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What’s happening in Canada and around the world on Friday

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Los Angeles is temporarily closing five mass vaccination sites including Dodger Stadium for lack of supply as hard-hit California faces continuing criticism over the vaccine rollout.

Mayor Eric Garcetti said the city would exhaust its supply of Moderna first doses — two are required for full immunization — forcing it to close drive-thru and walk-up vaccination sites Friday and Saturday.

According to the Los Angeles Times, however, the sites closed even earlier than expected afer running out of doses on Thursday.

They may not reopen until the city gets more supplies, perhaps next Tuesday or Wednesday. Smaller mobile vaccination clinics will continue operating.

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Garcetti said Los Angeles uses about 13,000 doses in a typical day but received only 16,000 this week.

“This is not where I want to be,” Garcetti said. “It’s not where we deserve to be.”

California has now recorded the most confirmed deaths from the coronavirus with 45,496, edging past New York’s toll of 45,312, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Other coronavirus numbers are improving in the state, however. The seven-day test positivity rate has fallen to 4.8 per cent, and the most recent daily number of confirmed positive cases was 8,390, down from 53,000 in December.

Supply constraints are slowing ambitious vaccination programs in the U.S., as massive sites capable of putting shots into thousands of arms daily in states including New York, California, Florida and Texas, as well as hospitals and pharmacies, beg for more doses.

The U.S. has seen more than 27.3 million cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began and more than 475,000 deaths, according to a tracking tool maintained by Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on Thursday predicted that it will be “open season” for COVID-19 vaccinations in the United States by April, as increased supply allows most people to get shots.

Speaking to NBC’s Today Show, the science adviser to President Joe Biden said the rate of vaccinations will greatly accelerate in the coming months. He credits forthcoming deliveries of the two approved vaccines, the potential approval of a third and moves by the Biden administration to increase the nation’s capacity to deliver doses.

Fauci said that “by the time we get to April,” it will be “open season, namely virtually everybody and anybody in any category could start to get vaccinated.” He cautioned it will take “several more months” to deliver injections to adult Americans but predicted the “overwhelming majority” of people in the U.S. could be vaccinated by the middle and end of the summer.

From The Associated Press, Reuters and CBC News, last updated at 7 a.m. ET 


What’s happening in Canada

 

N.L.’s election has been postponed as the province deals with a recent surge in COVID-19 cases, and as poll workers resign over fears of catching the virus. 2:04

Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, says people need to continue what they’ve been doing but with “even more diligence” to counter the more contagious variants that have been identified in several provinces.

Speaking at a briefing on Friday, Tam said that means keeping up “individual public health practices” to limit spread, protecting the vulnerable and allowing time for vaccination programs to expand.

As of Friday, eight provinces had reported more than 429 cases of the B117 variant, which was first detected in the U.K., she said.

There were also 28 recorded cases of the B1351 variant, which was first reported in South Africa, and one case of the P1 variant first reported in Brazil.

“At least three of these provinces are reporting evidence of community spread ” and variants have been “linked to outbreaks.”

As of 10:50 a.m. ET on Friday, Canada had reported 818,244 cases of COVID-19 — with 37,388 cases considered active. A CBC News tally of deaths stood at 21,106.

Ontario on Friday reported 1,076 cases of COVID-19 and 18 additional deaths. COVID-19 hospitalizations stood at 763, with 295 people in intensive care units.

 

 

In Atlantic Canada, Nova Scotia reported no new cases of COVID-19 on Friday.

Newfoundland and Labrador on Thursday reported 100 new cases of COVID-19, by far the highest single-day case number in the province.

Dr. Janice Fitzgerald, the chief medical officer of health, said there are now 210 active cases in the province, with 74 of the new cases in people under 20 years old.

Faced with rising COVID-19 case numbers in the St. John’s area, the province’s chief electoral officer on Thursday delayed voting in almost half of the province’s 40 districts. In 18 districts, in-person voting will be rescheduled and won’t go ahead as planned on Saturday.

There were two new cases of COVID-19 in both New Brunswick on Thursday, and no new cases reported in Prince Edward Island.

In Quebec, health officials reported 1,121 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday and 37 additional deaths. COVID-19 hospitalizations in the province stood at 874, with 143 people in intensive care units.

