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Canada should maintain equal distribution of vaccines, says Dal virologist – CBC.ca

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A virologist at Dalhousie University who’s working to develop a new vaccine to fight COVID-19 says ensuring doses are distributed equally across Canada is necessary since outbreaks can happen quickly. 

The idea of diverting vaccines to areas of the country that have been hardest hit by the coronavirus has been raised by some health experts, but there’s debate over whether it’s the right approach.

Alyson Kelvin, a virologist at the Canadian Centre for Vaccinology in Saskatoon, said while Nova Scotia might have few cases right now, it’s also home to many people who are most vulnerable.

“There are regions that are quite vulnerable, including the Maritime provinces, which have higher rates of older people, higher rates of certain comorbidities that would place their population in greater risk if COVID-19 … was to transmit heavily,” Kelvin, an assistant professor at Dalhousie, told CBC Radio’s Maritime Noon on Monday.

“So in the end, Nova Scotia might even be more vulnerable to COVID-19.”

Kelvin also pointed to communities in the North where cases are low but where access to health care is limited.

“They might not have an outbreak right now, but that doesn’t mean that they’re any less susceptible to devastating effects if the virus was to be brought to their communities. This is a very dynamic situation and things could change very quickly,” she said.

Maritime Noon52:55Dalhousie virologist on where COVID-19 vaccines should be sent, tape on COVID outbreak at Edmundston nursing home, phone-in on volunteering for vaccination rollout

Dr, Alyson Kelvin from Dalhousie University on opinions ranging on where COVID-19 vaccines should be sent in Canada, tape about a major outbreak at Manoir Belle Vue seniors home in Edmundston, and on the phone-in, Dr. Shelly McNeil of Nova Scotia Health on volunteering for the vaccine rollout. 52:55

Dr. Zain Chagla, an infectious disease specialist and associate professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., has suggested that doses be redistributed from the Atlantic region where cases are low to “give it to the rest of Canada that’s suffering.”

With delays in the delivery of vaccines to Canada, Kelvin said she understands these worries. She said diverting doses could relieve stress in some of the harder hit area of the country, such as Ontario and Quebec.

But she adds that outbreaks can happen elsewhere quickly.

A Halifax nurse became the first Nova Scotian to receive the COVID-19 vaccine on Dec. 16, 2020. (Robert Short/CBC )

“It’s really important that we continue to have equity of vaccines across Canada and … across the world because we’re all susceptible,” she said, “and to take away possibly that umbrella that one community might have might put them further at risk, so that’s something that needs to be weighed carefully moving forward.”

Kelvin said diverting vaccines could also impact the morale of Nova Scotians who’ve been following public health restrictions, although she’s hopeful it won’t come to that. 

The federal government has said it has no plans right now to redirect doses from provinces and territories with low levels of transmission, but it didn’t rule out adjusting distribution in the future. 

As of Monday afternoon, Nova Scotia had administered 14,906 doses and 0.28 per cent of the population had been fully vaccinated.

Nova Scotia is aiming to vaccinate 75 per cent of the province’s population by early fall. (Nova Scotia Government)

Could Canadian vaccine be coming soon?

The province is aiming to vaccinate 75 per cent of Nova Scotians by early fall, with health-care workers, seniors and people in long-term care facilities at the top of the list.

Kelvin is among a group of people at the VIDO-InterVac lab in Saskatoon working to develop the first made-in-Canada vaccine. 

With news that Moderna has cut shipments to Canada, she said it’s more important than ever to have secure access to a vaccine that’s made right here.

“We really needed to focus on our Canadian efforts to continue making vaccines just in case there was a vaccine shortage, which is what we’re seeing right now,” she said.  

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Two youths arrested after emergency alert issued in New Brunswick

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MONCTON, N.B. – New Brunswick RCMP say two youths have been arrested after an emergency alert was issued Monday evening about someone carrying a gun in the province’s southeast.

Caledonia Region Mounties say they were first called out to Main Street in the community of Salisbury around 7 p.m. on reports of a shooting.

A 48-year-old man was found at the scene suffering from gunshot wounds and he was rushed to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Police say in the interest of public safety, they issued an Alert Ready message at 8:15 p.m. for someone driving a silver Ford F-150 pickup truck and reportedly carrying a firearm with dangerous intent in the Salisbury and Moncton area.

Two youths were arrested without incident later in the evening in Salisbury, and the alert was cancelled just after midnight Tuesday.

Police are still looking for the silver pickup truck, covered in mud, with possible Nova Scotia licence plate HDC 958. They now confirm the truck was stolen from Central Blissville.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.

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World Junior Girls Golf Championship coming to Toronto-area golf course

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MISSISSAUGA, Ont. – Golf Canada has set an impressive stretch goal of having 30 professional golfers at the highest levels of the sport by 2032.

The World Junior Girls Golf Championship is a huge part of that target.

Credit Valley Golf and Country Club will host the international tournament from Sept. 30 to Oct. 5, with 24 teams representing 23 nations — Canada gets two squads — competing. Lindsay McGrath, a 17-year-old golfer from Oakville, Ont., said she’s excited to be representing Canada and continue to develop her game.

“I’m really grateful to be here,” said McGrath on Monday after a news conference in Credit Valley’s clubhouse in Mississauga, Ont. “It’s just such an awesome feeling being here and representing our country, wearing all the logos and being on Team Canada.

