Reports of domestic, intimate partner violence continue to rise during pandemic.
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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.
Britain has given a first dose of coronavirus vaccine to almost a quarter of the population, but 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.
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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)
Under the new rules, 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.
International travel has already been sharply curbed by the pandemic, and Britons are currently barred from going on overseas vacations.
Critics say the quarantine hotels are being set up too late, with the variant first discovered in South Africa already circulating in the country.
U.K. PM to set out reopening plan next week
On Sunday the British 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.
Visiting a London vaccination centre on Monday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson praised the “unbelievable effort” by scientists, medics, pharmacists, members of the military and volunteers that had achieved Europe’s fastest vaccine rollout.
British 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)
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the vaccination drive is now being extended to people over 65 and those with underlying health conditions. The government aims to give everyone over 50 a first shot of vaccine by the end of April, and the whole adult population by September.
Britain has had Europe’s worst coronavirus outbreak, with more than 117,000 deaths. Infections and deaths are now falling steadily, and the government says that on Feb. 22 it will announce a “road map” for easing a nationwide lockdown.
Johnson is under pressure from some members of his governing Conservative Party to lift the lockdown soon, allowing businesses to reopen and people to visit friends and family.
The prime minister, who has been accused of being too slow to lock Britain down last spring, then too quick to ease restrictions over the summer, now is striking a more measured tone.
“Although the vaccination program is going well, we still don’t have enough data about the exact effectiveness of the vaccines in reducing the spread of infection,” Johnson said at a news conference.
“We must be both optimistic but also patient, because we want this lockdown to be the last.”
What’s happening in Canada
As of 12:45 p.m. ET on Monday, Canada had reported 826,527 cases of COVID-19, with 35,526 cases considered active. A CBC News tally of deaths stood at 21,309.
COVID-19 vaccination is expected to ramp up across the country this week as manufacturer Pfizer-BioNTech begins boosting deliveries after a month-long slowdown.
The federal government says beginning this week, it expects to receive weekly shipments of more than 400,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine until at least April 4. That number represents a significant jump in vaccine shipments to Canada, which has received a total of about 928,200 Pfizer doses since December.
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 have since declined, with the province reporting seven new cases on Monday.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald, the province’s chief medical of officer of health, confirmed that one person is in hospital with the virus, marking the first hospitalization since the outbreak of the coronavirus variant.
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 underway 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.
WATCH | Ontario to expand list of priority groups eligible for vaccine:
Adults aged 80 and over are among the priority groups next in line to get the COVID-19 vaccine in Ontario as part of the first phase of its rollout plan once supply increases. Greg Ross has more. 1:54
Ontario reported 981 new COVID-19 cases and 42 more deaths on Sunday. Due to the Family Day holiday, the province will not be posting case numbers on Monday.
Quebec reported 728 new cases and 16 additional deaths on Monday. It is the province’s lowest daily case increase since Sept. 26, when it reported 698 new cases.
Nova Scotia reported one new case on Monday. Premier Stephen McNeil said the recently low daily case count is proof the province’s public health orders are working.
New Brunswick reported one new case and one new death. According to a press release from the province, the person who died was a resident of Manoir Belle Vue, an adult residential facility in Edmundston.
Here’s a look at what else is happening across Canada:
What’s happening around the world
As of Monday afternoon, more than 108.9 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.
The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday listed AstraZeneca and Oxford University’s COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, widening access to the relatively inexpensive shot in the developing world.
A WHO statement said it had approved the vaccine as produced by AstraZeneca-SKBio and the Serum Institute of India.
Doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine make up the lion’s share of doses in the COVAX coronavirus vaccine sharing scheme, with more than 330 million doses of the shot due to begin being rolled out to poorer countries from the end of February.
The AstraZeneca-Oxford shot has been hailed because it is cheaper and easier to distribute than some rivals, including Pfizer-BioNTech’s, which was listed for emergency use by WHO late in December.
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.
Coronavirus case numbers are stabilizing in parts of the Middle East, but the situation remains critical with more than a dozen countries reporting cases of new variants, the World Health Organization said Monday.
Ahmed al-Mandhari, director of WHO’s eastern Mediterranean region, which comprises most of the Middle East, said in a media briefing from Cairo that at least one of the three new coronavirus variants was reported in the 13 countries, which he did not name. All three of the new variants are more contagious, according to WHO.
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.
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EDMONTON – RCMP say a second suspect has been arrested in the killing of an Alberta county worker.
Mounties say 28-year-old Elijah Strawberry was taken into custody Friday at a house on O’Chiese First Nation.
Colin Hough, a worker with Rocky View County, was shot and killed while on the job on a rural road east of Calgary on Aug. 6.
Another man who worked for Fortis Alberta was shot and wounded, and RCMP said the suspects fled in a Rocky View County work truck.
Police later arrested Arthur Wayne Penner, 35, and charged him with first-degree murder and attempted murder, and a warrant was issued for Strawberry’s arrest.
RCMP also said there was a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of Strawberry, describing him as armed and dangerous.
Chief Supt. Roberta McKale, told a news conference in Edmonton that officers had received tips and information over the last few weeks.
“I don’t know of many members that when were stopped, fuelling up our vehicles, we weren’t keeping an eye out, looking for him,” she said.
But officers had been investigating other cases when they found Strawberry.
“Our investigators were in O’Chiese First Nation at a residence on another matter and the major crimes unit was there working another file and ended up locating him hiding in the residence,” McKale said.
While an investigation is still underway, RCMP say they’re confident both suspects in the case are in police custody.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
RICHMOND, B.C. – The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team says the 26-year-old son of a man found dead on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast has been charged with his murder.
Police say 58-year-old Henry Doyle was found badly injured on a forest service road in Egmont last September and died of his injuries.
The homicide team took over when the BC Coroners Service said the man’s death was suspicious.
It says in a statement that the BC Prosecution Service has approved one count of first-degree murder against the man’s son, Jackson Doyle.
Police say the accused will remain in custody until at least his next court appearance.
The homicide team says investigators remained committed to solving the case with the help of the community of Egmont, the RCMP on the Sunshine Coast and in Richmond, and the Vancouver Police Department.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Mediated talks between the union representing HandyDART workers in Metro Vancouver and its employer, Transdev, have broken off without an agreement following 15 hours of talks.
Joe McCann, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1724, says they stayed at the bargaining table with help from a mediator until 2 a.m. Friday and made “some progress.”
However, he says the union negotiators didn’t get an offer that they could recommend to the membership.
McCann says that in some ways they are close to an agreement, but in other areas they are “miles apart.”
About 600 employees of the door-to-door transit service for people who can’t navigate the conventional transit system have been on strike since last week, pausing service for all but essential medical trips.
McCann asks HandyDART users to be “patient,” since they are trying to get not only a fair contract for workers but also a better service for customers.
He says it’s unclear when the talks will resume, but he hopes next week at the latest.
The employer, Transdev, didn’t reply to an interview request before publication.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
