News

Coronavirus: What's happening in Canada and around the world on Friday – CBC.ca

Published

3 years ago

December 3, 2021

The latest:

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan told Reuters on Friday that while the new coronavirus variant omicron appeared to be very transmissible, the right response was to be prepared, cautious and not panic.

WHO has urged countries to boost health-care capacity and vaccinate their people to fight a surge in COVID-19 cases driven by the omicron variant, saying travel curbs could buy time, but were not the only answer.

“How worried should we be? We need to be prepared and cautious, not panic, because we’re in a different situation to a year ago,” Swaminathan said during an interview at the Reuters Next conference.

While the emergence of the new variant was unwelcome, she said the world was much better prepared than it was at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, given the development of vaccines.

Much remains unknown about omicron, which was first detected in southern Africa last month and has been spotted in at least two dozen countries. Parts of Europe were already grappling with a wave of infections of the delta variant before omicron emerged.

“We need to wait, let’s hope it’s milder … but it’s too early to conclude about the variant as a whole,” Swaminathan said of the new variant.

“Delta accounts for 99 per cent of infections around the world. This variant would have to be more transmissible to out-compete and become dominant worldwide. It is possible, but it’s not possible to predict.”

WHO’s top scientist said the omicron variant seemed to be causing three times more infections than experienced previously in South Africa, meaning “it does seem to be able to overcome some of the natural immunity from previous infection.”

Vaccines did appear to be having some effect.

“The fact that they’re not getting sick … that means the vaccines are still providing protection and we would hope that they would continue to provide protection,” Swaminathan said.

She said the health organization is “preparing for all scenarios,” which could include an additional booster dose, particularly among some age groups or vulnerable sections of the population, or a modified vaccine.

WATCH | WHO emergencies director says ‘bit of a roller coaster’ coming on omicron information:

WHO warns ‘bit of a roller coaster’ coming on information about omicron

5 hours ago

The World Health Organization’s emergencies director, Mike Ryan, says the transparency around rapidly emerging data on the coronavirus variant omicron is empowering but recognizes how unsettling it is to be hearing bits of information in real time. 1:49

Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s emergency program, said later Friday that information about the variant will soon be flowing in as scientists learn more. He urged people to “stay centred” and not “go to the extremes of any analysis.”

“There was a time when scientists would look at all this data and nobody in the public would know, and eventually, a month later … there would be a result,” he said during a question and answer session about omicron. “That’s not how the world works anymore — everything is happening in real time.”

Ryan said that shift offers some real benefits around transparency and community empowerment, but it can also be “unsettling” to people because firm answers aren’t available right away.

“We’ve got to get used to living in that world where getting the real evidence and answers is slightly behind getting all the data and all this kind of unlinked information,” he said.

“We all live with that uncertainty.”

–From Reuters and CBC News, last updated at 2:02 p.m. ET

What’s happening across Canada

WATCH | Eligibility for COVID-19 booster shots varies across Canada:

Eligibility for COVID-19 booster shots varies across Canada

18 hours ago

Ontario will lower the eligibility age for COVID-19 booster shots to 50 and up by mid-December, adding to a shifting map of booster shot eligibility in Canada. There are calls for provinces and territories to be more cohesive with each other on who gets a booster shot. 2:03

What’s happening around the world

WATCH | ‘Why is it only Africa?’: South African official questions Canada’s travel ban:

‘Why is it only Africa?’: South Africa’s High Commissioner questions scientific basis of Canada’s travel ban

20 hours ago

“South Africa displayed the highest level of transparency and integrity, but we are now being chastised for doing the right thing,” South Africa’s High Commissioner Sibongiseni Dlamini-Mntambo told Power & Politics Thursday. 11:18

As of late Friday morning, more than 264.4 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus tracker. The reported global death toll stood at more than 5.2 million.

In Ireland, the government on Friday announced strict new limits on the hospitality sector and home visits after officials warned the new omicron variant was likely to add to pressure on the health service.

In Africa, the health ministry in South Africa on Thursday reported 11,535 new cases of COVID-19 and 44 additional deaths, up from 8,561 new cases and 28 deaths a day earlier. The country, which raised the alarm about the new variant now named omicron, has seen a surge in cases.

In Europe, more regions of Russia have made COVID-19 vaccines mandatory for those 60 and over as the country tries to control infections and keep the omicron variant at bay.

Authorities in the northern region of Komi said Friday people in that age group are required to get fully vaccinated by Feb. 1. The Omsk region in Siberia introduced a more stringent timeline Thursday that obligates those 60 and older to get their first dose by Dec. 24 and their second by Jan. 15.

