Countries in Europe and states like New York have commandeered vast spaces normally reserved for conferences or sporting events to house the thousands of patients sickened by COVID-19.
Provincial and municipal leaders in this country are now preparing to do the same, in the event the pandemic overwhelms our finite hospital capacity.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced Friday it would build 10,000 hospital beds in New York City, a global hotspot for the virus, by converting hotel rooms and college dormitories into makeshift care facilities.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is also building eight temporary hospitals and putting beds in places like the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan as the flood of cases — there are at least 29,766 cases in the city alone — overwhelms existing facilities.
Leaders in Canada are not waiting for such a spike to have alternatives in place to either quarantine patients with milder symptoms or, as is the case in Laval, Que., to house patients with other conditions in order to leave existing hospitals as the designated care sites for COVID-19 patients.
As many as 130 people will be transferred to the Quality Inn Laval, the province said, to make room at the neighbouring Hôpital de la Cité-de-la-Santé. Palliative care and mental health patients will be the first to make the move, starting on Sunday.
Quebec is vowing to open more “non-traditional sites,” as it grapples with the country’s largest caseload.
Roughly 130 patients will be transferred from a hospital to the Quality Inn hotel in Laval, Que., to address overcrowding amid the COVID-19 pandemic. (Quality Inn Suites Laval)
Helen Angus, the deputy minister of health in Ontario, and the chair of the province’s COVID-19 Command Table, said she’s preparing for an Italy-like situation “just in case that materializes. We’re preparing for every scenario.”
“If Canadians actually self-isolate, you know, as requested, particularly those snowbirds who are coming back to Canada after their winter, we will be in much better shape,” Angus said.
With hospitals in Italy at maximum capacity, health-care providers have turned to tents and shipping containers to accommodate COVID-19 patients. A 400-bed field hospital has been erected in Milan’s fairgrounds.
‘Not to alarm people’
Don Iveson is the mayor of Edmonton, and the current chair of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities big city mayors’ caucus. He said municipal leaders don’t want a repeat of the horrors abroad here in Canada.
“We’ve seen those videos of Italian mayors at the end of their rope with citizens. We’ve seen horrifying accounts of ice rinks converted to morgues in Spain. We all want to avoid and stay ahead of that from a containment of the virus point of view,” Iveson said.
“Not to alarm people but it’s important that we prepare for the worst,” Iveson said in an interview with CBC.
Cities in Alberta, Iveson said, have also approached near-empty hotels to secure space for those in need.
“We’ve looked at the opportunity to convert major conference centres or rec centres into field hospitals, if necessary,” he said. Edmonton’s Expo Centre is already housing some 500 homeless people fleeing crowded shelters not conducive to social distancing.
Edmonton Train buses drop off homeless people at the EXPO convention centre. The centre is housing up 500 people amid the COVID-19 pandemic. (Natasha Riebe/CBC)
The City of Toronto has shuttered all of its recreational facilities and is using five dormant community centres, like Driftwood in North York and Jimmie Simpson in the city’s downtown core, to shelter homeless people.
“We have also secured facilities for self-isolation and recovery for homeless individuals who test positive for COVID-19,” a spokesperson for the city, Brad Ross, said.
Dr. Andrew Willmore is the medical director of emergency management at the Ottawa Hospital. He said the hospital is working with local public health officials to “offload” some medical services from hospitals “and distribute people around the region” to more places like the reconfigured Brewer Park hockey arena that is now a COVID-19 testing centre.
“Planning is underway for the medium- and long-term stages of the pandemic,” Willmore said.
People leave a COVID-19 assessment centre at Brewer Park hockey rink in Ottawa. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)
The Ontario Restaurant Hotel & Motel Association represents lodging companies in the province. The group’s president, Tony Elenis, said hotels are dealing with “a catastrophic” drop in business amid this pandemic.
“It’s the pits,” Elenis said in an interview. “But we’re gearing up to accommodate patients. All of us should be working in any way we can to support those who are getting rid of this virus. A lot of hotel managers really want to support this.”
