Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Wednesday the province will immediately take over management of five long-term care homes, including four that were the subject of a scathing military report into horrific conditions in the residences.
The Canadian Armed Forces released two reports this week about conditions at five long-term care homes in Ontario and 25 long-term care homes in Quebec where they were deployed to help during the pandemic.
In the Ontario homes, the military report detailed allegations of insect infestations, aggressive resident feeding that caused choking, bleeding infections and residents crying for help for hours. The report also touched on staffing and training issues, supply shortages and poor communication.
Ford called the report “horrific,” and said it was “the most heart-wrenching report” he’s ever read in his life.
On Wednesday, he told reporters that six teams of two inspectors each will be deployed to five long-term care homes to undertake “expanded and rigorous inspection and monitoring” for the next two weeks.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford says the province will take over management of five long-term care homes and begin inspections in all residences. 2:08
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the report into Ontario’s homes “deeply disturbing,” and said more needs to be done to support people living in long-term care, a message he reiterated on Wednesday after Quebec released a report from the military about what members had observed in that province.
In those homes, the Armed Forces members observed issues with the division between “hot” and “cold” zones — where patients were infected with COVID-19 or not — the proper use of protective equipment and staffing shortages.
The report said military personnel helped train staff to improve the situation.
François Legault says the problems come from having a lack of staff, and he is launching a major drive to train thousands of new orderlies. 2:58
In the meantime, Legault said he would like the contingent of soldiers deployed in Quebec homes to stay and help until Sept. 15.
Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan says another four months of deployment will not be possible. “I understand the needs and concerns that Quebec may have,” he told host Vassy Kapelos on CBC’s Power & Politics, but he said the current situation would not be sustainable.
“We will not be able to do this for any prolonged period.”
Sajjan said the military is talking with provincial officials but he stressed that while the Forces can buy time for the homes that need staff, it’s important to get the appropriately trained personnel into the facilities.
The military has agreed to stay in Ontario long-term care homes until June 12.
Laura Tamblyn Watts, president and CEO of CanAge, a national seniors’ advocacy organization, also urges care be moved to a more home-like setting and away from the current medical model. 1:25
States of emergency
As it deals with the fallout of the military report, Ontario has announced it is extending its emergency order until June 9. The province continues to deal with an uptick in COVID-19 cases and major issues in some long-term care homes, which house elderly and vulnerable residents who are at increased risk of severe illness and death from the disease.
A news release on Wednesday said under the extended emergency order, measures such as the restriction on gatherings of more than five people will stay in place, as will a range of other measures, including the mandated closure of bars and restaurants.
British Columbia also moved Wednesday to extend its state of emergency for another two weeks, making it the longest period of time it has been under such orders.
The province was under emergency orders for 10 weeks during the 2017 wildfire season. With today’s extension, it will bring the province to 12 weeks, with “no likely end in sight,” according to Premier John Horgan.
Hot spots
Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, said Tuesday that epidemic growth “continues to slow” nationally, but outbreaks are still an issue, especially in long-term care, shelters and workplaces.
Tam said on Twitter that “most worrying” is community spread in and around hot spots, such as Toronto and Montreal.
2/3 Outbreaks represent closed settings where <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/publichealth?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#publichealth</a> measures can be targeted to <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/StoptheSpread?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#StoptheSpread</a>, however community transmission presents additional challenges for <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/TestandTrace?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#TestandTrace</a> to control spread at the population level.
She urged people to stick with public health measures, such as physical distancing, hand hygiene, cough etiquette and staying home if sick.
As of 7:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday, Canada had 87,519 confirmed and presumptive cases of coronavirus, with 46,177 considered resolved or recovered. A CBC News tally of deaths based on provincial data, regional health information and CBC’s reporting stood at 6,858. Public health officials have cautioned that recorded figures don’t capture information on people who have not been tested and cases that are still under investigation.
The novel coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause severe illness or death. There are no proven treatments or vaccines for the virus, which causes an illness called COVID-19.
Here’s what’s happening in the provinces and territories
B.C.’s elected officials will return to the provincial legislature June 22. Members have been working from home since mid-March, but Premier Horgan said Wednesday that most will return to Victoria while maintaining public health measures to reduce the risk of COVID-19 spread. Read more about what’s happening in B.C.
Alberta health officials are investigating a possible case of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MISC) in the province. Chief Medical Officer Deena Hinshaw said Wednesday the illness has been seen in Quebec, the U.K. and the U.S., and that while it can sound scary, it appears to be rare and treatable. Read more about what’s happening in Alberta.
Saskatchewan reported two new coronavirus deaths on Wednesday, bringing the number of COVID-19-linked deaths in the province to 10. Both deaths were in patients in the far north of the province. There were also three new cases. Saskatchewan moved to Phase 2 of its reopening May 19, allowing businesses like clothing stores, hair salons and greenhouses to open with restrictions. Read more about what’s happening in Saskatchewan.