Russia has struggled to get cases down amid low vaccination rates and poor compliance with public health measures. Only about 40 per cent of Russia’s population have been fully vaccinated.

Meanwhile, the prevalence of COVID-19 infections in England rose to around one in 60 people in the week ending Nov. 27, Britain’s Office for National Statistics said Friday, noting the increase was attributed to the dominant delta variant rather than newly identified omicron. The prevalence was up from 1 in 65 reported the previous week, the ONS said.

WATCH | Canadians will need to take COVID-19 test a day before flying to the U.S.:

Canadians will need to take COVID-19 test a day before flying to the U.S.

18 hours ago

The U.S. is planning to require all travellers who arrive by air take a COVID-19 test within 24 hours of their departure, a move officials say is needed to slow the spread of the omicron variant. 2:15

In the Americas, the Biden administration announced more measures meant to curb the spread of the new variant. Starting Monday, international air travellers arriving in the United States must provide a negative COVID-19 test within a day of travel.

“We’re going to fight this variant with science and speed, not chaos and confusion,” said President Joe Biden. Around 60 per cent of the U.S. population have been fully vaccinated, one of the lowest rates among wealthy nations.

In the Middle East, OPEC and its allies agreed to stick to their existing policy of monthly oil output increases despite fears that a U.S. release from crude reserves and the new omicron coronavirus variant would lead to a fresh oil price rout.

In the Asia-Pacific region, India reported its first omicron cases but the government said it had no immediate plan to authorize booster vaccine shots despite demands from legislators.

-From The Associated Press, Reuters and CBC News, last updated at 2:02 p.m. ET

Adblock test (Why?)

Source link

News

Justin Trudeau’s Announcing Cuts to Immigration Could Facilitate a Trump Win

Published

10 mins ago

November 5, 2024

Nick Kossovan

Outside of sports and a “Cold front coming down from Canada,” American news media only report on Canadian events that they believe are, or will be, influential to the US. Therefore, when Justin Trudeau’s announcement, having finally read the room, that Canada will be reducing the number of permanent residents admitted by more than 20 percent and temporary residents like skilled workers and college students will be cut by more than half made news south of the border, I knew the American media felt Trudeau’s about-face on immigration was newsworthy because many Americans would relate to Trudeau realizing Canada was accepting more immigrants than it could manage and are hoping their next POTUS will follow Trudeau’s playbook.

Canada, with lots of space and lacking convenient geographical ways for illegal immigrants to enter the country, though still many do, has a global reputation for being incredibly accepting of immigrants. On the surface, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver appear to be multicultural havens. However, as the saying goes, “Too much of a good thing is never good,” resulting in a sharp rise in anti-immigrant sentiment, which you can almost taste in the air. A growing number of Canadians, regardless of their political affiliation, are blaming recent immigrants for causing the housing affordability crises, inflation, rise in crime and unemployment/stagnant wages.

Throughout history, populations have engulfed themselves in a tribal frenzy, a psychological state where people identify strongly with their own group, often leading to a ‘us versus them’ mentality. This has led to quick shifts from complacency to panic and finger-pointing at groups outside their tribe, a phenomenon that is not unique to any particular culture or time period.

My take on why the American news media found Trudeau’s blatantly obvious attempt to save his political career, balancing appeasement between the pitchfork crowd, who want a halt to immigration until Canada gets its house in order, and immigrant voters, who traditionally vote Liberal, newsworthy; the American news media, as do I, believe immigration fatigue is why Kamala Harris is going to lose on November 5^th.

Because they frequently get the outcome wrong, I don’t take polls seriously. According to polls in 2014, Tim Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives and Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals were in a dead heat in Ontario, yet Wynne won with more than twice as many seats. In the 2018 Quebec election, most polls had the Coalition Avenir Québec with a 1-to-5-point lead over the governing Liberals. The result: The Coalition Avenir Québec enjoyed a landslide victory, winning 74 of 125 seats. Then there’s how the 2016 US election polls showing Donald Trump didn’t have a chance of winning against Hillary Clinton were ridiculously way off, highlighting the importance of the election day poll and, applicable in this election as it was in 2016, not to discount ‘shy Trump supporters;’ voters who support Trump but are hesitant to express their views publicly due to social or political pressure.

