The battle to halt the coronavirus brought sweeping new restrictions Monday, with Italy expanding a travel ban to the entire country and Israel ordering all visitors quarantined just weeks before Passover and Easter.
As new infections in China — where the epidemic began — continued to subside, Italians struggled to navigate the rapidly changing parameters of the nation’s self-imposed lockdown.
“There won’t be just a red zone,” Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said, in announcing that a lockdown covering about 16 million people in the north would be expanded to the entire country starting Tuesday.
Conte told reporters that measures introduced just two days ago in much of the north of Italy were no longer sufficient after a jump in deaths tied to the highly infectious disease, and said the entire nation had to make sacrifices to stop its spread.
“Our future and the future of Italy is in our hands. These hands have to be more responsible today than ever before,” Conte said as he spoke about his “stay at home” decree.
Questa battaglia si vince con il contributo di TUTTI. Agiamo responsabilmente. <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/iorestoacasa?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#iorestoacasa</a> <a href=”https://t.co/rkIOa9YCYt”>pic.twitter.com/rkIOa9YCYt</a>
Italy’s 60 million people will only be able to travel for work, medical reasons or emergencies until April 3. All schools and universities, which were closed nationwide last week until March 15, will now not reopen before next month. All public gatherings will be banned.
Across Italy, museums and archeological sites were closed, weddings were cancelled and restaurants were told to keep patrons a metre apart.
Italian doctors celebrated one small victory after the first patient diagnosed with the illness in the country, a 38-year-old Unilever worker, was moved out of intensive care and began breathing on his own. But the virus’ rapid spread was forcing them to operate like war-time medics, triaging patients to decide who get access to scarce ICU beds.
“Unfortunately we’re only at the beginning,” said Dr. Massimo Galli, head of infectious disease at Milan’s Sacco hospital.
Travellers at Milan’s main train station had to sign police forms self-certifying that they are travelling for “proven work needs,” situations of necessity, health reasons or to return home. They also needed to provide identity documents, contact numbers and an exact reason for travel from the financial hub.
A police officer talks to people at Milan’s main train station, following a government decree that has shut down large areas in the north of the country, on Monday. (Daniele Mascolo/Reuters)
Italy reported a big jump in the number of people who have tested positive for the virus, bringing the total to 9,172 cases and 463 deaths, more than any country except China.
Inmates at more than two dozen Italian prisons rioted against restrictions on family visits and other containment measures, and six died after they broke into the infirmary and overdosed on methadone.
On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his government has decided to quarantine anyone arriving from overseas for 14 days. The decision comes barely a month before Easter and Passover, typically a busy travel period.
“Now that the virus has a foothold in so many countries, the threat of a pandemic has become very real,” said World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a briefing on Monday.
“But it would be the first pandemic that could be controlled. The bottom line is we are not at the mercy of the virus.”
Tedros said all countries should have a comprehensive strategy to deal with the virus, which he described as an “uneven epidemic” around the world.
The WHO is concerned people will give up fighting the coronavirus if it is labelled a ‘pandemic.’ 2:24
“The great advantage we have is the decisions we all make as governments, businesses, communities, families and individuals can influence the trajectory of this epidemic,” he said.
More than 113,000 people have tested positive for the disease and over 3,900 people with the virus have died, most of them in China.
Many of them have already recovered, according to The Associated Press. But Italy’s intensifying struggle to halt the virus’ spread emerged as a cautionary tale.
For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.
The vast majority of people recover. According to the WHO, people with mild illness get better in about two weeks, while those with more severe illness may take three to six weeks to recover.
In mainland China, where the virus first exploded, at least 80,754 people have been diagnosed and at least 59,897 patients have so far recovered.
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Seniors advocate outlines the challenges behind taking care of the elderly during outbreaks like the coronavirus. 9:32
More than 100 countries
Worldwide, the number of cases of COVID-19 — the disease caused by the coronavirus — is more than 100,000, with cases identified in more than 100 countries around the world.
The vast majority of cases have been clustered in China, but numbers have been rising in other countries, most notably Italy, Iran and South Korea.
Financial markets have been hard hit by coronavirus fears.
The TSX had its worst day in decades on Monday as plunging oil prices caused investors already spooked by coronavirus to sell off just about everything. The benchmark index closed down more than 1,660 points, or more than 10 per cent, to 14,514.
That’s the worst day for the TSX since Black Monday in 1987 — worse than any single day during the financial crisis of 2009.
Trading in Wall Street futures was halted for the first time since the 2016 U.S. presidential election after they fell more than the daily limit of five per cent. Bond yields hit new lows as investors bought them up as safe havens.
