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Coronavirus: What's happening in Canada and around the world on Monday – CBC.ca
The latest:
Eligible Canadians who lost income because of COVID-19 can start applying for a new emergency benefit program on Monday as the government tries to keep people afloat during a pandemic that has claimed thousands of lives worldwide.
People born in January, February and March can apply for the Canada emergency response benefit (CERB) as of Monday. The system, run through the Canada Revenue Agency, staggers the application window for people born in later months as the week goes on.
The emergency funding program, which offers eligible applicants $2,000 a month for a period of up to four months, is just one of the measures the Canadian government has launched to try and buoy families and businesses feeling the fallout of the virus, which has to date resulted in nearly 1.3 million reported cases around the world.
According to a database maintained by Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University, nearly 70,000 people have died as a result of the virus, which was first reported in China’s Hubei province in late 2019. The true numbers are certainly much higher due to limited testing, different ways nations count the dead and deliberate under-reporting by some governments.
More than 15,500 of the cases are in Canada, with cases recorded in every province and territory except Nunavut. As of 6 a.m ET on Monday, officials had reported 307 COVID-19 related deaths in Canada. The provinces and territories that offer information on people who have recovered listed more than 3,100 COVID-19 cases as resolved.
Public health officials have cautioned that the numbers, which don’t include the deaths of two Canadians abroad, don’t provide a full picture of the outbreak as they fail to capture cases that haven’t been tested or are still under investigation.
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The vast majority of infected people recover from the virus, formally known as SARS CoV-2, which is spread by microscopic droplets from coughs or sneezes.
For most people, the virus causes mild to moderate symptoms such as fever and cough. But for some, especially older adults and those with existing health problems, it can cause pneumonia and death.
The Public Health Agency of Canada says risk varies between communities but notes that the illness poses a serious health threat to Canadians and pegs the risk level as high.
Here’s what’s happening in the provinces and territories
In British Columbia, the top public health official is warning people not to let up on physical distancing. “This is our time to remain unwavering in our commitment. To keep our firewall strong,” Dr. Bonnie Henry said over the weekend. Read more about what’s happening in B.C.
Alberta reported three new COVID-19 deaths and 69 new cases on Sunday. Read more about what’s happening in Alberta, including the story of one woman who brought her elderly mother home amid concern about potential outbreaks in seniors’ homes.
Saskatchewan recorded 18 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, bringing its total to 249. Premier Scott Moe has said that his government will provide more information this week on both provincial modelling and how the province is preparing for an expected increase in cases. Read more about what’s happening in Saskatchewan.
Manitoba’s largest city has closed an underground concourse and downtown skywalk as part of the ongoing effort to stamp out COVID-19. Read more about what’s happening in Manitoba, including an initiative to house some homeless people who are considered at risk of contracting COVID-19 at a Brandon motel.
A hard-hit nursing home in small-town Ontario reported another death linked to COVID-19, bringing the total number of fatalities linked to the Pinecrest nursing home up to 23. The province has 4,038 reported cases, and CBC News tallies put the number of COVID-19 related deaths at 146. Read more about what’s happening in Ontario.
Quebec’s shutdown on non-essential activity will run until at least May 4. “If we relax our efforts, we’ll just delay the moment when we’ll be able to go back to our lives,” said Premier François Legault. Read more about what’s happening in Quebec, including what police said after a security guard was hit by a vehicle in a Walmart parking lot.
New Brunswick’s premier is warning that the province, which currently has 101 reported COVID-19 cases, will see more. “That is why we are doing everything we can to fight this,” said Blaine Higgs. Read more about what’s happening in N.B.
Nova Scotia is going to step up testing of areas with “clusters” of COVID-19 cases. The province’s health authority has also created a mobile assessment centre staffed by paramedics that can move from one area to another. Read more about what’s happening in N.S.Prince Edward Island students begin virtual learning Monday. Read more about what’s happening on P.E.I., which has reported 22 COVID-19 cases to date.