An infectious disease specialist answers questions about the risks of eating at a restaurant as they reopen during the COVID-19 pandemic. 2:57
Ontario’s COVID-19 cases are concentrated in the Greater Toronto Area, with more than three-quarters of the active cases listed by the province found in Toronto, as well as Peel, York, Durham and Halton regions, CBC’s MIke Crawley reports.Read more about what’s happening in Ontario, where questions continue about long-term care after a detailed report from Canadian Armed Forces outlined major issues with five facilities. Ontario reported 292 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday.
Quebec is expanding its COVID-19 testing by bringing more mobile testing to the Mauricie region.In Trois-Rivières and Shawinigan, municipal vehicles have been transformed so they can offer curbside testing. “When the unit comes to a neighbourhood, the team will go ringing doorbells, talk with people about their health, and if they have symptoms, we’ll invite them to be tested,” a local health official said. Read more about what’s happening in Quebec, which reported 541 new coronavirus cases and 89 new deaths on Wednesday.
For hotels preparing to reopen during the pandemic, they are implementing enhanced cleaning procedures and with new measures in place to keep guests safe. 1:59
Newfoundland and Labrador has reported no new COVID-19 cases for 20 days now. But despite the positive news, theChief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Janice Fitzgerald, is urging residents to continue to uphold safety measures. “Experts around the world are predicting a second wave of COVID-19,” she said Wednesday, “and we must remain vigilant in following the public health measures in place so that when it happens we will be in the best possible position to respond.” Read more about what’s happening in N.L.
Restaurant owners, wearing protective face masks, use measuring tape to measure the distance between tables to maintain physical distance inside a restaurant in Nice, France, on Wednesday, before the announcement by the French government of the further easing of lockdown measures following the outbreak of COVID-19. (Eric Gaillard/Reuters)
Even people with common chronic diseases such as asthma should be able to tolerate wearing a mask in the hot summer months, says Dr. Samir Gupta. 6:00
Montreal Alouettes wide receiver Tyson Philpot has announced he will be out for the rest of the CFL season.
The Delta, B.C., native posted the news on his Instagram page Thursday.
“To Be Continued. Shoutout my team, the fans of the CFL and the whole city of Montreal! I can’t wait to be back healthy and write this next chapter in 2025,” the statement read.
Philpot, 24, injured his foot in a 33-23 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Aug. 10 and was placed on the six-game injured list the next week.
The six-foot-one, 195-pound receiver had 58 receptions, 779 yards and five touchdowns in nine games for the league-leading Alouettes in his third season.
Philpot scored the game-winning touchdown in Montreal’s Grey Cup win last season to punctuate a six-reception, 63-yard performance.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa sustained a concussion for the third time in his NFL career, leaving his team’s game Thursday night against Buffalo after running into defensive back Damar Hamlin and hitting the back of his head against the turf.
Tagovailoa remained down for about two minutes before getting to his feet and walking to the sideline after the play in the third quarter. He made his way to the tunnel not long afterward, looking into the stands before smiling and departing toward the locker room.
The Dolphins needed almost no time before announcing it was a concussion. The team said he had two during the 2022 season, and Tagovailoa was diagnosed with another concussion when he was a college player at Alabama.
Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said Tagovailoa would get “proper procedural evaluation” and “appropriate care” on Friday.
“The furthest thing from my mind is, ‘What is the timeline?’ We just need to evaluate and just worry about my teammate, like the rest of the guys are,” McDaniel said. “We’ll get more information tomorrow and take it day by day from here.”
Some players saw Tagovailoa in the locker room after the game and said they were encouraged. Tagovailoa spoke with some players and then went home after the game, McDaniel said.
“I have a lot of love for Tua, built a great relationship with him,” said quarterback Skylar Thompson, who replaced Tagovailoa after the injury. “You care about the person more than the player and everybody in the organization would say the same thing. Just really praying for Tua and hopefully everything will come out all right.”
Tagovailoa signed a four-year, $212 million extension before this season — a deal that makes him one of the highest-paid players in the NFL — and was the NFL’s leading passer in Week 1 this season. Tagovailoa left with the Dolphins trailing 31-10, and that was the final score.
“If you know Tua outside of football, you can’t help but feel for him,” Bills quarterback Josh Allen said on Amazon following the game. “He’s a great football player but he’s an even greater human being. He’s one of the best humans on the planet. I’ve got a lot of love for him and I’m just praying for him and his family, hoping everything’s OK. But it’s tough, man. This game of football that we play, it’s got its highs and it’s got its lows — and this is one of the lows.”
Tagovailoa’s college years and first three NFL seasons were marred by injury, though he positioned himself for a big pay bump with an injury-free and productive 2023 as he led the Dolphins into the playoffs. He threw for 29 touchdowns and a league-best 4,624 yards last year.
When, or if, he can come back this season is anyone’s guess. Tagovailoa said in April 2023 that the concussions he had in the 2022 season left him contemplating his playing future. “I think I considered it for a time,” he said then, when asked if he considered stepping away from the game to protect himself.
McDaniel said it’s not his place to say if Tagovailoa should return to football. “He’ll be evaluated and we’ll have conversations and progress as appropriate,” McDaniel said.
