The World Health Organization has issued a call for experts to join a new advisory group to address the agency’s attempts to further investigate the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.
In a statement on Friday, the UN health agency said the new scientific group would provide WHO with an independent analysis of the scientific work done to date to pinpoint the origins of COVID-19 and to advise the agency on necessary next steps.
Meanwhile, In the U.S., millions of students in Florida, Texas and Arizona were being required to wear masks in class, as school boards in mostly Democratic locales impose anti-COVID mandates in defiance of their Republican governors.
A recent surge of COVID-19 hospitalizations in Florida led the mayor of Orlando to ask residents to stop watering their lawns and washing their cars for a least a week, saying water treatment needed to be preserved for medical usage.
Also on Friday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was reported to be preparing to give full approval to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine on Monday, according to the New York Times.
-From The Associated Press, last updated at 5:37 p.m. ET
What’s happening across Canada
WATCH | Vaccination key to avoiding the worst from delta variant, experts say:
Vaccination key to avoiding the worst from delta variant, experts say
With the delta coronavirus variant making up more than 80 per cent of cases in Canada, experts say most people will encounter it. Getting a COVID-19 vaccine will prevent the worst outcomes. Correction: At 1:30 in this story, Dr. Mike Nayak is incorrectly identified as Mark Nayak. 2:44
What’s happening around the world
A student wearing a mask attends class on the first day of school at St. Lawrence Catholic School in North Miami Beach, Fla., earlier this week. (Marco Bello/Reuters)
As of Friday afternoon, more than 210 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide. According to the Johns Hopkins University tracking database, more than 4.4 million deaths had been reported worldwide.
In Jamaica, the prime minister has announced a lockdown to try to slow the spread of COVID-19 as the Caribbean country faces a strong surge, with more than 550 cases reported over the past 24 hours.
In India, the country’s drug controller has given emergency use approval to Zydus Cadila’s COVID-19 vaccine, the country’s first shot for adolescents in the 12-18 age group.
In the Middle East, Israel has made COVID-19 vaccine booster shots available to people aged 40 and older, in an effort to fight a surge of the delta variant. About 5.9 million people of Israel’s 9.3 million population have received at least one dose of the vaccine. More than 5.4 million have received two doses, and 1.3 million have received a third dose.
In the Americas, Mexico is battling a new wave of coronavirus infections as daily cases hit record highs and the official death toll surpassed 251,000, one of the highest worldwide.
San Francisco became the first major city in the U.S. to require proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 for people dining inside restaurants, working out in gyms or attending indoor concerts.
In Florida, officials threatened to withhold funds equal to the salaries of school board members if school districts in two counties didn’t immediately do away with strict mask mandates.
I urge all Jamaicans to co-operate and to do their part. We all need to work together to get this third wave under control so that we can start opening schools.<br><br>We now have sufficient vaccine supplies with the commitment of further supplies to come.
In the Asia-Pacific region, Vietnam will deploy troops in Ho Chi Minh City and prohibit residents from leaving their homes, authorities said, as its biggest city turns to drastic measures to slow a spiralling rate of coronavirus deaths.
Sri Lanka’s government imposed a 10-day lockdown across the island on Friday in an attempt to contain the rapid escalation of COVID-19 cases. The lockdown will be effective from 10:00 p.m. Friday until Aug. 30, Health Minister Keheliya Rambukwella tweeted.
Thailand, meanwhile, passed one million total coronavirus infections Friday, as its latest surge dropped below 20,000 daily cases for the first time in 10 days. Over 97 per cent of the cases counted since the pandemic began have been since April.
Health-care workers prepare to remove the body of a coronavirus patient who died in the intensive care unit of a hospital in Machakos, Kenya, on Friday. (Brian Inganga/The Associated Press)
South Africa has opened vaccine eligibility to all adults to step up the volume of inoculations amid a coronavirus surge fuelled by the delta variant.
The country started offering shots to everyone aged 18 and older Friday as the number of vaccinations stalled to less than 200,000 a day, down from 250,000 earlier this month. It’s significantly lower than the target of 300,000 the government had hoped to achieve by this time.
The update comes a day after the Africa director for the World Health Organization warned that “as some richer countries hoard vaccines, they make a mockery of vaccine equity.”
Matshidiso Moeti and other African health officials, including the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, had recently warned against offering booster shots in countries further advanced in their vaccination rollouts, such as the U.S., as less than two per cent of the population on the continent of 1.3 billion people is fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
In Europe, Germany is declaring Crete and other Greek islands as a “high-risk area” for COVID-19, meaning that many people coming from those spots who haven’t been vaccinated will need to quarantine upon arrival in Germany.
-From The Associated Press and Reuters, last updated at 5:10 p.m. ET
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
