The safety of a prospective coronavirus vaccine comes “first and foremost,” the World Health Organization’s chief scientist said on Wednesday, as a trial of a leading candidate from AstraZeneca was paused due to concerns over side effects.
Rollout of an effective vaccine is seen as a crucial step in helping battered economies recover from the coronavirus pandemic.
“Just because we talk about speed … it doesn’t mean we start compromising or cutting corners on what would normally be assessed,” Dr. Soumya Swaminathan said in a social media event.
“The process still has to follow the rules of the game. For drugs and vaccines which are given to people, you have to test their safety first and foremost.”
WHO officials did not immediately respond directly to questions from Reuters over the move by AstraZeneca to pause global trials, including large late-stage trials, of its experimental coronavirus vaccine due to an unexplained illness in a study participant.
The United Kingdom’s medical regulator said on Wednesday it is urgently reviewing information available to determine whether AstraZeneca can restart the trials.
In an email, director of licensing at the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) Siu Ping Lam said the regulator is working with the Oxford Vaccine Centre to review the safety data, in line with protocol for the trial.
“We are urgently reviewing all the information and actively engaging with the researchers to determine whether the trial should restart as quickly as possible,” he said.
The vaccine, which AstraZeneca is developing with the University of Oxford, has previously been described by the WHO as probably the world’s leading candidate and the most advanced in terms of development.
World Health Organization chief scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan said the safety of a prospective coronavirus vaccine comes ‘first and foremost.’ (Fabrice Coffrini/POOL/AFP/Getty Images)
U.S. infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Wednesday that AstraZeneca’s decision to halt the trials was unfortunate but not an uncommon safety precaution in a vaccine development process.
“It’s really one of the safety valves that you have on clinical trials such as this, so it’s unfortunate that it happened,” Fauci told CBS This Morning in an interview.
“Hopefully, they’ll work it out and be able to proceed along with the remainder of the trial, but you don’t know. They need to investigate it further.”
The WHO is in the midst of rounding up support for a global coalition, called the ACT Accelerator, in the hope of fairly distributing vaccines, treatments and diagnostics for the novel coronavirus to rich and poor countries alike. In addition to 92 lower-income countries seeking aid, some 79 wealthier countries have expressed interest, with a Sept. 18 deadline for binding commitments.
But some countries have struck their own vaccine deals, including the United States, which is not joining the WHO effort.
The vaccine pillar of ACT, called COVAX, hopes to secure enough vaccine to deliver two billion doses by the end of 2021, though concrete fundraising has, so far, lagged goals. Volume buying and possible tiered pricing offered by some manufacturers could help make a vaccine more affordable, Swaminathan said.
“You need to come together. Essentially, if every country and every organization tries to do this on their own, it’s going to be long and hard and difficult,” she said. “This is the first time that the world will need vaccines in the billions of doses.”
What is happening with coronavirus in Canada
As of 5 a.m. ET on Wednesday, Canada had 133,563 confirmed and presumptive coronavirus cases. Provinces and territories listed 117,565 of those as recovered or resolved. A CBC News tally of deaths based on provincial reports, regional health information and CBC’s reporting stood at 9,194.
B.C. is ordering nightclubs and stand-alone banquet halls closed, ending the sale of liquor at restaurants past 10 p.m. and telling venues to reduce the volume from music or other sources to conversational levels, as cases of COVID-19 continue to spike in the province.
Bars and restaurants must close by 11 p.m., unless they are serving food.
The amendments to public health orders come as the province reported 429 new cases of COVID-19 over a four-day period, bringing the total to 6,591. Two more people, both in long-term care, have died of the virus.
Watch | Dr. Bonnie Henry lays out amendments to the province’s public health orders:
“It became apparent that some venues were really high-risk environments,” says Dr. Bonnie Henry. 3:18
The new numbers represent four reporting periods over the long weekend. Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said 123 of the cases were recorded between Friday and Saturday, 116 were reported between Saturday and Sunday, 107 between Sunday and Monday, and 83 new cases were confirmed between Monday and Tuesday.
There are three new health-care associated outbreaks, at Burnaby Hospital, Rideau Retirement Centre and Holy Family Hospital. There are no new community outbreaks, though there have been several exposure events in the Lower Mainland. Hospitalizations in B.C. remain relatively stable, with 32 people in hospital and 12 in intensive care.
Here’s what’s happening around the world
According to Johns Hopkins University, the global total of confirmed coronavirus cases stands at more than 27.5 million. More than 897,000 people have died, while 18.5 million have recovered.
Thailand said on Wednesday it had tested nearly 600 people potentially exposed to the country’s first domestic coronavirus case in over three months, but has so far found no new infections.
A woman has her temperature scanned at Siam Mall in Bangkok. Thailand confirmed its first case of locally transmitted COVID-19 in over 100 days and began an extensive testing program to trace the infection. (Lauren DeCicca/Getty Images)
The man, 37, had worked as a nightclub DJ at three different venues in the capital Bangkok in the two weeks before he tested positive on arrival in prison, following his recent conviction for a drugs-related offence.
Individuals deemed at risk across 12 venues including the court where he appeared, nightclubs and supermarkets were tracked down and 569 tests were administered, the Public Health Ministry said.
The Czech Republic reported on Wednesday a record one-day spike in COVID-19 infections, with 1,164 new cases, as it battles a surging spread of the coronavirus.
Daily case figures have regularly come in above 500 so far in September, already well above a previous daily peak of 377 in March during the first wave of infections.
However, the death toll in the Czech Republic has remained lower than in many other European countries, with 441 fatalities reported as of Wednesday out of a total of 29,877 cases since the start of the pandemic.
New limits on social gatherings in England to six people are set to stay in place for the “foreseeable future,” potentially until or even through Christmas, British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said Wednesday.
Medical staff take a sample to test a possible patient infected with COVID-19 at a mobile testing centre at the Na Bulovce hospital in Prague, Czech Republic. (Gabriel Kuchta/Getty Images)
Hancock said the new limit for both indoor and outdoor gatherings, which will come into force and be enforceable by law from Monday, will provide “more clarity” to people and should help keep a lid on a recent sharp spike in new coronavirus cases.
One of the reasons for the pick-up in cases is that many people have been confused over the past few months as lockdown restrictions have been eased, notably over how they relate to gatherings both in and out of the home. Scientists say a clear message is crucial in containing pandemics.
Russia said on Wednesday 142 people had died from the novel coronavirus in the last 24 hours, raising the official death toll to 18,135.
Russia’s coronavirus taskforce reported 5,218 new cases, bringing its nationwide tally to 1,041,007, the fourth largest caseload in the world.
WATCH | Chronicling the pandemic through masks:
The face mask has become ubiquitous during the COVID-19 pandemic and curators at the Royal Ontario Museum are creating an exhibit that chronicles this period of time through a collection of masks. 5:24
The number of new coronavirus cases registered in the Netherlands surged to 1,140 in the past 24 hours, the health minister said on Wednesday, the highest daily total since April.
Hugo de Jonge announced the figures recorded by the National Institute for Health (RIVM) during a live video stream. “It’s not going the right way,” De Jonge said. A day earlier, the country recorded 964 cases, with cases rising quickly among young adults.
The RIVM said the increase was not tied to the reopening of primary schools across the country over the past three weeks.
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.