My distrust in polls aside, polls indicate Harris is leading by a few points. One would think that Trump’s many over-the-top shenanigans, which would be entertaining were he not the POTUS or again seeking the Oval Office, would have him far down in the polls. Trump is toe-to-toe with Harris in the polls because his approach to the economy—middle-class Americans are nostalgic for the relatively strong economic performance during Trump’s first three years in office—and immigration, which Americans are hyper-focused on right now, appeals to many Americans. In his quest to win votes, Trump is doing what anyone seeking political office needs to do: telling the people what they want to hear, strategically using populism—populism that serves your best interests is good populism—to evoke emotional responses. Harris isn’t doing herself any favours, nor moving voters, by going the “But, but… the orange man is bad!” route, while Trump cultivates support from “weird” marginal voting groups.

To Harris’s credit, things could have fallen apart when Biden abruptly stepped aside. Instead, Harris quickly clinched the nomination and had a strong first few weeks, erasing the deficit Biden had given her. The Democratic convention was a success, as was her acceptance speech. Her performance at the September 10th debate with Donald Trump was first-rate.

Harris’ Achilles heel is she’s now making promises she could have made and implemented while VP, making immigration and the economy Harris’ liabilities, especially since she’s been sitting next to Biden, watching the US turn into the circus it has become. These liabilities, basically her only liabilities, negate her stance on abortion, democracy, healthcare, a long-winning issue for Democrats, and Trump’s character. All Harris has offered voters is “feel-good vibes” over substance. In contrast, Trump offers the tangible political tornado (read: steamroll the problems Americans are facing) many Americans seek. With Trump, there’s no doubt that change, admittedly in a messy fashion, will happen. If enough Americans believe the changes he’ll implement will benefit them and their country…

The case against Harris on immigration, at a time when there’s a huge global backlash to immigration, even as the American news media are pointing out, in famously immigrant-friendly Canada, is relatively straightforward: During the first three years of the Biden-Harris administration, illegal Southern border crossings increased significantly.

The words illegal immigration, to put it mildly, irks most Americans. On the legal immigration front, according to Forbes, most billion-dollar startups were founded by immigrants. Google, Microsoft, and Oracle, to name three, have immigrants as CEOs. Immigrants, with tech skills and an entrepreneurial thirst, have kept America leading the world. I like to think that Americans and Canadians understand the best immigration policy is to strategically let enough of these immigrants in who’ll increase GDP and tax base and not rely on social programs. In other words, Americans and Canadians, and arguably citizens of European countries, expect their governments to be more strategic about immigration.

The days of the words on a bronze plaque mounted inside the Statue of Liberty pedestal’s lower level, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” are no longer tolerated. Americans only want immigrants who’ll benefit America.

Does Trump demagogue the immigration issue with xenophobic and racist tropes, many of which are outright lies, such as claiming Haitian immigrants in Ohio are abducting and eating pets? Absolutely. However, such unhinged talk signals to Americans who are worried about the steady influx of illegal immigrants into their country that Trump can handle immigration so that it’s beneficial to the country as opposed to being an issue of economic stress.

In many ways, if polls are to be believed, Harris is paying the price for Biden and her lax policies early in their term. Yes, stimulus spending quickly rebuilt the job market, but at the cost of higher inflation. Loosen border policies at a time when anti-immigrant sentiment was increasing was a gross miscalculation, much like Trudeau’s immigration quota increase, and Biden indulging himself in running for re-election should never have happened.

If Trump wins, Democrats will proclaim that everyone is sexist, racist and misogynous, not to mention a likely White Supremacist, and for good measure, they’ll beat the “voter suppression” button. If Harris wins, Trump supporters will repeat voter fraud—since July, Elon Musk has tweeted on Twitter at least 22 times about voters being “imported” from abroad—being widespread.

Regardless of who wins tomorrow, Americans need to cool down; and give the divisive rhetoric a long overdue break. The right to an opinion belongs to everyone. Someone whose opinion differs from yours is not by default sexist, racist, a fascist or anything else; they simply disagree with you. Americans adopting the respectful mindset to agree to disagree would be the best thing they could do for the United States of America.

______________________________________________________________

Nick Kossovan, a self-described connoisseur of human psychology, writes about what’s

on his mind from Toronto. You can follow Nick on Twitter and Instagram @NKossovan.

News

Former athletes lean on each other to lead Canada’s luge, bobsled teams

Published

19 mins ago

November 5, 2024

Anne Joseph

CALGARY – Sam Edney and Jesse Lumsden sat on a bench on Parliament Hill during an athlete celebration after the 2014 Winter Olympic Games.