In Newfoundland and Labrador, chief medical officer of health Janice Fitzgerald announced 14 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, for a total of 217. Read more about what’s happening in N.L., including the premier’s remarks on a move by U.S. President Donald Trump to limit the export of critical medical masks.
In the Northwest Territories, health officials have confirmed a fifth case of COVID-19. Read more about what’s happening across Canada’s North, including a Yukon government program that is providing vulnerable women with cellphones.
Here’s a look at what’s happening in the U.S.
From The Associated Press, updated at 6 a.m. ET
The U.S. surgeon general says that Americans should brace for levels of tragedy reminiscent of the Sept. 11 attacks and the bombing of Pearl Harbor, while the nation’s infectious disease chief warned that the novel coronavirus may never be completely eradicated from the globe.
Those were some of the most grim assessments yet for the immediate future and beyond. But hours later, President Donald Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence tried to strike more optimistic tones, suggesting that hard weeks ahead could be a prelude to an eventual turn.
“We’re starting to see light at the end of the tunnel,” Trump said at a Sunday evening White House briefing. Pence added, “We are beginning to see glimmers of progress.”
The president also insisted that both assessments from his administration — they came within 12 hours of each other — didn’t represent an about-face or were even “that different.”
“I think we all know that we have to reach a certain point — and that point is going to be a horrific point in terms of death — but it’s also a point at which things are going to start changing,” Trump said. “We’re getting very close to that level right now.”
The president added that he thought the next two weeks “are going to be very difficult. At the same time, we understand what they represent and what that time represents and, hopefully, we can get this over with.”
Still, Trump’s own briefing also struck a sombre tone at times. The president offered some of his most extensive comments to date to the families of those killed by the virus, urging the nation to pray for them and “ask God to comfort them in their hour of grief.”
“With the faith of our families and the spirit of our people and the grace of our God we will endure,” the president said. “We will overcome.”
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Earlier Sunday, Surgeon General Jerome Adams told CNN: “This is going to be the hardest and the saddest week of most Americans’ lives, quite frankly.”
The nation’s top doctor went on to say: “This is going to be our Pearl Harbor moment, our 9/11 moment, only it’s not going to be localized. It’s going to be happening all over the country. And I want America to understand that.”
Also Sunday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the toll in the coming week is “going to be shocking to some, but that’s what is going to happen before it turns around, so just buckle down.”
He said the virus probably won’t be wiped out entirely this year, and that unless the world gets it under control, it will “assume a seasonal nature.”
“We need to be prepared that, since it unlikely will be completely eradicated from the planet, that as we get into next season, we may see the beginning of a resurgence,” Fauci said. “That’s the reason why we’re pushing so hard in getting our preparedness much better than it was.”
The number of people infected in the U.S. has exceeded 337,000, with the death toll climbing past 9,600. More than 4,100 of those deaths are in the state of New York, but a glimmer of hope there came on Sunday when Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo said his state registered a small dip in new fatalities over a 24-hour period. Still, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said his state may run out of ventilators by week’s end.
Here’s what’s happening in hard-hit Spain, Italy and the rest of Europe
From The Associated Press and Reuters, updated at 6 a.m. ET
Italy reported its lowest daily death toll for more than two weeks on Sunday, as the health minister outlined plans for broader testing and beefed-up health services as part of measures following a future easing of the lockdown.
Coronavirus-related fatalities and recorded infections continued to drop on Monday in Spain, although authorities warned of possible distortions by a slower reporting of figures over the weekend. The country’s health ministry reported 637 new deaths for the previous 24 hours, the lowest fatality toll in 13 days, for a total of over 13,000 since the pandemic hit the country. New recorded infections were also the lowest in two weeks: 4,273, bringing the total of confirmed cases over 135,000.
Hospitals are also reporting that the pace of incoming patients to their emergency wards is slowing down, giving a much needed respite to overburdened medical workers.