Elenis said many hotels are ready to accept non-COVID-19 patients and quarantined travellers when public health officials come calling. “The whole system is re-prioritizing who stays in the hospital. We’ll be there to offer accommodations.”
‘Overburdened’
In many provinces, the decision to cancel elective surgeries has freed up space with more of the country’s 73,000 hospital beds available for COVID-19 patients, many of whom need oxygen or ventilators to cope the breathing problems that come with the virus.
But, the dedicated COVID-19 floor at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital is nearly at capacity, according to respiratory specialist Julie Nardi, and it would struggle to house many more patients if the number of cases suddenly spikes.
Dr. David Williams, Ontario’s chief medical officer, said Saturday some hospitals are clearly “overburdened.”
According to federal data released Saturday, 7 per cent of the 4,757 COVID-19 cases in Canada have required hospitalization — and 30 per cent of those cases are under 40 years old, despite the perception that the disease afflicts only the old among us. Three per cent of the total cases are critical.
So far, the country has been able to handle the influx of COVID-19 cases requiring inpatient care but the unpredictable nature of this virus demands preemptive measures, said Dr. Theresa Tam, the chief public health officer of Canada.
“Public health is going to do whatever it can to reduce the impact of this epidemic so that you don’t go beyond your capacity to cope. Having said that, of course you have to prepare for much more worst case scenarios. So those things are absolutely happening in the provinces and territories,” Tam said.
“All of that is at play even though right now Canada is coping,” she said, pointing to B.C. as an early leader in makeshift hospital planning.
Watch: Coronavirus is not just a threat to older people, chief public health officer warns
The coronavirus is not just a threat to older people, says Dr. Theresa Tam. 0:45
B.C. Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth has asked municipalities to compile a list of recreational centres and hotels ready to receive patients — and virtually every city in the Lower Mainland had already drafted a list of possible sites.
“Local governments are key partners,” Farnworth said. “They’re being asked to identify and make available any publicly owned facility that may be used for pandemic response, including facilities for self-isolation, medical care and testing.”
Community centres — and even vacant Best Buy and Bed, Bath and Beyond storefronts — have been identified as possible temporary treatment centres in the province.
TORONTO – Will Taylor Swift bring chaos or do we all need to calm down?
It’s a question many Torontonians are asking this week as the city braces for the massive fan base of one of the world’s biggest pop stars.
Hundreds of thousands of Swifties are expected to descend on downtown core for the singer’s six concerts which kick off Thursday at the Rogers Centre and run until Nov. 23.
And while their arrival will be a boon to tourism dollars, it could further clog the city’s already gridlocked streets.
Swift’s shows collide with other scheduled events at the nearby Scotiabank Arena, including a Toronto Raptors game on Friday and a Toronto Maple Leafs game on Saturday.
Some locals have already adjusted their plans to avoid the area.
Aahil Dayani says he and some friends intended to throw a birthday bash for one of their pals, until they realized it would overlap with the concerts.
“Ultimately, everybody agreed they just didn’t want to deal with that,” he said.
“Something as simple as getting together and having dinner is now thrown out the window.”
Dayani says the group rescheduled the birthday party for after Swift leaves town. In the meantime, he plans to hunker down at his Toronto residence.
“Her coming into town has kind of changed up my social life,” he added.
“We’re pretty much just not doing anything.”
Max Sinclair, chief executive and founder of A.I. technology firm Ecomtent, has suggested his employees stay away from the company’s downtown offices on concert days, since he doesn’t see the point in forcing people to endure potential traffic jams.
“It’s going to be less productive for us, and it’s going to be just a pain for everyone, so it’s easier to avoid it,” he said.
“We’re a hybrid company, so we can be flexible. It just makes sense.”
Toronto Transit Commission spokesperson Stuart Green says the public agency has been preparing for over a year to ease the pressure of so many Swifties in one confined area.
Dozens of buses and streetcars have been added to the transit routes around the stadium, while the TTC has consulted with the city on how to handle potential emergency scenarios.
“There may be some who will say we’re over-preparing, and that’s fair,” Green said.
