The United States will require airline passengers from the United Kingdom to test negative for COVID-19 before their flight, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced late Thursday.
The U.S. is the latest country to announce new travel restrictions because of a new variant of the coronavirus that is spreading in Britain and elsewhere.
Airline passengers from the U.K. will need to get negative COVID-19 tests within three days of their trip and provide the results to the airline, the CDC said in a statement. The agency said the order will be signed Friday and go into effect on Monday.
“If a passenger chooses not to take a test, the airline must deny boarding to the passenger,” the CDC said in its statement.
The agency said because of travel restrictions in place since March, air travel to the U.S. from the U.K. is already down by 90 per cent.
Last weekend, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the new variant of the coronavirus seemed to spread more easily than earlier ones and was moving rapidly through England. But Johnson stressed “there’s no evidence to suggest it is more lethal or causes more severe illness,” or that vaccines will be less effective against it.
WATCH | Pfizer, Moderna vaccines can be modified to tackle variants, expert says:
According to infectious disease specialist Dr. Zain Chagla, vaccines that use mRNA technology can be reverse engineered quite quickly to take on variants — such as the recent U.K. variant of the coronavirus. 1:42
This week, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said three airlines with flights from London to New York — British Airways, Delta and Virgin Atlantic — had agreed to require passengers to take a COVID-19 test before getting on the plane. United Airlines on Thursday agreed to do the same for its flights to Newark, N.J.
Britain has been under considerable pressure since word of the new variant of the virus was made public. Some 40 countries imposed travel bans on Britain, leaving the island nation increasingly isolated.
On Christmas Day, about 1,000 British soldiers were clearing a backlog of truck drivers stuck in southeast England after France briefly closed its border to the U.K. then demanded coronavirus tests from all amid fears of the new virus variant.
Even as 4,000 international truck drivers spent yet another day cooped up in their cabs, some progress was evident Friday, with traffic around the English Channel port of Dover moving in an orderly fashion toward the extra ferries that were put on to make the short crossing across to Calais in northern France.
Meanwhile, Russian authorities have ordered those arriving from the U.K. to quarantine for two weeks, after the country suspended direct flights from the U.K. earlier this week.
The order from the Rospotrebnadzor sanitary safety agency posted Friday on the portal of official information obliges all those travelling from the U.K. to remain in isolation for 14 days after their arrival in Russia. The measure is effective starting Saturday.
What’s happening in Canada
As of Friday morning, Canada’s COVID-19 case count stood at 535,243, with 76,459 of those cases considered active. A CBC News tally of deaths stood at 14,720.
The first shipment carrying doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine arrived in Canada on Thursday afternoon, just over 24 hours after Health Canada authorized the vaccine for use in people over the age of 18.
The shipment contains a portion of the 168,000 doses expected to arrive before the end of the year, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted, along with a photo of a FedEx plane being unloaded at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport.
“This is another big step in our national vaccine rollout,” Trudeau said. “But it doesn’t mean we can let up just yet. The vaccine won’t help you if you get sick now.”
The first doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine have arrived in Canada. These are part of the 168,000 doses we’ll be getting before the end of the month, and part of the 40 million doses we’re guaranteed from Moderna overall. <a href=”https://t.co/eKhQ6v8xSA”>pic.twitter.com/eKhQ6v8xSA</a>
Canada on Thursday also expanded enhanced screening and monitoring measures for travellers arriving from South Africa, citing the rise of a more infectious variant of the coronavirus in that country, similar to one that has emerged in the U.K.
This followed a move on Wednesday by Trudeau to extend to Jan. 6 a ban on passenger flights arriving from the U.K., citing the variant.
No cases of the variants have been found in Canada so far, Health Canada said in a release, noting it had tested over 25,000 samples. “All travellers who have been in the United Kingdom or South Africa within the period of 14 days before the day on which they seek entry into Canada will be subject to secondary screening and enhanced measures,” Health Canada said.
