Public health officials are urging people take extra infection control steps around older Canadians most at risk of developing COVID-19 complications, with the death of a Vancouver senior providing fresh imperative for vigilance in long-term care facilities.
News that the man in his 80s had died over the weekend coincided with assurances by various provinces that the well-being of nursing home residents was paramount.
Ontario’s health minister announced ramped-up screening and testing procedures, while Nova Scotia outlined a two-week waiting period for any out-of-country traveller who wanted to visit a nursing home.
Laura Tamblyn Watts, policy director at the National Initiative for Care of the Elderly (NICE), welcomed additional precautions but was wary of restrictions that “can be just as damaging” to a population prone to social isolation.
“It is such a vulnerable population to many forms of illness but in particular this COVID-19,” acknowledged Tamblyn Watts.
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“We will certainly see increased protocols, I think across the board, for long-term care. The challenge, however, is when you have older people who are at risk of social isolation — it’s very upsetting for them to be in isolation in many instances. And if you have people with cognitive impairment, they may not understand why no one is coming to visit them.”
Ontario’s health ministry said Monday it was introducing “active surveillance” in which staff, volunteers, visitors and residents who come and go would be screened for symptoms and asked about travel history.
4:09 Answering your coronavirus questions
Answering your coronavirus questions
In addition, any specimens sent for standard respiratory testing will automatically be tested for COVID-19, said a provincial memo to the long-term care homes sector.
Chief medical officer of health Dr. David Williams stressed the need for the general public to take precautions that include washing hands frequently to protect the most vulnerable residents.
“If people are casual about their travel protection, casual about their contact protection and are less than vigilant on staying home when they’re ill and that kind of thing, then we can put that population at risk,” he said.
“By being vigilant, by keeping at that, you can protect them.”
Doris Grinspun, chief executive officer of the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario, said Tuesday that she wanted assurances from the province that retirement homes would be held to the same guidelines.
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“It is my understanding from the ministry that they meant this to be also for retirement homes and we have asked that to be in writing,” said Grinspun.
She also repeated her organization’s call for increased nursing-home staff, noting each facility typically has just one or two registered nurses, and three registered practical nurses.
“The rest — 75 per cent of our workforce in nursing homes — are personal support workers (and) as much as they try to do what they can do, they don’t have the same expertise and knowledge and training as RNs or RPNs. And then on top of that, we don’t have the right numbers in terms of each one of these categories of workers,” said Grinspun.
3:28 Healthy Living: Keeping healthy through COVID-19
“Nursing homes are extremely strained as we speak, and have been for years and years and years.”
In Nova Scotia, the province’s chief medical officer of health drew attention to new national screening protocols for the novel coronavirus and stressed that those who travel out-of-country monitor themselves for two weeks.
Dr. Robert Strang also announced that nursing home visitors who have travelled outside the country in the last 14 days would not be allowed entry, a measure the president of the Nova Scotia Nurses’ Union doubted could be monitored or enforced.
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“I wouldn’t see that as the role of the nursing staff,” says Janet Hazelton, who instead called for guidance on what to do if a resident contracts COVID-19.
“We don’t have the staff in long-term care that we have in acute care. We don’t have the cleaning staff… We have no security. So if security was more who they thought would police this, there is no in security long-term care.”
There are currently no confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Nova Scotia.
In British Columbia, provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says people should continue seeing their loved ones in nursing homes, but must take preventative measures.
“We want to have enhanced screening of visitors who are coming in and out of long-term care (homes) so if you are going to visit someone don’t go with a large group, go one by one. Only go to visit the person you are there to see. If you have any concerns about respiratory illnesses stay away.”
— With files from Allison Jones in Toronto, Keith Doucette in Halifax, and Camille Bains in Vancouver.
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.