France reported a slowing daily death toll, and Germany its fourth straight day with a drop in new cases.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is reportedly in good spirits following his first night in the hospital for what his office described as a “precautionary step” after contracting the new coronavirus. Johnson remains in charge of government despite being sent to St Thomas’ Hospital after COVID-19 symptoms of a cough and fever persisted. His spokesperson, James Slack. says he remains in hospital under observation.
The 55-year-old leader is the first known head of government to fall ill with the virus.He has released several video messages during his 10 days in isolation.
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Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz says his government aims to start allowing some shops to reopen next week at the beginning of a long, phased return to normal life. Kurz said that the aim is to allow small shops and garden centres to reopen next Tuesday, with a limited number of customers who must wear masks. He said the government hopes to reopen the rest of the shops, as well as hairdressing salons, on May 1. Restaurants and hotels won’t be able to open until at least mid-May. Events will remain banned until the end of June.
The number of coronavirus cases in Russia has topped 6,000 after the largest daily spike in new infections since the start of the outbreak.
Here’s a look at what’s happening in hard-hit China, South Korea, Japan and other areas of concern
From The Associated Press and Reuters, updated at 6 a.m. ET
China on Monday reported 39 new cases of coronavirus infection — 38 of them imported — one additional death, 10 suspected cases and 1,047 asymptomatic cases under observation.
There were no new confirmed or suspected cases in the epicentre city of Wuhan, where a 14-week lockdown is due to be lifted on Wednesday. China has now recorded a total of 81,708 cases and 3,331 deaths.
South Korea has reported 47 new cases of the coronavirus and three more fatalities, bringing its totals to 10,284 infections and 186 deaths. South Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday said at least 769 of the infections were linked to passengers arriving from overseas, with most of the cases detected in the past three weeks in the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area.
The country’s caseload has slowed from early March, when it was reporting around 500 new cases a day, but officials have raised concern over a steady rise in infections imported from overseas or occurring in hospitals, nursing homes and other live-in facilities.
Japan will declare a state of emergency as early as Tuesday, media reported, as a shortage of beds and a rise in cases linked to hospitals are pushing Tokyo’s medical system to the brink of collapse. The U.S. forces, meanwhile, declared a public health emergency for its military bases in eastern Japan.
Singapore has placed nearly 20,000 foreign workers under quarantine in their dormitories after an increasing number in the community were found to be infected with COVID-19.
India is restricting the export of most diagnostic testing kits, as its cases topped 3,350 despite a three-week nationwide lockdown.
Malaysia on Monday reported 131 new coronavirus infections, raising the country’s total to 3,793 cases, the highest in Southeast Asia. The Health Ministry has recorded 62 deaths, including one more reported as of noon Monday.
Currently able to conduct 5,000 tests per day, South Africa will increase its capacity to more than 30,000 per day by the end of the April, according to the National Health Laboratory Service. South Africa was one of only two countries in Africa that could test for the novel coronavirus when it began its global spread in January. Now at least 43 of the continent’s 54 countries can, but many have limited capacity.
Mexico said total cases were 2,143, an increase of 253 cases from a day earlier. The number of deaths rose by 15 to 94.
Haiti on Sunday reported its first death, with 21 confirmed cases of the respiratory disease.
Brazil’s lower house of Congress approved a constitutional amendment for a “war budget” to separate coronavirus-related spending from the government’s main budget and shield the economy as the country surpassed 10,000 confirmed cases.
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We're still stockpiling reusable bags. Big grocers have adopted solutions, but experts have concerns – CBC News
Canada’s plastic bag ban has had an unintended consequence: a proliferation of reusable bags piling up in basements, closets and, eventually, landfills.
“They’re everywhere,” said environmental researcher Tony Walker. “We’re drowning in them, and we shouldn’t be.”
To combat the problem, several of Canada’s big grocers have introduced solutions. Last week, Walmart launched a free national recycling pilot program for the retailer’s reusable blue bags. Competitors Sobeys and chains owned by Loblaw Companies Ltd. use recyclable paper bags for grocery delivery.