Those measures include “increased scrutiny of quarantine plans,” it said.
Canada also updated travel advisories for both the U.K. and South Africa to advise extra caution. Health officials continue to advise against all non-essential international travel.
WATCH | Christmas gatherings threaten to spike COVID-19 numbers:
Despite pleas from premiers and the prime minister for people to stay home, Christmas gatherings threaten to spike COVID-19 numbers that are already breaking records in Ontario and Quebec. 2:31
COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths continue to rise across Canada, with the two most populous provinces both posting record highs in new cases on Thursday.
In Ontario, where a provincewide lockdown is set to take effect after midnight on Boxing Day, Premier Doug Ford urged people to stay home.
“I know the lockdown starts on December 26 — but I have to tell you, folks, every time you take a trip it puts people in jeopardy,” he said. “So please, as of right now, please stay at home when you can.”
Ontario on Thursday reported 2,447 new cases of coronavirus and 49 additional deaths, bringing the provincial death toll to 4,278. Hospitalizations stood at 967, with 277 COVID-19 patients in Ontario’s intensive care units, according to provincial data.
Meanwhile, Quebec reported a single-day record of 2,349 new cases on Thursday. Health officials in the province also reported 46 deaths, bringing the provincial death toll to 7,913. Hospitalizations stood at 1,052 with 146 people in ICUs, according to a provincial database.
Projections released by a government research centre — the Institut national d’excellence en santé et services sociaux (INESSS) — showed hospitals in Montreal are rapidly using up the space they have allotted for COVID-19 patients and could run out of beds by Jan. 12.
The projections, released weekly, noted that hospitalizations have more than doubled in the Montreal area over the past month.
WATCH | Why some families are having a giftless Christmas:
Some families are keeping Christmas simple and spending less because of stores closed by lockdowns and limits on gatherings, while others just can’t afford holiday celebrations or gifts. 2:00
With COVID-19 cases on the rise, communities across Canada have made adjustments to traditional Christmas celebrations. Here’s a look at how some in Canada are celebrating this year.
What’s happening around the world
As of 11:45 a.m. ET on Friday, more than 79.5 million coronavirus cases had been reported worldwide, with more than 44.8 million cases considered recovered or resolved, according to a running tally kept by Johns Hopkins University researchers. The global death toll stood at more than 1.7 million.
In the Americas, U.S. President Donald Trump spent his Christmas Eve golfing in Florida after making a last-minute demand that threatens to blow up a massive COVID relief and government funding bill and force a government shutdown in the midst of the pandemic. Failure to agree on the bill could deny cheques to millions of Americans on the brink.
Trump’s departure to his Palm Beach golf club came as Washington was still reeling over his surprise, eleventh-hour request that an end-of-year spending bill that congressional leaders spent months negotiating give most Americans $2,000 US COVID relief cheques — far more than the $600 members of his own party had agreed to.
The idea was swiftly rejected by House Republicans during a rare Christmas Eve session, leaving the proposal in limbo.
WATCH | Is one COVID-19 vaccine better than another?
Infectious disease physicians answer viewer questions about COVID-19 vaccines, including if one is better than another and how vaccinations will impact the health-care system. 6:35
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro used his Christmas message to cast more doubt on a coronavirus vaccine purchased by one of the country’s states from Chinese biopharmaceutical firm Sinovac.
In his live broadcast on social media Thursday, Bolsonaro said “the efficacy of that vaccine of Sao Paulo seems to be very low,” though he gave nothing specific. Sao Paulo health authorities have not presented complete trial results a week after announcing that there were encouraging Phase 3 studies on the shot’s effectiveness.
In Europe, Queen Elizabeth released her annual Christmas message in which she acknowledged the “difficult and unpredictable times” while paying tribute to front-line workers and young people who have helped their communities during the pandemic.
With infection rates soaring in recent weeks and many hospitals nearing their capacities, the British government on Dec. 19 cancelled Christmas gatherings and festive shopping for millions in a bid to control the spread of the virus.