Having just represented Canada in their sliding sports — Lumsden in bobsled and Edney in luge — the two men pondered their futures together.

“There was actually one moment about, are we going to keep going? Talking about, what are each of us going to do? What’s the next four years look like?” Edney recalled a decade later.

“I do remember talking about that now. That was a big moment,” Lumsden said.

As the two men were sounding boards for each other as athletes, they are again as high-performance directors of their respective sliding sports.

Edney, an Olympic relay silver medallist in 2018 and the first Canadian man to win a World Cup gold medal, became Luge Canada’s HPD upon his retirement the following year.

Lumsden, a world and World Cup bobsled champion who raced his third Olympic Games in 2018, leaned on his sliding compatriot when he returned from five years of working in the financial sector to become HPD at Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton in July.

“The first person I called when BCS reached out to me about the role that I’m in now is Sam,” Lumsden said recently at Calgary’s WinSport, where they spent much of their competitive careers and now have offices.

“It’s been four months. I was squatting in the luge offices for the first two months beside him.

“We had all these ideas about we’re going to have weekly coffees and workouts Tuesday and Thursday and in the four months now, we’ve had two coffees and zero workouts.”

Canada has won at least one sliding-sport Olympic medal in each of the last five Winter Games, but Edney and Lumsden face a challenge as team leaders that they didn’t as athletes.

WinSport’s sliding track, built for the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary and where Edney and Lumsden did hundreds of runs as athletes, has been closed since 2019 needing a $25-million renovation.

There is no sign that will happen. WinSport took the $10 million the provincial government offered for the sliding track and put the money toward a renovation of the Frank King Lodge used by recreational skiers and snowboarders.

Canada’s only other sliding track in the resort town of Whistler, B.C., has a fraction of Calgary’s population from which to recruit and develop athletes.

“The comparison is if you took half the ice rinks away in the country, hockey and figure skating would be disarray,” Edney said.

“It just changes the dynamic of the sports completely, in terms of we’re now scrambling to find ways to bring people to a location that’s not as easy to get to, or to live out of, or to train out of full time.

“We’re realizing how good we had it when Calgary’s (track) was here. It’s not going to be the end of us, but it’s definitely made it more difficult.”

Lumsden, a former CFL running back as well as an Olympian, returned to a national sport organization still recovering from internal upheaval that included the athlete-led ouster of the former president and CEO after the 2022 Winter Olympics, and Olympic champion pilot Kaillie Humphries suing the organization for her release to compete for the U.S. in 2019.

“NSOs like Luge Canada and Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton, they’re startups,” Lumsden said. “You have to think like a startup, operate like a startup, job stack, do more with less, especially in the current environment.

“I felt it was the right time for me to take my sporting experience and the skill set that I learned at Neo Financial and working with some of the most talented people in Canada and try to inject that into an NSO that is in a state of distress right now, and try to work with the great staff we have and the athletes we have to start to turn this thing around.”

Edney, 40, and Lumsden, 42, take comfort in each other holding the same roles in their sports.

“It goes both ways. I couldn’t have been more excited about who they hired,” Edney said. “When Jesse was coming in, I knew that we were going to be able to collaborate and work together and get things happening for our sports.”

Added Lumsden: “We’ve been friends for a long time, so I knew how he was going to do in his role and before taking the role, having the conversation with him, I felt a lot of comfort.

“I asked ‘are you going to be around for a long time?’ He said ‘yeah, I’m not going anywhere.’ I said ‘OK, good.'”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2024.

Source link

News

Canada’s Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Routliffe pick up second win at WTA Finals

Published

20 mins ago

November 5, 2024

Anne Joseph

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe remain undefeated in women’s doubles at the WTA Finals.

The 2023 U.S. Open champions, seeded second at the event, secured a 1-6, 7-6 (1), (11-9) super-tiebreak win over fourth-seeded Italians Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini in round-robin play on Tuesday.

The season-ending tournament features the WTA Tour’s top eight women’s doubles teams.

Dabrowski and Routliffe lost the first set in 22 minutes but levelled the match by breaking Errani’s serve three times in the second, including at 6-5. They clinched victory with Routliffe saving a match point on her serve and Dabrowski ending Errani’s final serve-and-volley attempt.

Dabrowski and Routliffe will next face fifth-seeded Americans Caroline Dolehide and Desirae Krawczyk on Thursday, where a win would secure a spot in the semifinals.

The final is scheduled for Saturday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on Nov. 5, 2024.

Source link