Here’s a look at what’s happening in Canada, the U.S. and hard-hit regions around the world.
Here’s what’s happening in Canada
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau offers condolences to the family of the first victim of the coronavirus outbreak in Canada, and says the federal government is doing everything it can to keep Canadians safe. 0:33
Canada announced its first COVID-19 death — in British Columbia — on Monday. Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said a man living in a North Vancouver care home that had been identified as a COVID-19 hotspot had died.
“This is obviously a very sad day for all of us, but especially for the family and loved ones of the man who passed away at the Lynn Valley Care Home,” said B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix.
Henry also announced that five more cases had been confirmed in B.C., bringing the province’s total to 32, raising Canada’s total number of cases to 77.
Ontario’s health ministry has reported 34 cases, the most in any Canadian province.
Quebec has reported four confirmed and presumptive cases. The most recent patient — reported in the Montérégie region, southeast of Montreal — had recently returned from a cruise, officials said.
Alberta on Monday reported seven cases, while B.C. has reported 32 cases.
The Public Health Agency of Canada, which assesses the risk around COVID-19, says the risk in Canada is low.
Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, said there are now more than 110,000 confirmed cases worldwide.
Speaking alongside the health and foreign affairs ministers on Monday, Tam recommended that Canadians avoid travelling on cruise ships.
Here’s what’s happening in the U.S.
More than 230 Canadians on board the Grand Princess cruise ship, which docked in Oakland, Calif., on Monday will be flown to the military base in Trenton, Ont., for 14 days of quarantine. (Kate Munsch/Reuters)
In the United States, where more than 600 infections and more than 20 deaths have been reported, President Donald Trump said Monday he will be taking “major” steps to gird the economy against the impact of a spreading coronavirus outbreak and will discuss a payroll tax cut with congressional Republicans on Tuesday.
“We’ll be discussing a possible payroll tax cut or relief, substantial relief, very substantial relief, that’s a big number,” Trump told reporters.
He did not provide details but added that a news conference will be held on Tuesday.
Vice-President Mike Pence said the administration was consulting Congress on providing paid sick leave to workers, an idea that Democrats already have been trying to advance.
Two cruise ships kept at bay at opposite ends of the country over fear of the virus garnered much attention on Monday.
The Grand Princess cruise ship, which has at least 21 confirmed virus cases, arrived in the port of Oakland, Calif., on Monday afternoon, amid elaborate anti-coronavirus protective procedures. Fleets of buses and planes were ready to whisk the more than 2,000 passengers to military bases or their home countries for a 14-day quarantine.
The Grand Princess cruise ship, pictured at the port in Oakland, Calif., on Monday. A handful of people were tested for coronavirus on board and 21 (mostly crew members) tested positive. (Kate Munsch/Reuters)
More than 230 Canadians on the Grand Princess will be repatriated to the air force base in Trenton, Ont., where they will undergo a 14-day quarantine.
In Florida, passengers were disembarking from the Regal Princess after it received clearance to dock. Two crew members eyed as possible carriers had negative tests for the virus.
Here’s what’s happening in Iran and the Middle East
State television in Iran said the virus had killed another 43 people, pushing the official toll up to 237 with 7,161 confirmed cases. But many fear the scope of illness is far wider there.
Iran has released approximately 70,000 prisoners because of the coronavirus outbreak in the country, Iranian judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi said on Monday, according to Mizan, the news site of the judiciary.
A worker in a protective suit sprays a disinfectant inside the gate of Shalamcha Border Crossing, after Iraq shut a border crossing with Iran. (Essam al-Sudani/Reuters)
After earlier closing its land borders, Saudi Arabia cut off air and sea travel to and from Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Italy, Kuwait, Lebanon, South Korea, Syria and the United Arab Emirates. All Saudi schools and universities closed beginning Monday.
Qatar cut off travel to 15 countries and said it would shut down schools and universities beginning Tuesday.
Here’s what’s happening in Europe and the U.K.
European Union leaders will hold emergency talks soon to discuss a joint response to the coronavirus, officials said on Monday, as the bloc’s executive considers relaxing state subsidy rules to allow extra public spending. The announcement of the teleconference, likely to take place on Tuesday, came after Italy and France called for Europe-wide stimulus to counter the economic impact of the epidemic.
France has reported 1,191 cases with 21 deaths.The number of people infected in the Netherlands increased to 321 on Monday, up from 264 a day earlier, Dutch health authorities said.
In Ireland, officials cancelled all St. Patrick’s Day parades in a bid to slow the virus’ spread, including the one on March 17 in Dublin that typically draws half a million people to its streets.
