing analyst forecasts by a mile in a sign that even price cuts haven’t been able to stave off an increasingly heated competition on the EV market.
Profits dropped by 50%, disappointing investors and leading to a slump in the company’s share prices, which made any good news urgently needed. Tesla delivered: it said it would bring forward the date for the release of new, lower-cost models. These would be produced on its existing platform and rolled out in the second half of 2025, per the BBC.
Reuters cited the company as warning that this change of plans could “result in achieving less cost reduction than previously expected,” however. This suggests the price tag of the new models is unlikely to be as small as the $25,000 promised for the Model 2.
The decision is based on a substantially reduced risk appetite in Tesla’s management, likely affected by the recent financial results and the intensifying competition with Chinese EV makers. Shelving the Model 2 and opting instead for cars to be produced on existing manufacturing lines is the safer move in these “uncertain times”, per the company.
Tesla is also cutting prices, as many other EV makers are doing amid a palpable decline in sales in key markets such as Europe, where the phaseout of subsidies has hit demand for EVs seriously. The cut is of about $2,000 on all models that Tesla currently sells.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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Divisions within the Bank of Canada over the timing of a much-anticipated cut to its key overnight interest rate stem from concerns of some members of the central bank’s governing council that progress on taming inflation could stall in the face of stronger domestic demand — or even pick up again in the event of “new surprises.”
“Some members emphasized that, with the economy performing well, the risk had diminished that restrictive monetary policy would slow the economy more than necessary to return inflation to target,” according to a summary of deliberations for the April 10 rate decision that were published Wednesday. “They felt more reassurance was needed to reduce the risk that the downward progress on core inflation would stall, and to avoid jeopardizing the progress made thus far.”
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Others argued that there were additional risks from keeping monetary policy too tight in light of progress already made to tame inflation, which had come down “significantly” across most goods and services.
Some pointed out that the distribution of inflation rates across components of the consumer price index had approached normal, despite outsized price increases and decreases in certain components.
“Coupled with indicators that the economy was in excess supply and with a base case projection showing the output gap starting to close only next year, they felt there was a risk of keeping monetary policy more restrictive than needed.”
In the end, though, the central bankers agreed to hold the rate at five per cent because inflation remained too high and there were still upside risks to the outlook, albeit “less acute” than in the past couple of years.
Despite the “diversity of views” about when conditions will warrant cutting the interest rate, central bank officials agreed that monetary policy easing would probably be gradual, given risks to the outlook and the slow path for returning inflation to target, according to the summary of deliberations.
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They considered a number of potential risks to the outlook for economic growth and inflation, including housing and immigration, according to summary of deliberations.
The central bankers discussed the risk that housing market activity could accelerate and further boost shelter prices and acknowledged that easing monetary policy could increase the likelihood of this risk materializing. They concluded that their focus on measures such as CPI-trim, which strips out extreme movements in price changes, allowed them to effectively look through mortgage interest costs while capturing other shelter prices such as rent that are more reflective of supply and demand in housing.
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They also agreed to keep a close eye on immigration in the coming quarters due to uncertainty around recent announcements by the federal government.
“The projection incorporated continued strong population growth in the first half of 2024 followed by much softer growth, in line with the federal government’s target for reducing the share of non-permanent residents,” the summary said. “But details of how these plans will be implemented had not been announced. Governing council recognized that there was some uncertainty about future population growth and agreed it would be important to update the population forecast each quarter.”
• Email: bshecter@nationalpost.com
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Shares in US tech giant Meta have sunk in US after-hours trading despite better-than-expected earnings.
The Facebook and Instagram owner said expenses would be higher this year as it spends heavily on artificial intelligence (AI).
Its shares fell more than 15% after it said it expected to spend billions of dollars more than it had previously predicted in 2024.
Meta has been updating its ad-buying products with AI tools to boost earnings growth.
It has also been introducing more AI features on its social media platforms such as chat assistants.
The firm said it now expected to spend between $35bn and $40bn, (£28bn-32bn) in 2024, up from an earlier prediction of $30-$37bn.
Its shares fell despite it beating expectations on its earnings.
First quarter revenue rose 27% to $36.46bn, while analysts had expected earnings of $36.16bn.
Sophie Lund-Yates, lead equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said its spending plans were “aggressive”.
She said Meta’s “substantial investment” in AI has helped it get people to spend time on its platforms, so advertisers are willing to spend more money “in a time when digital advertising uncertainty remains rife”.
More than 50 countries are due to have elections this year, she said, “which hugely increases uncertainty” and can spook advertisers.
She added that Meta’s “fortunes are probably also being bolstered by TikTok’s uncertain future in the US”.
Meta’s rival has said it will fight an “unconstitutional” law that could result in TikTok being sold or banned in the US.
President Biden has signed into law a bill which gives the social media platform’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, nine months to sell off the app or it will be blocked in the US.
Ms Lund-Yates said that “looking further ahead, the biggest risk [for Meta] remains regulatory”.
Last year, Meta was fined €1.2bn (£1bn) by Ireland’s data authorities for mishandling people’s data when transferring it between Europe and the US.
And in February of this year, Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg faced blistering criticism from US lawmakers and was pushed to apologise to families of victims of child sexual exploitation.
Ms Lund-Yates added that the firm has “more than enough resources to throw at legal challenges, but that doesn’t rule out the risks of ups and downs in market sentiment”.
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