Ottawa and Toronto will each receive 3,000 doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine in the first distribution of shots in Ontario next week, according to the head of the province’s vaccination task force.
Ret. Gen. Rick Hillier, who leads Ontario’s vaccine distribution efforts, said Thursday afternoon that the province is expecting to receive 6,000 doses as part of the initial delivery, which will be split evenly between Ottawa and Toronto.
Those doses will be administered Tuesday at the University Health Network in Toronto and the Ottawa Hospital, according to an earlier statement from Premier Doug Ford’s office.
1:47 COVID-19 vaccine takes 2 shots, 21 days apart
The first shots will go to health-care workers in long-term care homes and other high-risk settings. Hillier said some of the hospital workers at the Ottawa and Toronto sites could also receive the shot to ensure the early doses are used as “efficiently” as possible.
The Pfizer vaccine requires two doses, which means 1,500 people will be vaccinated in each city at first. Hillier said until the supply chain stabilizes, the second dose, which is to be administered 21 days after the first, will be kept at the hospital site in a deep freezer.
Pfizer has advised officials not to move the vaccine once it has been delivered, so the province will be setting up as many as 23 centralized sites in hospitals over the coming weeks to administer the vaccine with the Ottawa Hospital and University Health Network as the first two hubs.
Hillier said he expects Ontario to receive 90,000 total doses of the Pfizer vaccine in December. He also said Ontario could receive up to 85,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine before the end of the year, pending Health Canada approval.
Ontario health officials have been told the Moderna vaccine is “easier to handle,” Hillier said Thursday, which could open the door to setting up vaccination sites in long-term care homes to inoculate vulnerable residents there.
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Hillier cautioned that the province’s vaccination efforts are in the early stages, and that it will be a long time before shots are available to the general population.
“There will be bumps in the road. So please, be patient,” he said.
Ford laid out the early details of Ontario’s plan to distribute the COVID-19 vaccine on Monday, saying vulnerable seniors, their caregivers and health-care workers would be first on the list. The province’s hardest-hit regions, including those in the red “control” and grey “lockdown” zones, would be higher priorities to receive the vaccination.
Ontario set a new provincial record Thursday with nearly 2,000 new cases of the virus. Almost 500 of those cases were linked to Toronto, while Ottawa Public Health reported 31 new infections on Thursday.
Despite the relatively lower number of daily cases in the nation’s capital, which has been in the province’s orange “restrict” level since early November, Ford said in his statement that Ottawa has been tapped as a test-case for the province’s vaccine roll-out because of the “challenges” it has faced with the virus in long-term care homes.
“Ottawa has been selected in part to test and validate provincial distribution networks, as well as in recognition of the challenges the region has faced with certain long-term care home outbreaks,” the statement read.
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There are currently nine open outbreaks in Ottawa long-term care facilities, the hardest hit being Extendicare’s Starwood care home where 183 people have tested positive for the virus and 25 residents have died with COVID-19.
Anthony Di Monte, head of Ottawa’s vaccine distribution task force, said in a statement Thursday that the 3,000 doses the city expects to receive next week will not be sufficient to fully vaccinate staff across the city’s long-term care homes.
As a result, the Ottawa Hospital will work with Ottawa Public Health to prioritize vaccinating staff working in the highest-risk environments, he said.
Di Monte also said the task force is working on “mobile strike teams” to go into long-term care homes to vaccinate residents once the city is given the all-clear to transport either the Pfizer shot or another vaccine with fewer risks around movement.
Hillier said Thursday that Ottawa was chosen “weeks ago” as an initial site because the nation’s capital acted as a test of Ontario’s distribution system, which will require transporting the initial delivery from Pearson Airport in Toronto to other sites across the province.
7:46 Coronavirus: BioNTech CFO on vaccine shipments, doses Canadians can expect
Coronavirus: BioNTech CFO on vaccine shipments, doses Canadians can expect
A spokesperson with the Ottawa Hospital confirmed the news Thursday.
2:01 Ontario will receive 6,000 COVID-19 vaccines on Monday
Ontario will receive 6,000 COVID-19 vaccines on Monday
“We are working closely with the Ministry of Health and the province of Ontario on a distribution plan for the vaccine. As part of the plan, the hospital will provide vaccinations to health-care workers who work in long-term care homes beginning next week,” the statement read. The spokesperson said the hospital would share more information when it becomes available.
A spokesperson for the University Health Network referred questions on details of the vaccine roll-out to the Ministry of Health.
3:49 Health Canada approves Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine
Health Canada approves Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine
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.