Meanwhile, Pope Francis made a Christmas Day plea for authorities to make COVID-19 vaccines available to all, insisting that the first in line should be the most vulnerable and needy, regardless of who holds the patents for the shots.
“Vaccines for everybody, especially for the most vulnerable and needy,” who should be first in line, Francis said in off-the-cuff remarks from his prepared text, calling the development of such vaccines “light of hope” for the world.
Pope Francis delivers his traditional Christmas Day Urbi et Orbi speech from inside the Hall of Blessings at the Vatican on Friday. (Vatican Media/Handout/Reuters)
Amid a surge of coronavirus infections this fall in Italy, Francis broke with tradition for Christmas. Instead of delivering his Urbi et Orbi speech — Latin for “to the city and to the world” — from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, he read it from inside a cavernous hall at the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, flanked by two Christmas trees with blinking lights.
In Asia, Japan’s Health Ministry has confirmed the country’s first cases of infection with the new variant of the coronavirus that was identified in Britain.
The five people arrived between Dec. 18 and Dec. 21, before Japan stepped up border control on Friday for entrants from Britain. A man in his 60s developed fatigue, but the other four were without symptoms. Health Minister Norihisa Tamura said they were sent to quarantine straight from the airports.
Christmas Day has brought South Korea its biggest daily increase in coronavirus infections of the pandemic as officials urged for citizen vigilance to help curb a viral surge that has worsened hospitalization and deaths.
The 1,241 new confirmed cases reported Friday raised the country’s total to 54,770. Officials said 17 more people had died from COVID-19 in the previous 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 773.
A man reads a book while waiting in line at a coronavirus testing site that is temporarily set up in front of a railway station in Seoul on Friday. (Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)
Authorities in China’s northeastern port city of Dalian are testing millions of residents after seven new coronavirus cases were reported there in the last 24 hours.
The cluster that has emerged in recent days has grown to 12 cases. In five neighbourhood divisions, authorities have shut schools and public spaces and are restricting anyone but essential workers from leaving their residential compounds.
In Africa, at least 15 people have died in recent weeks on the South African side of the Beitbridge border with Zimbabwe in lengthy queues that have been slowed by coronavirus screening, television news channel eNCA said on Friday.
The Health Ministry, Department of Home Affairs and South African police did not respond immediately to Reuters’s requests on Friday for confirmation of fatalities that local media outlets attributed to exhaustion and ill health owing to a lack of facilities while waiting to cross the border, sometimes for days.
WINNIPEG – Some 250 coloured tacks pepper a large-scale world map among bookshelves at Whodunit Mystery Bookstore.
Estonia, Finland, Japan and even Fenwick, Ont., have pins representing places outside Winnipeg where someone has ordered a page-turner from the independent bookstore that specializes in mystery and crime fiction novels.
For 30 years, the store has been offering fans of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot or Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes a place to get lost in whodunits both old and new.
Jack and Wendy Bumsted bought the shop in the Crescentwood neighbourhood in 2007 from another pair of mystery lovers.
The married couple had been longtime customers of the store. Wendy Bumsted grew up reading Perry Mason novels while her husband was a historian with vast knowledge of the crime fiction genre.
At the time, Jack Bumsted was retiring from teaching at the University of Manitoba when he was looking for his next venture.
“The bookstore came up and we bought it, I think, within a week,” Wendy Bumsted said in an interview.
“It never didn’t seem like a good idea.”
In the years since the Bumsteds took ownership, the family has witnessed the decline in mail-order books, the introduction of online retailers, a relocation to a new space next to the original, a pandemic and the death of beloved co-owner Jack Bumsted in 2020.
But with all the changes that come with owning a small business, customers continue to trust their next mystery fix will come from one of the shelves at Whodunit.
Many still request to be called about books from specific authors, or want to be notified if a new book follows their favourite format. Some arrive at the shop like clockwork each week hoping to get suggestions from Wendy Bumsted or her son on the next big hit.
