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An Ottawa company’s made-in-Canada rapid COVID-19 test has been approved, Health Canada confirmed on Saturday.
The test developed by Spartan Bioscience is performed by a health-care professional and provides on-site results within an hour, a spokesperson for the federal agency said.
The company originally unveiled a rapid test for COVID-19 last spring but had to voluntarily recall it and perform additional studies after Health Canada expressed some reservations about the “efficacy of the proprietary swab” for the device.
WATCH | Health Canada approves Canadian-made rapid COVID-19 testing system:
Meanwhile, Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, warned that COVID-19 continues to strain the health-care system even as daily case counts decline in several long-standing hot spots.
“Stringent and consistent efforts are needed to sustain a downward trend in case counts and strongly suppress COVID-19 activity across Canada,” Tam said in a statement. “This will not only prevent more tragic outcomes but will help to ensure that new virus variants of concern do not have the opportunity to spread.”
What’s happening across Canada
As of 12:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, Canada had reported 746,406 cases of COVID-19, with 63,625 cases considered active. A CBC News tally of deaths stood at 19,065.
In British Columbia, 20 people in custody at the North Fraser Pretrial Centre in Port Coquitlam have tested positive for COVID-19. The Fraser Health Authority announced the outbreak on Friday and said it is working to identify others who may have had contact with those who tested positive at the jail.
WATCH | Teenage long-term care worker dies of COVID-19:
The CBC’s Natasha Fatah talks with London-Middlesex’s Associate Health Director, Dr. Alex Summers, following the death of a teenage Long-Term Care worker. 9:34
Quebec on Sunday registered 1,457 new cases and 41 additional deaths, which were reported between Jan. 17 and Jan. 22.
New Brunswick reported 17 new cases on Saturday. Ten of those cases were in the Edmundston region in the northwest, which was set to go into a lockdown first thing Sunday morning.
Newfoundland and Labrador reported no new cases on both Saturday and Sunday after seeing one new case on Friday; one person remains in hospital in the province due to COVID-19.
In Prince Edward Island, larger organized gatherings and later hours for bars and restaurants are now allowed as the province eases some of its COVID-19 restrictions.
Nunavut announced a second active case in the hard-hit community of Arviat. The new case comes a day after the territory confirmed its first new infection since Dec. 28.
What’s happening around the world
As of Sunday, more than 98.9 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, with more than 54.6 million of the cases considered resolved or recovered, according to the coronavirus tracking tool maintained by Johns Hopkins University. The global death toll stood at more than 2.1 million.
In Europe, Belgium is banning residents from taking vacations abroad until March to limit the spread of more infectious coronavirus variants and avoid a deadly third wave of COVID-19 cases. The government says travel into or out of Belgium for recreation or tourism is prohibited from Jan. 27 to March 1.
Police check documents at a train station in Brussels on Friday. (Reuters TV)
Belgium has one of the world’s highest per-capita death tolls from COVID-19. It has had nearly 700,000 cases and more than 20,000 deaths. But it now has a lower rate of infections than its neighbours and has avoided the total lockdowns of Britain, the Netherlands and Germany.
Meanwhile, in the U.K., police broke up an illegal rave in the London borough of Hackney, where about 300 people gathered under a railway arch. The BBC reports nearly 80 fines were issued for breach of lockdown restrictions.
300 people decided to put themselves, their families and the wider community at risk last night by packing into a railway arch in Hackney for an illegal rave. Officers issued more than £15,000 in fines for the blatant Covid breaches. More here > <a href=”https://t.co/J4p4PlDwWB”>https://t.co/J4p4PlDwWB</a> <a href=”https://t.co/l8Hz3XTKAh”>pic.twitter.com/l8Hz3XTKAh</a>
In the Middle East, Israel expanded its COVID-19 vaccination drive on Sunday to include 16- to 18-year-olds in what the government described as an effort to enable their attendance at school exams.
Israel, which has the world’s fastest vaccine distribution rate, is hoping to begin reopening its economy next month.
Israel will also be closing Ben Gurion Airport to nearly all flights to help bring the coronavirus outbreak under control, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday.
“We are closing the skies hermetically, except for really rare exceptions, to prevent the entry of virus mutations,” he said.
Tomer, who is 18, receives a dose of the Pfizer-BioNtech COVID-19 vaccine at a clinic in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Saturday. (Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images)
Israeli media said the closure of the country’s busiest international airport, 25 kilometres southeast of Tel Aviv, would begin on Tuesday and remain in effect until Jan. 31.
