The British government is investigating whether built-in racial bias in some medical devices led to Black and Asian people getting sick and dying disproportionately from COVID-19.
Health Secretary Sajid Javid said Sunday that the pandemic had highlighted health disparities along race and gender lines. He said that a third of intensive care admissions in Britain at the height of the pandemic were people from Black and ethnic minority backgrounds, more than double their share of the population.
Britain’s statistics office has found that in the first year of the pandemic, up to March 2021, Black and South Asian people in the U.K. had higher death rates than their white compatriots, even after factors like occupation and underlying health conditions were taken into account.
Javid said one issue was research showing that pulse oximeters, which measure blood oxygen levels through the skin, work less well on darker skin. He called it a “systemic” worldwide issue.
“Now, I’m not saying this was deliberate by anyone, I think it’s just, it’s a systemic issue potentially, with medical devices and it may go even further than that with medical textbooks, for example,” Javid told Sky News.
British Health Secretary Sajid Javid, pictured on BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, says the pandemic highlighted health disparities along race and gender lines. (Jeff Overs/BBC/Handout/Reuters)
Writing in the Sunday Times, he said that “the possibility that a bias — even an inadvertent one — could lead to a poorer health outcome is totally unacceptable.”
In a statement, the Health Ministry said the review will aim to identify where systematic bias and risk exist with current devices and to recommend how the issues should be tackled in the creation of medical devices from design to use.
Javid said he hoped to work with his U.S. counterpart, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, and officials in other countries to eliminate bias in the health system.
He said a U.K. review, which will also look at gender bias, will report its findings by the end of January.
Britain has recorded more than 143,000 coronavirus deaths, the highest total in Europe after Russia.
Europe is currently the only part of the world where COVID-19 cases are rising, and many countries are reintroducing restrictions to fight the surge.
In the U.K., however, cases are broadly flat, and deaths and hospitalizations are slowly falling. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said this week that he saw no need to move to the government’s winter “Plan B,” in which people would be required to wear masks indoors and advised to work from home.
— From The Associated Press, last updated at 12:45 p.m. ET
What’s happening across Canada
A woman walks past a COVID-19 vaccination clinic in Montreal earlier this week. Health Canada on Friday approved Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine for children aged five to 11. (Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press)
What’s happening around the world
As of Sunday afternoon, more than 257.3 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University’s COVID-19 tracker. The reported global death toll stood at more than 5.1 million.
In Europe, ten of thousands of people demonstrated through central Brussels on Sunday to protest reinforced COVID-19 restrictions imposed by the Belgian government to counter the latest spike in coronavirus cases.
Many among the police estimate of 35,000 at the rally had already left for home when the demonstration descended into violence as several hundred people started pelting police, smashing cars and setting garbage bins ablaze. Police replied with tear gas and water cannons.
Riot police in Brussels direct a water cannon at protesters during a demonstration on Sunday against the Belgium government’s reinforced COVID-19 measures. Many in the crowd also protested against the strong advice to get vaccinated and any moves to impose mandatory shots. (Olivier Matthys/The Associated Press)
French authorities sent police special forces to the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, an overseas territory of France, as protests over COVID-19 restrictions erupted into rioting and looting for the third day in a row. On Sunday, many road blockades by protesters made travelling across the island nearly impossible.
Meanwhile, Dutch police have arrested more than 30 people amid unrest in The Hague and other towns in the Netherlands during protests against coronavirus restrictions on Saturday night. On Friday night, police in Rotterdam opened fire on rampaging rioters and arrested 51 people.
In the Asia-Pacific region, a group of international university students arrived in Australia from Singapore on Sunday after a nearly two-year pandemic absence, as a travel bubble between the two countries came into effect.
Fully vaccinated travellers from Singapore are now allowed into Melbourne or Sydney without the need to quarantine — part of Australia’s gradual reopening of its borders that began this month. Australia closed its international borders in March 2020 to curb the spread of COVID-19.
In the Americas, Brazil’s Health Ministry on Saturday reported 8,833 COVID-19 cases and 217 deaths in the past 24 hours. The rolling 14-day average of deaths has fallen to 228 a day, the lowest since April 2020. That compares with a toll of almost 3,000 deaths a day in Brazil at the peak of the pandemic in April of this year.
The ministry said 70 per cent of the eligible population has been fully vaccinated and 90 per cent has received a first dose. On Saturday, the ministry launched a campaign to reach 21 million Brazilians who have not returned for a second shot.
— From The Associated Press, Reuters and CBC News, last updated at 12:45 p.m. ET
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