“She has really excellent instincts on what we should be getting and what we should be promoting,” Micheal Bumsted said of his mother.
Wendy Bumsted suggested the store stock “Thursday Murder Club,” the debut novel from British television host Richard Osman, before it became a bestseller. They ordered more copies than other bookstores in Canada knowing it had the potential to be a hit, said Michael Bumsted.
The store houses more than 18,000 new and used novels. That’s not including the boxes of books that sit in Wendy Bumsted’s tiny office, or the packages that take up space on some of the only available seating there, waiting to be added to the inventory.
Just as the genre has evolved, so has the Bumsteds’ willingness to welcome other subjects on their shelves — despite some pushback from loyal customers and initially the Bumsted patriarch.
For years, Jack Bumsted refused to sell anything outside the crime fiction genre, including his own published books. Instead, he would send potential buyers to another store, but would offer to sign the books if they came back with them.
Wendy Bumsted said that eventually changed in his later years.
Now, about 15 per cent of the store’s stock is of other genres, such as romance or children’s books.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced them to look at expanding their selection, as some customers turned to buying books through the store’s website, which is set up to allow purchasers to get anything from the publishers the Bumsteds have contracts with.
In 2019, the store sold fewer than 100 books online. That number jumped to more than 3,000 in 2020, as retailers had to deal with pandemic lockdowns.
After years of running a successful mail-order business, the store was able to quickly adapt when it had to temporarily shut its doors, said Michael Bumsted.
“We were not a store…that had to figure out how to get books to people when they weren’t here.”
He added being a community bookstore with a niche has helped the family stay in business when other retailers have struggled. Part of that has included building lasting relationships.
“Some people have put it in their wills that their books will come to us,” said Wendy Bumsted.
Some of those collections have included tips on traveling through Asia in the early 2000s or the history of Australian cricket.
Micheal Bumsted said they’ve had to learn to be patient with selling some of these more obscure titles, but eventually the time comes for them to find a new home.
“One of the great things about physical books is that they can be there for you when you are ready for them.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on Sept. 15, 2024.
MONTREAL – Canada’s labour minister is praising both Air Canada and the union representing about 5,200 of its pilots for averting a work stoppage that would have disrupted travel for hundreds of thousands of passengers.
Steven MacKinnon’s comments came in a statement shared to social media shortly after Canada’s largest air carrier announced it had reached a tentative labour deal with the Air Line Pilots Association.
MacKinnon thanked both sides and federal mediators, saying the airline and its pilots approached negotiations with “seriousness and a resolve to get a deal.”
The tentative agreement averts a strike or lockout that could have begun as early as Wednesday for Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge, with flight cancellations expected before then.
The airline now says flights will continue as normal while union members vote on the tentative four-year contract.
Air Canada had called on the federal government to intervene in the dispute, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday that would only happen if it became clear no negotiated agreement was possible.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 15, 2024.
When it comes to plant-based alternatives, Canadians have never had so many options — and nowhere is that choice more abundantly clear than in the milk section of the dairy aisle.
To meet growing demand, companies are investing in new products and technology to keep up with consumer tastes and differentiate themselves from all the other players on the shelf.
“The product mix has just expanded so fast,” said Liza Amlani, co-founder of the Retail Strategy Group.
She said younger generations in particular are driving growth in the plant-based market as they are consuming less dairy and meat.
Commercial sales of dairy milk have been weakening for years, according to research firm Mintel, likely in part because of the rise of plant-based alternatives — even though many Canadians still drink dairy.
The No. 1 reason people opt for plant-based milk is because they see it as healthier than dairy, said Joel Gregoire, Mintel’s associate director for food and drink.
“Plant-based milk, the one thing about it — it’s not new. It’s been around for quite some time. It’s pretty established,” said Gregoire.