New Zealand has reported its first coronavirus case outside of a quarantine facility in more than two months, although there was no immediate evidence the virus was spreading in the community.
Ashley Bloomfield, the director general of health, said on Sunday that the case was a 56-year-old woman who recently returned from Europe.
Like other returning travellers, she spent 14 days in quarantine and twice tested negative before returning home on Jan. 13. She later developed symptoms and tested positive.
Bloomfield said health officials are investigating to see whether its possible she caught the disease from another returning traveler who was staying in the same quarantine facility.
TORONTO – Roots Corp. may have built its brand on all things comfy and cosy, but its CEO says activewear is now “really becoming a core part” of the brand.
The category, which at Roots spans leggings, tracksuits, sports bras and bike shorts, has seen such sustained double-digit growth that Meghan Roach plans to make it a key part of the business’ future.
“It’s an area … you will see us continue to expand upon,” she told analysts on a Friday call.
The Toronto-based retailer’s push into activewear has taken shape over many years and included several turns as the official designer and supplier of Team Canada’s Olympic uniform.
But consumers have had plenty of choice when it comes to workout gear and other apparel suited to their sporting needs. On top of the slew of athletic brands like Nike and Adidas, shoppers have also gravitated toward Lululemon Athletica Inc., Alo and Vuori, ramping up competition in the activewear category.
Roach feels Roots’ toehold in the category stems from the fit, feel and following its merchandise has cultivated.
“Our product really resonates with (shoppers) because you can wear it through multiple different use cases and occasions,” she said.
“We’ve been seeing customers come back again and again for some of these core products in our activewear collection.”
Her remarks came the same day as Roots revealed it lost $5.2 million in its latest quarter compared with a loss of $5.3 million in the same quarter last year.
The company said the second-quarter loss amounted to 13 cents per diluted share for the quarter ended Aug. 3, the same as a year earlier.
In presenting the results, Roach reminded analysts that the first half of the year is usually “seasonally small,” representing just 30 per cent of the company’s annual sales.
Sales for the second quarter totalled $47.7 million, down from $49.4 million in the same quarter last year.
The move lower came as direct-to-consumer sales amounted to $36.4 million, down from $37.1 million a year earlier, as comparable sales edged down 0.2 per cent.
The numbers reflect the fact that Roots continued to grapple with inventory challenges in the company’s Cooper fleece line that first cropped up in its previous quarter.
Roots recently began to use artificial intelligence to assist with daily inventory replenishments and said more tools helping with allocation will go live in the next quarter.
Beyond that time period, the company intends to keep exploring AI and renovate more of its stores.
It will also re-evaluate its design ranks.
Roots announced Friday that chief product officer Karuna Scheinfeld has stepped down.
Rather than fill the role, the company plans to hire senior level design talent with international experience in the outdoor and activewear sectors who will take on tasks previously done by the chief product officer.
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, are set to resume today as a strike that has stopped most services drags into a second week.
No timeline has been set for the length of the negotiations, but Joe McCann, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1724, says they are willing to stay there as long as it takes, even if talks drag on all night.
About 600 employees of the door-to-door transit service for people unable to navigate the conventional transit system have been on strike since last Tuesday, pausing service for all but essential medical trips.
Hundreds of drivers rallied outside TransLink’s head office earlier this week, calling for the transportation provider to intervene in the dispute with Transdev, which was contracted to oversee HandyDART service.
Transdev said earlier this week that it will provide a reply to the union’s latest proposal on Thursday.
A statement from the company said it “strongly believes” that their employees deserve fair wages, and that a fair contract “must balance the needs of their employees, clients and taxpayers.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
MONTREAL – Travel company Transat AT Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter compared with a profit a year earlier as its revenue edged lower.
The parent company of Air Transat says it lost $39.9 million or $1.03 per diluted share in its quarter ended July 31.
The result compared with a profit of $57.3 million or $1.49 per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue in what was the company’s third quarter totalled $736.2 million, down from $746.3 million in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Transat says it lost $1.10 per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of $1.10 per share a year earlier.
Transat chief executive Annick Guérard says demand for leisure travel remains healthy, as evidenced by higher traffic, but consumers are increasingly price conscious given the current economic uncertainty.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