In Manitoba, Premier Brian Pallister announced a plan to procure a made-in-Canada vaccine that is currently in early trial stages.

The province on Thursday reported 90 new COVID-19 cases and three additional deaths. Health officials in Manitoba said the number of people with all conditions in intensive care has dropped below 100 this week. That’s still above pre-pandemic capacity but down sharply from a spike in the fall.

 

Manitoba is the first province to buy its own COVID-19 vaccine rather than relying on the federal government. 1:53

Saskatchewan reported 114 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday. Health officials said there were 187 people in hospital, with 24 patients with the virus in intensive care.

In neighbouring Alberta, health officials reported 351 new cases of COVID-19 and 16 more deaths from the virus.

British Columbia reported 449 new cases of COVID-19 and nine additional deaths on Thursday.

Across the North, Nunavut reported three new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday in the community in Arviat, while health officials in the Northwest Territories reported one new case. There were no new cases reported in Yukon.

Here’s a look at what else is happening across Canada:

-From The Canadian Press and CBC News, last updated at 10:50 a.m. ET


What’s happening around the world

 

A student gets a bag of food during a distribution organized by Linkee, a solidarity solution to food waste, in Paris on Thursday. (Benoit Tessier/Reuters)

 

As of early Friday morning, more than 107.8 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, with more than 60.3 million of those cases listed as recovered or resolved in a database maintained by Johns Hopkins University. The global death toll stood at more than 2.3 million.

In Europe, Portugal is getting more help from its European Union partners to ease pressure on hospitals crunched by the pandemic, with France and Luxembourg the latest countries to offer medical workers.

The Portuguese health ministry said France is sending a doctor and three nurses, while Luxembourg is providing two doctors and two nurses. The health ministry said in a statement late Thursday the medics should arrive next week.

The German army sent eight doctors and 18 nurses earlier this month to help at a Lisbon hospital. The number of COVID-19 patients in hospital and in intensive care fell Thursday for the third straight day, but Portugal’s seven-day average of daily deaths remained the world’s highest, at 1.97 per 100,000 people, according to Johns Hopkins University.

 

Nurses tend to a patient in a COVID-19 intensive care unit at the Curry Cabral hospital in Lisbon, Portugal on Thursday. (Armando Franca/The Associated Press)

 

In Germany, the health minister said he will consider introducing penalties for people who jump the queue for coronavirus vaccines. Jens Spahn told reporters in Berlin on Friday that there had been several such reports in recent days and the government would discuss with parliament “whether sanctions in this area could make sense.”

Spahn had previously downplayed the issue of queue jumping, but persistent reports have surfaced of senior officials in hospitals and cities getting the vaccines before doctors and nurses. This week the Catholic bishop of Augsburg acknowledged receiving the vaccine, despite being far down the priority list.

Patient rights campaigners warned Spahn last year that Germany’s complicated vaccination system could open the door to corruption and queue jumping, but the ministry rebuffed repeated calls for criminal penalties.

In Africa, South Africa has secured millions of doses of Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer vaccines to fight the highly infectious COVID-19 variant that is dominant in the country.

Kenya is going ahead with its plan to inoculate its citizens using AstraZeneca’s vaccine, while Zimbabwe has bought 600,000 shots from China’s Sinopharm, in addition to 200,000 China has donated.

In the Asia-Pacific region, the first batch of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine arrived in Japan on Friday, local media reported, with official approval for the shots expected within days as the country races to control a third wave of infections ahead of the Olympic Games.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Friday the country’s COVID-19 inoculation program will likely begin on Feb. 20, brought forward by the earlier receipt of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine than originally anticipated.

Australia’s second-largest city will begin its third lockdown due to a rapidly spreading COVID-19 cluster centred on hotel quarantine.

The five-day lockdown will be enforced across Victoria state to prevent the virus spreading from the state capital Melbourne, Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said. Only international flights that were already in the air when the lockdown was announced would be allowed to land at Melbourne Airport.

 

It’s a necessary circuit breaker to limit further spread of COVID-19, officials said. A highly contagious strain, first reported in the U.K., was detected at a quarantine hotel in Melbourne. 1:32

A population of 6.5 million people will be locked down from 11:59 p.m. until the same time on Wednesday because of a contagious variant of the virus first detected at a Melbourne Airport hotel that has infected 13 people.