“But we know based on what’s happened in other places, better to be over-prepared than under-prepared.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 13, 2024.
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – Electronic Arts has incorporated the Professional Women’s Hockey League into its NHL 25 video game.
The six teams starting their second seasons Nov. 30 will be represented in “play now,” “online versus,” “shootout” and “season” modes, plus a championship Walter Cup, in the updated game scheduled for release Dec. 5, the PWHL and EA Sports announced Wednesday.
Gamers can create a virtual PWHL player.
The league and video game company have agreed to a multi-year partnership, the PWHL stated.
“Our partnership with EA SPORTS opens new doors to elevate women’s hockey across all levels,” said PWHL operations senior vice-president Amy Scheer in a statement.
“Through this alliance, we’ll develop in-game and out-of-game experiences that strengthen the bond between our teams, players, and fans, bringing the PWHL closer to the global hockey community.”
NHL 22 featured playable women’s teams for the first time through an agreement with the International Ice Hockey Federation.
Toronto Sceptres forward Sarah Nurse became the first woman to appear on the video game’s cover in 2023 alongside Anaheim Ducks centre Trevor Zegras.
The Ottawa Charge, Montreal Victoire, Boston Fleet, Minnesota Frost and New York Sirens round out the PWHL. The league announced team names and logos in September, and unveiled jerseys earlier this month.
“It is so meaningful that young girls will be able to see themselves in the game,” said Frost forward Taylor Heise, who grew up playing EA’s NHL games.
“It is a big milestone for inclusivity within the hockey community and shows that women’s prominence in hockey only continues to grow.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 13, 2024.
Maple Leaf Foods Inc. continued to navigate weaker consumer demand in the third quarter as it looked ahead to the spinoff of its pork business in 2025.
“This environment has a particularly significant impact on a premium portfolio like ours and I want you to know that we are not sitting still waiting for the macro environment to recover on its own,” said CEO Curtis Frank on a call with analysts.
Frank said the company is working to adapt its strategies to consumer demand. As inflation has stabilized and interest rates decline, he said pressure on consumers is expected to ease.
Maple Leaf reported a third-quarter profit of $17.7 million compared with a loss of $4.3 million in the same quarter last year.
The company says the profit amounted to 14 cents per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with a loss of four cents per share a year earlier. Sales for the quarter totalled $1.26 billion, up from $1.24 billion a year ago.
“At a strategic level … we’re certainly seeing the transitory impacts of an inflation-stressed consumer environment play through our business,” Frank said.
“We are seeing more trade-down than we would like. And we are making more investments to grow our volume and protect our market share than we would like in the moment. But again, we believe that those impacts will prove to be transitory as they have been over the course of history.”
Financial results are improving in the segment as feed costs have stabilized, said Dennis Organ, president, pork complex.
Maple Leaf, which is working to spin off its pork business into a new, publicly traded company to be called Canada Packers Inc. and led by Organ, also said it has identified a way to implement the plan through a tax-free “butterfly reorganization.”
Frank said Wednesday that the new structure will see Maple Leaf retain slightly lower ownership than previously intended.
The company said it continues to expect to complete the transaction next year. However, the spinoff under the new structure is subject to an advance tax ruling from the Canada Revenue Agency and will take longer than first anticipated.
Maple Leaf announced the spinoff in July with a plan to become a more focused consumer packaged goods company, including its Maple Leaf and Schneiders brands.
“The prospect of executing the transaction as a tax-free spin-off is a positive development as we continue to advance our strategy to unlock value and unleash the potential of these two unique and distinct businesses,” Frank said in the news release.
He also said that Maple Leaf is set on delivering profitability for its plant protein business in mid-2025.
“This includes the recent completion of a procurement project aimed at leveraging our purchasing scale,” he said.
On an adjusted basis, Maple Leaf says it earned 18 cents per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 13 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
The results were largely in line with expectations, said RBC analyst Irene Nattel in a note.
Maple Leaf shares were down 4.5 per cent in midday trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange at $21.49.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 13, 2024.