“I’ve always wanted to play in this tournament, so it’s really special to me.”

McGrath will be joined by Nobelle Park of Oakville, Ont., and Eileen Park of Red Deer, Alta., on Team Canada 2. All three earned their places through a qualifying tournament last month.

“I love my teammates so much,” said McGrath. “I know Nobelle and Eileen very well. I’m just so excited to be with them. We have such a great relationship.”

Shauna Liu of Maple, Ont., Calgary’s Aphrodite Deng and Clairey Lin make up Team Canada 2. Liu earned her exemption following her win at the 2024 Canadian Junior Girls Championship while Deng earned her exemption as being the low eligible Canadian on the world amateur golf ranking as of Aug. 7.

Deng was No. 175 at the time, she has since improved to No. 171 and is Canada’s lowest-ranked player.

“I think it’s a really great opportunity,” said Liu. “We don’t really get that many opportunities to play with people from across the world, so it’s really great to meet new people and play with them.

“It’s great to see maybe how they play and take parts from their game that we might also implement our own games.”

Golf Canada founded the World Junior Girls Golf Championship in 2014 to fill a void in women’s international competition and help grow its own homegrown talent. The hosts won for the first time last year when Vancouver’s Anna Huang, Toronto’s Vanessa Borovilos and Vancouver’s Vanessa Zhang won team gold and Huang earned individual silver.

Medallists who have gone on to win on the LPGA Tour include Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., who was fourth in the individual competition at the inaugural tournament. She was on Canada’s bronze-medal team in 2014 with Selena Costabile of Thornhill, Ont., and Calgary’s Jaclyn Lee.

Other notable competitors who went on to become LPGA Tour winners include Angel Yin and Megan Khang of the United States, as well as Yuka Saso of the Philippines, Sweden’s Linn Grant and Atthaya Thitikul of Thailand.

“It’s not if, it’s when they’re going to be on the LPGA Tour,” said Garrett Ball, Golf Canada’s chief operating officer, of how Canada’s golfers in the World Junior Girls Championship can be part of the organization’s goal to have 30 pros in the LPGA and PGA Tours by 2032.

“Events like this, like the She Plays Golf festival that we launched two years ago, and then the CPKC Women’s Open exemptions that we utilize to bring in our national team athletes and get the experience has been important in that pathway.”

The individual winner of the World Junior Girls Golf Championship will earn a berth in next year’s CPKC Women’s Open at nearby Mississaugua Golf and Country Club.

Both clubs, as well as former RBC Canadian Open host site Glen Abbey Golf Club, were devastated by heavy rains through June and July as the Greater Toronto Area had its wettest summer in recorded history.

Jason Hanna, the chief operating officer of Credit Valley Golf and Country Club, said that he has seen the Credit River flood so badly that it affected the course’s playability a handful of times over his nearly two decades with the club.

Staff and members alike came together to clean up the course after the flooding was over, with hundreds of people coming together to make the club playable again.

“You had to show up, bring your own rake, bring your own shovel, bring your own gloves, and then we’d take them down to the golf course, assign them to areas where they would work, and then we would do a big barbecue down at the halfway house,” said Hanna. “We got guys, like, 80 years old, putting in eight-hour days down there, working away.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.

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Purple place: Mets unveil the new Grimace seat at Citi Field

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NEW YORK (AP) — Fenway Park has the Ted Williams seat. And now Citi Field has the Grimace seat.

The kid-friendly McDonald’s character made another appearance at the ballpark Monday, when the New York Mets unveiled a commemorative purple seat in section 302 to honor “his special connection to Mets fans.”

Wearing his pear-shaped purple costume and a baseball glove on backwards, Grimace threw out a funny-looking first pitch — as best he could with those furry fingers and short arms — before New York beat the Miami Marlins at Citi Field on June 12.

That victory began a seven-game winning streak, and Grimace the Mets’ good-luck charm soon went viral, taking on a life of its own online.

New York is 53-31 since June 12, the best record in the majors during that span. The Mets were tied with rival Atlanta for the last National League playoff spot as they opened their final homestand of the season Monday night against Washington.

The new Grimace seat in the second deck in right field — located in row 6, seat 12 to signify 6/12 on the calendar — was brought into the Shannon Forde press conference room Monday afternoon. The character posed next to the chair and with fans who strolled into the room.

The seat is available for purchase for each of the Mets’ remaining home games.

“It’s been great to see how our fanbase created the Grimace phenomenon following his first pitch in June and in the months since,” Mets senior vice president of partnerships Brenden Mallette said in a news release. “As we explored how to further capture the magic of this moment and celebrate our new celebrity fan, installing a commemorative seat ahead of fan appreciation weekend felt like the perfect way to give something back to the fans in a fun and unique way.”

Up in Boston, the famous Ted Williams seat is painted bright red among rows of green chairs deep in the right-field stands at Fenway Park to mark where a reported 502-foot homer hit by the Hall of Fame slugger landed in June 1946.

So, does this catapult Grimace into Splendid Splinter territory?

“I don’t know if we put him on the same level,” Mets executive vice president and chief marketing officer Andy Goldberg said with a grin.

“It’s just been a fun year, and at the same time, we’ve been playing great ball. Ever since the end of May, we have been crushing it,” he explained. “So I think that added to the mystique.”

___

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