In the Americas, Mexico’s health ministry on Thursday reported 10,677 new confirmed coronavirus cases and 1,474 more fatalities from COVID-19, bringing the overall total to 1,968,566 cases and 171,234 deaths. The government said the real number of infected people and the death toll in Mexico are both likely significantly higher than reported levels.

In the Middle East, Israel began reopening its education system on Thursday after a more than six-week closure due to the surge in coronavirus infections.

-From The Associated Press and Reuters, last updated at 7 a.m ET

Source: – CBC.ca

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1 dead, 2 critically injured after car crash in Montreal

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Montreal

Three people are in hospital with critical injuries after their vehicle crashed into a tree. Police believe they might be connected to two drive-by shootings that took place early Thursday morning.

2 drive-by shootings also took place overnight

an SPVM car near a taped-off crime scene
Montreal police are investigating a car crash possibly linked to two drive-by shootings. (Mathieu Wagner/Radio-Canada)

Urgences-santé say one person died and two others were critically injured after their vehicle hit a tree in the Rosemont neighbourhood.

Montreal police believe the crash may be linked to two drive-by shootings early Thursday morning.

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The first happened around 5 a.m. on Pie-IX Boulevard. Police say a car was shot at repeatedly and the driver, a 41-year-old man, was injured in the upper body. He was transported to hospital, but his life is not in danger, say police.

Shortly afterward, shots were reported in the Plateau Mont-Royal borough, near the intersection of Saint-Joseph Boulevard and Henri-Julien Avenue. No one was injured.

Police say they are investigating to determine if there is a connection between the collision and the shootings. Montreal police spokesperson Jean-Pierre Brabant says it’s possible those in the vehicle were involved in the shootings.

The province’s independent police watchdog is now involved.

with files from Chloë Ranaldi

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Pakistan airline crew sought asylum in Canada: spokesperson – CTV News

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Typically, Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight attendants who arrive in Toronto stay at a hotel overnight, meet back up with their crew the next day and then fly to their next destination.

But increasingly often, PIA attendants aren’t showing up, the airline says. According to PIA, at least eight flight attendants disappeared over the last year and a half.

They have abandoned their jobs and are believed to have sought asylum in Canada, a spokesperson for the government-owned airline says.

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Increased occurrences

Abdullah Hafeez Khan said at least eight flight attendants “have gone missing” after flying to Pearson International Airport in Toronto. He said these incidents have been happening over the last 10 years, but are now occurring more frequently.

“Since probably October of 2022, the number of the people that have opted asylum has increased tremendously,” Khan said in a video interview with CTVNews.ca from Karachi, Pakistan, where the airline is based.

“None of those crew members that disappeared in the last one-and-a-half years have come back. So they were granted asylum for one way or the other, and that probably has encouraged others to do so.”

The missing employees were fired immediately and lost their company benefits, Khan said.

Why did they flee?

Khan said he could only speculate as to why the flight attendants would flee.

The Canadian government underscored the volatile situation in Pakistan, warning in a travel advisory of a “high threat of terrorism,” along with threats of civil unrest, sectarian violence and kidnapping.

“The security situation is fragile and unpredictable,” the Canadian travel advisory reads. “Incidents are typically attributed to extremism, ethnic divisions, sectarian strife, regional political disputes and the situation in neighbouring Afghanistan.”

It added that many deaths and injuries have occurred from bombings, shootings and other terrorist attacks at a wide range of targets.

Since Khan isn’t in contact with any of the missing employees, he says, he assumes they decided to seek asylum in Canada for economic and social reasons.

“So I naturally assumed that all of them have been given asylum because I don’t think they would be living there illegally,” he said, adding they may already have family connections in Canada who can support them.

In this June 8, 2013, photo, a Pakistan International Airlines plane moments before take off from the Benazir Bhutto airport in Islamabad, Pakistan. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)

‘PR crisis’

Khan called the flight attendants’ disappearances a “PR crisis” for PIA that is “bad” for business amid a crew shortage.

The airline is in talks with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and Pakistani law enforcement agencies to potentially create a “legal safeguard” to curtail flight crew from seeking asylum, he said.

When asked about the PIA flight attendants’ disappearances, Erin Kerbel, spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, said the department couldn’t comment on specific cases due to privacy legislation.

