Britain’s newly established quarantine hotels have received their first guests as the government tries to prevent new variants of the coronavirus from derailing its fast-moving vaccination drive.
Passengers arriving at London’s Heathrow Airport on Monday morning were escorted by security guards to buses that took them to nearby hotels.
On Sunday the government reached its goal of giving the first of two doses of vaccine to 15 million of the most vulnerable people, including health-care workers and those over the age of 70.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the vaccination drive is now being extended to people over 65 and those with underlying health conditions.
Health officials are concerned that vaccines may not work as well on some new strains of the virus, including one first identified in South Africa.
A mobile COVID-19 testing centre, run by Randox, is set up on the grounds of the Radisson Blu hotel near London’s Heathrow airport, which is now acting as a quarantine hotel for passengers arriving from ‘red list’ countries. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
People arriving in England from 33 high-risk countries must stay in quarantine hotels for 10 days at their own expense. In Scotland the rule applies to arrivals from any country.
Critics say the move comes too late, with the South African variant already circulating in the country.
PM to set out reopening plan next week
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday spoke about his plan to lift the COVID-19 lockdown.
“We’ve got to be very prudent and what we want to see is progress that is cautious, but irreversible,” Johnson told reporters. “If we possibly can, we’ll be setting out dates.”
He went on: “If because of the rate of infection, we have to push something off a little bit to the right — delay it for a little bit — we won’t hesitate to do that.”
Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson meets people waiting for their vaccine during a visit to a coronavirus vaccination centre at the Health and Wellbeing Centre in Orpington, southeast London, on Monday. (Jeremy Selwyn/The Associated Press)
Johnson, who will set out his plan to lift lockdown on Feb. 22, said the rates of infection were still very high and that too many people were still dying.
“The risk is that if you have a large, as it were, volume of circulation, if you’ve got loads of people, even young people getting the disease, then a couple of things happen: First of all, you have a higher risk of variants and mutations within the population, where the disease is circulating,” he said.
“Secondly, there will also be a greater risk of the disease spreading out into the older groups again.”
What’s happening in Canada
As of 9:30 a.m. ET on Monday, Canada had reported 825,790 cases of COVID-19, with 35,984 cases considered active. A CBC News tally of deaths stood at 21,293.
WATCH | Age-based vaccinating the easiest method, epidemiologist says:
Prioritizing by age is the easiest and simplest way for provinces to carry out the mass vaccination program required for COVID-19, says epidemiologist Dr. Christopher Labos. 7:01
In Newfoundland and Labrador, all students will make the switch to online learning by Thursday, as the English School District set out a staggered schedule to get children into virtual classrooms until at least Feb. 26.
Alert Level 5 was triggered late Friday with the confirmation that the B117 coronavirus variant, the variant initially detected in the United Kingdom, is now circulating in the province.
The province saw a massive spike in COVID-19 cases last week, with reported daily new cases reaching as high as 100 on Feb. 11. New cases has since declined, with 26 cases and 11 cases reported on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.
WATCH | Calls to pause reopening as variants detected across Canada:
There are calls for provinces to pause some reopening plans after several COVID-19 variants have been detected in all 10 provinces. Experts predict these variants could be dominant within weeks, with potentially dire consequences. 2:06
In Ontario, widespread testing for all residents at a Mississauga condominium is set to start Monday after five cases of the coronavirus variant first detected in South Africa were identified at the location.
The Ontario government has nearly finished offering a first dose to all residents of long-term care homes and high-risk retirement homes in the province, retired general Rick Hillier, chair of the province’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution task force, said in a memo to medical officers of health and hospital CEOs.
Here’s a look at what else is happening across Canada:
What’s happening around the world
As of Monday morning, more than 108.8 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, with more than 61.1 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 2.4 million.
In the Asia-Pacific region, South Korea said on Monday it would not use AstraZeneca’s vaccine on people aged 65 and older, reversing an earlier decision, and scaled back initial vaccination targets due to delayed shipments from global vaccine-sharing scheme COVAX.
South Korea had said it would complete vaccinations on 1.3 million people by the first quarter of this year with AstraZeneca shots, but it slashed the target sharply to 750,000.
Australia and New Zealand have received their first vaccine deliveries and will begin rolling out inoculations in the coming week, while Melbourne and Auckland remained locked down following the emergence of new cases.
The first Australian shipment of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines is unloaded from a Singapore Airlines plane at Sydney International Airport on Monday. (Bianca De Marchi/Reuters)
“The eagle has landed,” Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt told reporters in Canberra on Monday as the first shipment of 142,000 doses of the vaccine developed by Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech touched down.
In Africa, Zimbabwe has received its first COVID-19 vaccines with the arrival early Monday of an Air Zimbabwe jet carrying 200,000 Sinopharm doses from China. It is one of China’s first shipments of vaccines to Africa, after deliveries to Egypt and Equatorial Guinea.
The first Sinopharm vaccines are a donation from China to the southern African country. President Emmerson Mnanagagwa’s government has purchased an additional 600,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine that are expected to arrive early next month, according to state media.
The first batch of vaccines for Zimbabwe has been successfully delivered. We start vaccinating Zimbabweans this week!<br><br>The faster our country is protected against this virus, the faster Zimbabwe’s economy can flourish.<br><br>God bless you all, god bless Zimbabwe! ???????? <a href=”https://t.co/u2noXMWcnR”>pic.twitter.com/u2noXMWcnR</a>
South Africa has reopened its major land borders with neighbouring countries after closing them last month to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
The country, which has seen a cumulative total of nearly 1.5 million cases and 47,000 deaths, has seen a decline in new cases and is set to start vaccinating its front-line health workers with Johnson & Johnson vaccines later this week.