Tagovailoa was hurt Thursday on a fourth-down keeper with about 4:30 left in the third. He went straight ahead into Hamlin and did not slide, leading with his right shoulder instead.
Hamlin was the player who suffered a cardiac arrest after making a tackle during a Monday night game in January 2023 at Cincinnati, causing the NFL to suspend a pivotal game that quickly lost significance in the aftermath of a scary scene that unfolded in front of a national television audience.
Tagovailoa wound up on his back, both his hands in the air and Bills players immediately pointed at him as if to suggest there was an injury. Dolphins center Aaron Brewer quickly did the same, waving to the sideline.
Tagovailoa appeared to be making a fist with his right hand as he lay on the ground. It was movement consistent with something that is referred to as the “fencing response,” which can be common after a traumatic brain injury.
Tagovailoa eventually got to his feet. McDaniel grabbed the side of his quarterback’s head and gave him a kiss on the cheek as Tagovailoa departed. Thompson came into the game to take Tagovailoa’s spot.
“I love Tua on and off the football field,” Bills edge Von Miller said. “I’m a huge fan of him. I can empathize and sympathize with him because I’ve been there. I wish him the best.”
Tagovailoa’s history with concussions — and how he has since worked to avoid them — is a huge part of the story of his career, and now comes to the forefront once again.
He had at least two concussions during the 2022 season. He was hurt in a Week 3 game against Buffalo and cleared concussion protocol, though he appeared disoriented on that play but returned to the game.
The NFL later changed its concussion protocol to mandate that if a player shows possible concussion symptoms — including a lack of balance or stability — he must sit out the rest of the game.
Less than a week later, in a Thursday night game at Cincinnati, Tagovailoa was concussed on a scary hit that briefly knocked him unconscious and led to him being taken off the field on a stretcher.
His second known concussion of that season came in a December game against Green Bay, and he didn’t play for the rest of the 2022 season. After that, Tagovailoa began studying ways where he may be able to fall more safely and protect himself against further injury — including studying jiu-jitsu.
“I’m not worried about anything that’s out of my hands,” McDaniel said. “I’m just worried about the human being.”
NEW YORK (AP) — When her husband turns on the television to hear news about the upcoming presidential election, that’s often a signal for Lori Johnson Malveaux to leave the room.
It can get to be too much. Often, she’ll go to a TV in another room to watch a movie on the Hallmark Channel or BET. She craves something comforting and entertaining. And in that, she has company.
While about half of Americans say they are following political news “extremely” or “very” closely, about 6 in 10 say they need to limit how much information they consume about the government and politics to avoid feeling overloaded or fatigued, according to a new survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and USAFacts.
Make no mistake: Malveaux plans to vote. She always does. “I just get to the point where I don’t want to hear the rhetoric,” she said.
The 54-year-old Democrat said she’s most bothered when she hears people on the news telling her that something she saw with her own eyes — like the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — didn’t really happen.
“I feel like I’m being gaslit. That’s the way to put it,” she said.
Sometimes it feels like ‘a bombardment’
Caleb Pack, 23, a Republican from Ardmore, Oklahoma, who works in IT, tries to keep informed through the news feeds on his phone, which is stocked with a variety of sources, including CNN, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press.
Yet sometimes, Pack says, it seems like a bombardment.
“It’s good to know what’s going on, but both sides are pulling a little bit extreme,” he said. “It just feels like it’s a conversation piece everywhere, and it’s hard to escape it.”
Media fatigue isn’t a new phenomenon. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in late 2019 found roughly two in three Americans felt worn out by the amount of news there is, about the same as in a poll taken in early 2018. During the 2016 presidential campaign, about 6 in 10 people felt overloaded by campaign news.
But it can be particularly acute with news related to politics. The AP-NORC/USAFacts poll found that half of Americans feel a need to limit their consumption of information related to crime or overseas conflicts, while only about 4 in 10 are limiting news about the economy and jobs.
It’s easy to understand, with television outlets like CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC full of political talk and a wide array of political news online, sometimes complicated by disinformation.
“There’s a glut of information,” said Richard Coffin, director of research and advocacy for USAFacts, “and people are having a hard time figuring out what is true or not.”
Women are more likely to feel they need to limit media
In the AP-NORC poll, about 6 in 10 men said they follow news about elections and politics at least “very” closely, compared to about half of women. For all types of news, not just politics, women are more likely than men to report the need to limit their media consumption, the survey found.
White adults are also more likely than Black or Hispanic adults to say they need to limit media consumption on politics, the poll found.
Kaleb Aravzo, 19, a Democrat, gets a baseline of news by listening to National Public Radio in the morning at home in Logan, Utah. Too much politics, particularly when he’s on social media sites like TikTok and Instagram, can trigger anxiety and depression.
“If it pops up on my page when I’m on social media,” he said, “I’ll just scroll past it.”
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Sanders reported from Washington. David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder.
The AP poll of 1,019 adults was conducted July 29-August 8, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.