In response to questions about PIA’s claim that discussions are underway about the issue, a spokesperson for the CBSA said it could not confirm any information.

“The Canada Border Services Agency does not provide comment or details on specific individuals, including any discussions that would take place with airline companies, as an individual’s border and immigration information is considered private and protected by the Privacy Act,” Maria Ladouceur said in an email to CTVNews.ca.

Since the crew members’ disappearances, Khan said, the airline has “done numerous things to curtail that.”

For instance, the airline is only staffing Toronto-bound flights with crew members who have “established linkages” in Pakistan, such as children, spouses or parents, as well as those who have worked in the organization for more than 15 years.

The airline avoids sending to Toronto those who are single or don’t have established family ties in Pakistan, he said.

Khan said he and the airline are no longer in contact with the flight attendants because, they discovered, they usually change their phone numbers soon after disappearing in Toronto.

Who disappeared?

The PIA flight attendants who vanished in Canada are seasoned pros in their late 30s or 40s, some of whom have worked for the airline for as long as two decades, Khan said.

“There was never any sign from them that they would seek something like that,” he said. “So that is something that is bothering us in the matter because working with people who have been working with you for a long time and then something happens like this is pretty unexpected.”

In one of the latest cases in February, the crew members were waiting to take the bus back to the airport from the hotel in Toronto and one of the flight attendants didn’t show up, Khan said.

The airline was unable to reach the flight attendant on her cellphone or hotel landline so, Khan says, they asked hotel management to check if she was OK.

“When the crew went there, she left her uniform there with a note saying, ‘Thank you PIA,'” Khan said, which he interpreted as a genuine sentiment of gratitude for her more than 15 years of service with PIA rather than a taunt.

Khan said the crew members who disappeared were “family values people” who had good careers in Pakistan.

Asylum policies

Individuals can make a refugee claim in Canada at a port of entry upon arrival or online if they are already in Canada, according to the Canadian government’s website.

Canadian immigration or border officials will determine if the person is eligible for a hearing before the Immigration and Refugee Board. All claimants must undergo health and security screenings, the government says.

If eligible to make a claim in Canada, refugee claimants can access social assistance, education, health services, emergency housing and legal aid pending a decision on their claim. Most can apply for a work permit after a medical examination.

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Alberta's population surges by record-setting 202,000 people: Here's where they all came from – CBC.ca

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Alberta smashed population-growth records in the past year, mainly due to people moving to the province from across Canada and around the world.

The province’s population surged to just over 4.8 million as of Jan. 1, according to new estimates released Wednesday by Statistics Canada.

That’s an increase of 202,324 residents compared with a year earlier, which marks — by far — the largest annual increase on record.

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Alberta also broke a national record in 2023 for interprovincial migration, with a net gain of 55,107 people.

“This was the largest gain in interprovincial migration nationally since comparable data became available in 1972,” Statistics Canada said in a release.


Most of the interprovincial migrants came from Ontario and British Columbia.

Statistics Canada estimates that 38,236 Ontarians moved to Alberta last year, versus 14,860 Albertans who moved to Ontario, for a net gain of 23,376 people.

Similarly, an estimated 37,650 British Columbians moved to Alberta, compared to 22,400 Albertans who moved to B.C., for a net gain of 15,250.


All told, interprovincial migration accounted for 27 per cent of Alberta’s population growth over the past year.

That put it just ahead of permanent immigration, which accounted for 26 per cent, and well ahead of natural population increase (more births than deaths), which accounted for eight per cent.

The largest component, however, was temporary international migration.

Non-permanent residents from other countries accounted for 39 per cent of the province’s population growth in the past year, reflecting a national trend.


Canada’s population reached 40,769,890 on Jan. 1, according to Statistics Canada estimates, which is up 3.2 per cent from a year ago.

“Most of Canada’s 3.2-per-cent population growth rate stemmed from temporary immigration in 2023,” Statistics Canada noted.

“Without temporary immigration, that is, relying solely on permanent immigration and natural increase (births minus deaths), Canada’s population growth would have been almost three times less (1.2 per cent).”

Alberta’s population, meanwhile, grew by 4.4 per cent year-over-year.

Alberta now represents 11.8 per cent of the country’s population, its largest proportion on record. 

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