Because of that, it serves as an “entry point” for many consumers interested in plant-based alternatives to animal products, he said.
Plant-based milk consumption is expected to continue growing in the coming years, according to Mintel research, with more options available than ever and more consumers opting for a diet that includes both dairy and non-dairy milk.
A 2023 report by Ernst & Young for Protein Industries Canada projected that the plant-based dairy market will reach US$51.3 billion in 2035, at a compound annual growth rate of 9.5 per cent.
Because of this growth opportunity, even well-established dairy or plant-based companies are stepping up their game.
It’s been more than three decades since Saint-Hyacinthe, Que.-based Natura first launched a line of soy beverages. Over the years, the company has rolled out new products to meet rising demand, and earlier this year launched a line of oat beverages that it says are the only ones with a stamp of approval from Celiac Canada.
Competition is tough, said owner and founder Nick Feldman — especially from large American brands, which have the money to ensure their products hit shelves across the country.
Natura has kept growing, though, with a focus on using organic ingredients and localized production from raw materials.
“We’re maybe not appealing to the mass market, but we’re appealing to the natural consumer, to the organic consumer,” Feldman said.
Amlani said brands are increasingly advertising the simplicity of their ingredient lists. She’s also noticing more companies offering different kinds of products, such as coffee creamers.
Companies are also looking to stand out through eye-catching packaging and marketing, added Amlani, and by competing on price.
Besides all the companies competing for shelf space, there are many different kinds of plant-based milk consumers can choose from, such as almond, soy, oat, rice, hazelnut, macadamia, pea, coconut and hemp.
However, one alternative in particular has enjoyed a recent, rapid ascendance in popularity.
“I would say oat is the big up-and-coming product,” said Feldman.
Mintel’s report found the share of Canadians who say they buy oat milk has quadrupled between 2019 and 2023 (though almond is still the most popular).
“There seems to be a very nice marriage of coffee and oat milk,” said Feldman. “The flavour combination is excellent, better than any other non-dairy alternative.”
The beverage’s surge in popularity in cafés is a big part of why it’s ascending so quickly, said Gregoire — its texture and ability to froth makes it a good alternative for lattes and cappuccinos.
It’s also a good example of companies making a strong “use case” for yet another new entrant in a competitive market, he said.
Amid the long-standing brands and new entrants, there’s another — perhaps unexpected — group of players that has been increasingly investing in plant-based milk alternatives: dairy companies.
For example, Danone has owned the Silk and So Delicious brands since an acquisition in 2014, and long-standing U.S. dairy company HP Hood LLC launched Planet Oat in 2018.
Lactalis Canada also recently converted its facility in Sudbury, Ont., to manufacture its new plant-based Enjoy! brand, with beverages made from oats, almonds and hazelnuts.
“As an organization, we obviously follow consumer trends, and have seen the amount of interest in plant-based products, particularly fluid beverages,” said Mark Taylor, president and CEO of Lactalis Canada, whose parent company Lactalis is the largest dairy products company in the world.
The facility was a milk processing plant for six decades, until Lactalis Canada began renovating it in 2022. It now manufactures not only the new brand, but also the company’s existing Sensational Soy brand, and is the company’s first dedicated plant-based facility.
“We’re predominantly a dairy company, and we’ll always predominantly be a dairy company, but we see these products as complementary,” said Taylor.
It makes sense that major dairy companies want to get in on plant-based milk, said Gregoire. The dairy business is large — a “cash cow,” if you will — but not really growing, while plant-based products are seeing a boom.
“If I’m looking for avenues of growth, I don’t want to be left behind,” he said.
Gregoire said there’s a potential for consumers to get confused with so many options, which is why it’s so important for brands to find a way to differentiate themselves, whether it’s with taste, health, or how well the drink froths for a latte.
Competition in a more crowded market is challenging, but Taylor believes it results in better products for consumers.
“It keeps you sharp, and it forces you to be really good at what you’re doing. It drives innovation,” he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 15, 2024.