But some environmental experts argue that paper bags are also problematic and that the best solutions are those that help customers actually reuse their reusable bags.
“We just can’t keep giving [them] out,” said Walker, a professor at Dalhousie University’s School for Resource and Environmental Studies in Halifax. “We’re only meant to have a few of them, and we’re meant to use them until they fall apart.”
In late 2022, the federal government rolled out a ban on the manufacture, import and sale of several single-use plastics, including checkout bags. The regulations are being contested in court, but in the meantime, they remain in effect.
The regulations have made single-use shopping bags scarce in Canada, but they’ve also led to the proliferation of reusable bags, especially for grocery delivery.
“It just creates more waste, which is what we’re trying to avoid in the first place,” Walmart customer Udi Sela said in a CBC News interview in late 2022.
At the time, Sela, who lives in Maple, Ont., estimated his family had acquired about 300 reusable Walmart bags via grocery delivery.
“We can’t return them, we can’t do much with them.”
Now, a little more than a year later, Walmart has launched a pilot project to address the problem.
It allows customers to pack up their unwanted reusable Walmart blue bags and ship them — at no charge — to a facility where they’ll get a second life.
How it works
According to Walmart, bags in good condition will be laundered and donated to charity, primarily Food Banks Canada. Damaged bags will get recycled into other materials. Reusable bags typically can’t go in blue bins because they’re costly and difficult to recycle.
Customers must sign up for Walmart’s program, and enrolment is limited.
Jennifer Barbazza, Walmart’s senior manager of sustainability, said the retailer will fine-tune the details as the program progresses.
“[We] know that some customers have more reusable bags than maybe they need,” she said. “One of the things that we’re really excited to learn about from the pilot is customer acceptance and customer feedback.”
Reusable bags are living rent free in closets and car trunks across the country. Most major retailers made the switch away from single-use plastic bags about a year ago, but it’s taking time for some customers to catch on. They’re forgetting to bring their bags with them, and buying more every week.
Udi Sela has already signed up.
“I definitely think it’s a step in the right direction,” he said in an interview on Friday. “It’s something that needed to be done a while ago. God knows we’ve got a ton of bags kind of piled up.”
He said he’s concerned that some customers may find mailing the bags a hurdle. However, it’s not deterring Sela, who soon plans to ship hundreds.
Passing the buck?
Not everyone is keen on Walmart’s project. Emily Alfred, a waste campaigner with Toronto Environmental Alliance, said donating the bags to the food bank is just passing on the problem.
“We need to remove waste from the system entirely, and just sending these somewhere else for someone else to deal with is not really a solution,” she said.
Alfred said a better option is a program Walmart piloted in Guelph, Ont., in 2022. For a fee, customers could check out reusable bags from an in-store kiosk and later return them to be cleaned and reused.
“That’s a real circular reuse system,” she said.
Walmart’s Barbazza said the retailer is continuing to explore different reusable bag programs, including ones placed in stores.
She also said she’s confident Canada’s food banks will make good use of the bags.
“There’s definitely a need for sturdy items to distribute materials to the food bank clients.”
The paper problem
Among Canada’s major grocers, only Walmart offers a reusable bag program for all customers.
Loblaw recently switched from reusable to recyclable paper bags for grocery delivery. Sobeys did not respond to requests for comment, but according to its website, the grocer also uses paper bags and “reusable options” for home delivery.
Several environmental experts say paper bags aren’t a good solution, because their production leaves a sizable carbon footprint.
“Paper bags are a problem,” Alfred said. “It takes a lot of energy to recycle paper, takes a lot of trees and energy to make new paper.”
Loblaw said it continues to explore a variety of more sustainable solutions. “It’s a challenge we’re committed to addressing,” spokesperson Dave Bauer said in an email.