Spain’s health minister on Monday announced that all schools in and around Madrid, including kindergartens and universities, will close for two weeks after a sharp spike in new virus diagnoses. The new cases “imply a change for the worse,” the minister, Salvador Illa, said.
Organizers of the annual Holocaust remembrance march in southern Poland postponed it this year due to coronavirus fears, and soccer authorities said at least four major matches — in France, Germany and Spain — would take place with no fans.
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Germany on Monday reported 210 new confirmed cases of the coronavirus, the Robert Koch Institute said.The number of cases in Germany rose to 1,112, up from 902 reported on Sunday.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned against thinking that measures to slow the spread of the new coronavirus are in vain, insisting that they are buying “valuable time.”
In the U.K., the number of confirmed cases stood at 319 on Monday.
Here’s what’s happening in Japan and South Korea
In South Korea, officials reported 35 new coronavirus cases Tuesday — down from 165 new cases the day before, bringing the national tally to 7,513. The numbers showed the rate of increase in new infections fell to its lowest level in 12 days in one of the most severely affected countries outside mainland China.
South Korean soldiers prepare to do work at an apartment complex that is under isolation amid mass infection of the coronavirus reported in Daegu, South Korea. (Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)
A Japan Airlines Co Ltd. cabin attendant has tested positive for coronavirus, the airline said on Monday, the latest case in what has become a widening outbreak for Japan.
The infection comes after local media reported that one person in Kanagawa prefecture had died from the virus, bringing the country’s death toll so far to 15, including seven from the quarantined cruise ship near Tokyo.
Here’s what’s happening in China
Mainland China, outside Hubei province, reported no new locally transmitted cases for the third straight day, as a senior Communist Party official warned against reducing vigilance against the disease and of the risk to social stability.
“We must stay cautious, not be blindly optimistic and must not have war-weariness…,” said Chen Yixin, secretary general of the Communist Party’s Politics and Law Commission.
“We should not reduce the vigilance against the epidemic and the requirements of prevention and control.”
China had 19 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infections on Monday, the National Health Commission said on Monday, down from 40 cases a day earlier, and the lowest number since the health authority started publishing nationwide data on Jan. 20.
Of the new cases on Monday, 17 were new infections in Wuhan, the provincial capital of Hubei, while the remaining four in Gansu province were imported from Iran.
The total number of imported cases hit 67, including the four Gansu cases.
That brings the total number of confirmed cases in mainland China to 80,754.
Here’s a look at some other areas of concern around the world
A government worker disinfects a high school in Manila on Monday amid concerns about the spread of COVID-19. (Maria Tan/AFP/Getty Images)
The Philippine president has declared a state of public health emergency throughout the country after health officials confirmed over the weekend the first local transmission of the novel coronavirus.
Nigeria has a second confirmed coronavirus case, the country’s health minister said on Twitter on Monday. The first case was an Italian man who travelled to the southwestern state of Ogun.
Singapore will allow the Costa Fortuna cruise ship to dock on Tuesday, after it was rejected by Thailand and Malaysia.
Indonesia says the number of confirmed cases of people infected with the coronavirus had risen by 13, including 11 Indonesians and two foreigners, taking the total number of cases to 19 in the Southeast Asian country.
CALGARY – MEG Energy says it earned $167 million in its third quarter, down from $249 million during the same quarter last year.
The company says revenues for the quarter were $1.27 billion, down from $1.44 billion during the third quarter of 2023.
Diluted earnings per share were 62 cents, down from 86 cents a year earlier.
MEG Energy says it successfully completed its debt reduction strategy, reducing its net debt to US$478 million by the end of September, down from US$634 million during the prior quarter.
President and CEO Darlene Gates said moving forward all the company’s free cash flow will be returned to shareholders through expanded share buybacks and a quarterly base dividend.
The company says its capital expenditures for the quarter increased to $141 million from $83 million a year earlier, mainly due to higher planned field development activity, as well as moderate capacity growth projects.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
Premier David Eby is proposing an all-party committee investigate mistakes made during the British Columbia election vote tally, including an uncounted ballot box and unreported votes in three-quarters of the province’s 93 ridings.
The proposal comes after B.C.’s chief electoral officer blamed extreme weather, long working hours and a new voting system for human errors behind the mistakes in last month’s count, though none were large enough to change the initial results.
Anton Boegman says the agency is already investigating the mistakes to “identify key lessons learned” to improve training, change processes or make recommendations for legislative change.
He says the uncounted ballot box containing about 861 votes in Prince George-Mackenzie was never lost, and was always securely in the custody of election officials.