In the Middle East, Israel’s largest health-care provider reported on Sunday a 94 per cent drop in symptomatic COVID-19 infections among 600,000 people who received two doses of Pfizer’s vaccine in the country’s biggest study to date.
Health maintenance organization Clalit, which covers more than half of all Israelis, said the same group was also 92 per cent less likely to develop severe illness from the virus.
“It shows unequivocally that Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine is extremely effective in the real world a week after the second dose, just as it was found to be in the clinical study,” said Ran Balicer, Clalit’s chief innovation officer.
In the Americas, Brazil has confirmed cases of the variant of the novel coronavirus first discovered in the U.K. in two states and in the federal district of Brasilia, according to a statement from the health ministry on Sunday. The government said it has not yet confirmed cases of the variant first identified in South Africa.
A woman dressed as a superhero performs in the ‘Desliga da Justica’ street band in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday. Their performance was broadcast live on social media for those who were unable to participate in the carnival due to COVID-19 restrictions. (Bruna Prado/The Associated Press)
Brazil has the world’s highest number of coronavirus deaths after the United States and more than 9.8 million confirmed cases. The variant of the virus first discovered in Brazil is circulating in 10 states, the health ministry said.
In Europe, the first shipment of a COVID-19 vaccine developed in China will arrive Tuesday in Hungary, the first country in the European Union to approve it.
In a video on Facebook on Monday, State Secretary Tamas Menczer said 550,000 doses of the vaccine developed by Chinese state-owned company Sinopharm will be transported by jet from Beijing, enough to treat 275,000 people with two doses each. The first shipment will undergo testing by the National Public Health Center before inoculations begin, Menczer said.
A French medical team was due to start work Monday at a hospital in Portugal, which for more than three weeks has been the country in the world with most COVID-19 deaths by size of population.
The French doctor and three nurses arrived amid signs that a month-long lockdown, which is being extended to at least March 1, is paying off. On Sunday, just over 4,800 COVID-19 patients were in hospital, down from a Feb. 1 peak of close to 7,000.
LONGUEUIL, Que. – People in a part of Longueuil, Que., were being asked to stay indoors with their doors and windows closed on Thursday morning after a train derailed, spilling an unknown quantity of hydrogen peroxide.
Police from the city just east of Montreal said it didn’t appear anyone was hurt, although a CN rail official told a news conference that three employees had been taken to hospital as a precautionary measure.
The derailment happened at around 9 a.m. in the LeMoyne area, near the intersection of St-Louis and St-Georges streets. Mathieu Gaudreault, a spokesman for CN rail, said about eight cars derailed at the Southwark rail facility, including four that toppled over.
“As of this morning, the information we have is it’s hydrogen peroxide that was in the rail car and created the fumes we saw,” he said, adding that there was no risk of fire.
François Boucher, a spokesman for the Longueuil police department, said police were asking people in the area, including students at nearby schools, to stay indoors while experts ensure the air is safe to breathe.
“It is as a preventive measure that we encourage people to really avoid exposing themselves unnecessarily,” he told reporters near the scene.
Police and fire officials were on site, as well as CN railworkers, and a large security perimeter was erected.
Officers were asking people to avoid the sector, and the normally busy Highway 116 was closed in the area. The confinement notice includes everyone within 800 metres of the derailment, officials said, who added that it would be lifted once a team with expertise in dangerous materials has given the green light.
In addition to closing doors and windows, people in the area covered by the notice are asked to close heating, ventilation and air exchange systems, and to stay as far from windows as possible.
Gaudreault said it wasn’t yet clear what caused the derailment. The possibilities include a problem with the track, a problem with a manoeuvre, or a mechanical issue, he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 14, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia’s Liberal party is promising to improve cellphone service and invest in major highways if the party is elected to govern on Nov. 26.
Party leader Zach Churchill says a Liberal government would spend $60 million on building 87 new cellphone towers, which would be in addition to the $66 million the previous Progressive Conservative government committed to similar projects last year.
As well, Churchill confirmed the Liberals want to improve the province’s controlled access highways by adding exits along Highway 104 across the top of the mainland, and building a bypass along Highway 101 near Digby.
Churchill says the Liberals would add $40 million to the province’s $500 million capital budget for highways.
Meanwhile, the leaders of the three major political parties were expected to spend much of today preparing for a televised debate that will be broadcast tonight at 6 p.m. local time.
Churchill will face off against Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Houston and NDP Leader Claudia Chender during a 90-minute debate that will be carried live on CBC TV and streamed online.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 14, 2024.
TORONTO – A group of hotel service workers in Toronto is set to hold a rally today outside the Fairmont Royal York to demand salary increases as hotel costs in the city skyrocket during Taylor Swift’s concerts.
Unite Here Local 75, the union representing 8,000 hospitality workers in the Greater Toronto Area, says Royal York employees have not seen a salary increase since 2021, and have been negotiating a new contract with the hotel since 2022.
The rally comes as the megastar begins her series of six sold-out concerts in Toronto, with the last show scheduled for Nov. 23.
During show weekends, some hotel rooms and short-term rentals in Toronto are priced up to 10 times more than other weekends, with some advertised for as much as $2,000 per night.
The union says hotel workers who will be serving Swifties during her Toronto stops are bargaining for raises to keep up with the rising cost of living.
The union represents hospitality workers including food service employees, room attendants and bell persons.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 14, 2024.