Both Walker and Alfred applaud Metro for its grocery delivery program, because the grocer, which operates in Ontario and Quebec, reuses delivery materials.
Metro said customers can get their goods delivered in a cardboard box or reusable bags, which can be returned and used for another delivery. Or customers can opt for a plastic bin and remove their groceries from it upon arrival.
Metro does not offer similar programs for in-store shoppers.
Alfred said the federal government should introduce regulations that mandate retailers adopt effective reusable bag programs for all customers.
“It’s up to our governments and people to demand that these companies do better,” she said.
But Walker suggested that the regulations would be hard to enforce and that incentives could be a better tactic.
For example, if retailers increased the price of reusable bags, shoppers might be less likely to forget them when they head to the store, he said.
“When the cost is a disincentive to do an activity, people change their behaviour.”
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Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland says she thinks unhappy premiers will come around on measures in the federal budget that touch on provincial legislation, even as they push back.
At an event in Toronto on Sunday, Freeland — who presented the federal budget on Tuesday — said the national government needs to push ahead on such issues as housing and she was “extremely optimistic” premiers would choose to co-operate.
“Housing is a national challenge, and the federal government needs to be leading the charge,” she said.
“My own experience has been when there are big issues that really matter to Canadians, after all the sound and the fury, people are prepared to roll up their sleeves and find a win-win outcome for Canadians.”
Several premiers have pushed back against the federal government in recent months and again after the budget was released on the grounds that some measures touch on provincial jurisdiction.
This week’s federal budget has premiers lashing out at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over a planned increase to capital gains taxes as well as what they say is overstepping on infrastructure and pharmacare.
In a letter released Friday by the Council of the Federation, which represents the leaders of all 13 provinces and territories, the premiers said Ottawa should have consulted them more ahead of the budget.
Individual premiers have shared more pointed critiques.
“It’s a never-ending spending platform that we’ve seen now for the last 10 years,” New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs said on CBC’s Power & Politics on Friday.
“My initial thoughts about the federal budget are that they are overtaxing, overspending, overborrowing and over interfering in provincial affairs,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said earlier this week.
Alberta has clashed with the government repeatedly over housing. Smith introduced legislation earlier this month that would require provincial oversight of deals made between municipalities and the federal government, including for future agreements around federal housing funds.
At Issue this week: The Liberals work to sell their multibillion-dollar spending plan and capital gains tax hike. Pierre Poilievre tells Radio-Canada what he thinks of the federal budget. And another province pushes back on the carbon tax.
Freeland said on Sunday that, as an example, the federal child-care program negotiated through a series of deals with provinces and territories showed that co-operation was possible.
Capital gains tax changes criticized
The federal government has also faced some opposition on what was perhaps the most prominent measure revealed on budget day: changes to Canada’s capital gains tax rules. The government has proposed raising the inclusion rate to 67 per cent on capital gains above $250,000 for individuals.
“The 21st-century winner-takes-all-economy is making those at the very top richer, while too many middle-class Canadians are struggling,” Freeland said Sunday, adding the government was asking wealthy Canadians to pay their “fair share.”
“We do need to ensure that we have some revenue coming in. This is a very limited way of ensuring that that occurs,” Treasury Board President Anita Anand said in an interview on Rosemary Barton Live on Sunday.
Treasury Board President Anita Anand joins CBC chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton to talk about the federal budget and its focus on young Canadians — as well as the criticism it’s receiving.
Critics have raised concerns that the changes could result in reduced investment or capital flight.
“The big concern right now … is this going to have a detrimental impact to the progress we’re trying to make in making Canada a hub for innovation,” said Kirk Simpson, CEO of the tech company goConfirm, in a separate interview on Rosemary Barton Live.
“With productivity the way that it is, we want more capital, not less, flowing into business innovation,” Simpson told CBC chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton.
Freeland said Sunday that the changes will affect very few Canadian individuals — the government estimates 0.13 per cent — and the revenue will go to pay for investments in areas like housing.
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