Boegman says a failure in five districts to properly report a small number of out-of-district votes, meanwhile, rippled through to the counts in 69 ridings.
Eby says the NDP will propose that a committee examine the systems used and steps taken by Elections BC, then recommend improvements in future elections.
“I look forward to working with all MLAs to uphold our shared commitment to free and fair elections, the foundation of our democracy,” he said in a statement Tuesday, after a news conference by Boegman.
Boegman said if an independent review does occur, “Elections BC will, of course, fully participate in that process.”
He said the mistakes came to light when a “discrepancy” of 14 votes was noticed in the riding of Surrey-Guildford, spurring a review that increased the number of unreported votes there to 28.
Surrey-Guildford was the closest race in the election and the NDP victory there gave Eby a one-seat majority. The discovery reduced the NDP’s victory margin from 27 to 21, pending the outcome of a judicial review that was previously triggered because the race was so close.
The mistakes in Surrey-Guildford resulted in a provincewide audit that found the other errors, Boegman said.
“These mistakes were a result of human error. Our elections rely on the work of over 17,000 election officials from communities across the province,” he said.
“Election officials were working 14 hours or more on voting days and on final voting day in particular faced extremely challenging weather conditions in many parts of the province.
“These conditions likely contributed to these mistakes,” he said.
B.C.’s “vote anywhere” model also played a role in the errors, said Boegman, who said he had issued an order to correct the results in the affected ridings.
Boegman said the uncounted Prince George-Mackenzie ballot box was used on the first day of advance voting. Election officials later discovered a vote hadn’t been tabulated, so they retabulated the ballots but mistakenly omitted the box of first-day votes, only including ballots from the second day.
Boegman said the issues discovered in the provincewide audit will be “fully documented” in his report to the legislature on the provincial election, the first held using electronic tabulators.
He said he was confident election officials found all “anomalies.”
B.C. Conservative Party Leader John Rustad had said on Monday that the errors were “an unprecedented failure by the very institution responsible for ensuring the fairness and accuracy of our elections.”
Rustad said he was not disputing the outcomes as judicial recounts continue, but said “it’s clear that mistakes like these severely undermine public trust in our electoral process.”
Rustad called for an “independent review” to make sure the errors never happen again.
Boegman, who said the election required fewer than half the number of workers under the old paper-based system, said results for the election would be returned in 90 of the province’s 93 ridings on Tuesday.
Full judicial recounts will be held in Surrey-Guildford and Kelowna-Centre, while a partial recount of the uncounted box will take place in Prince George-Mackenzie.
Boegman said out-of-district voting had been a part of B.C.’s elections for many decades, and explained how thousands of voters utilized the province’s vote-by-phone system, calling it a “very secure model” for people with disabilities.
“I think this is a unique and very important part of our elections, providing accessibility to British Columbians,” he said. “They have unparalleled access to the ballot box that is not found in other jurisdictions in Canada.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
WINNIPEG – A public memorial honouring former judge, senator and chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission into residential schools, Murray Sinclair, is set to take place in Winnipeg on Sunday.
The event, which is being organized by the federal and Manitoba governments, will be at Canada Life Centre, home of the NHL’s Winnipeg Jets.
Sinclair died Monday in a Winnipeg hospital at the age of 73.
A teepee and a sacred fire were set up outside the Manitoba legislature for people to pay their respects hours after news of his death became public. The province has said it will remain open to the public until Sinclair’s funeral.
Sinclair’s family continues to invite people to visit the sacred fire and offer tobacco.
The family thanked the public for sharing words of love and support as tributes poured in this week.
“The significance of Mazina Giizhik’s (the One Who Speaks of Pictures in the Sky) impact and reach cannot be overstated,” the family said in a statement on Tuesday, noting Sinclair’s traditional Anishinaabe name.
“He touched many lives and impacted thousands of people.”
They encourage the public to celebrate his life and journey home.
A visitation for extended family, friends and community is also scheduled to take place Wednesday morning.
Leaders from across Canada shared their memories of Sinclair.
Premier Wab Kinew called Sinclair one of the key architects of the era of reconciliation.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Sinclair was a teacher, a guide and a friend who helped the country navigate tough realities.
Sinclair was the first Indigenous judge in Manitoba — the second in Canada.
He served as co-chair of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba to examine whether the justice system was failing Indigenous people after the murder of Helen Betty Osborne and the police shooting death of First Nations leader J.J. Harper.
In leading the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, he participated in hundreds of hearings across Canada and heard testimony from thousands of residential school survivors.
The commissioners released their widely influential final report in 2015, which described what took place at the institutions as cultural genocide and included 94 calls to action.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
