Ontario Premier Doug Ford is urging people to stay home ahead of Christmas as the province posted another record high COVID-19 case number on Thursday.
“I know the lockdown starts on December 26 — but I have to tell you, folks, every time you take a trip it puts people in jeopardy,” he said. “So please, as of right now, please stay at home when you can.”
He urged people to only go out for essentials like groceries, medical appointments or other “necessary trips.”
“We have 28 days and we’re going to give it everything we can,” he said. “We will come out stronger than ever after this.”
Ford’s comments came shortly before Canada’s first shipment of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine arrived at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport. Health Canada approved Moderna’s vaccine on Wednesday, the second to be cleared for use in Canada.
The first doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine have arrived in Canada. These are part of the 168,000 doses we’ll be getting before the end of the month, and part of the 40 million doses we’re guaranteed from Moderna overall. <a href=”https://t.co/eKhQ6v8xSA”>pic.twitter.com/eKhQ6v8xSA</a>
Ontario on Thursday reported 2,447 new cases of COVID-19 and 49 additional deaths, bringing the provincial death toll to 4,278. Hospitalizations stood at 967, with 277 COVID-19 patients in Ontario’s intensive care units, according to provincial data.
Ford has faced criticism over how the province responded to increasing COVID-19 cases, with some critics lambasting the way lockdown measures were designed and implemented. The premier also faced questions over the delay between the announcement of the new measures and the beginning of the provincewide lockdown after the Christmas holiday.
In Windsor, Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare hospital is taking over essential operations at The Village at St. Clair long-term care home, which is experiencing the region’s largest COVID-19 outbreak. According to a news release, the hospital will take over “on-site leadership,” as well as infection prevention, control and education.
Hard-hit Quebec also reported another single-day record on Thursday, with 2,349 new cases of COVID-19. Health officials in the province also reported 46 deaths, bringing the provincial death toll to 7,913. Hospitalizations stood at 1,052 with 146 people in intensive care units, according to a provincial database.
Meanwhile, projections released by a government research centre — the Institut national d’excellence en santé et services sociaux (INESSS) — showed hospitals in Montreal are rapidly using up the space they have allotted for COVID-19 patients and could run out of beds by Jan. 12. The projections, which are released weekly, noted that hospitalizations have more than doubled in the Montreal area over the past month.
Newfoundland and Labrador, meanwhile, reported no new cases Thursday, along with two recoveries.
Manitoba reported 244 new COVID-19 cases and 12 additional deaths. In a news release, the province said the number of people in hospital and intensive care with COVID-19 was down slightly on Thursday. Saskatchewan reported 154 new COVID-19 cases and four deaths.
In Alberta, the chief medical officer of health said Thursday that the province had an estimated 1,100 positive tests for COVID-19 over the past 24 hours. Dr. Deena Hinshaw said the positivity rate is estimated to be seven per cent and that hospitalizations are increasing, while intensive-care unit numbers are stable. Alberta did not report deaths or recoveries on Thursday.
In the North, Yukon reported one new COVID-19 case. The territorial government said the person, who got COVID-19 and was diagnosed outside of Yukon, is now recovered, keeping the territory’s active case number at zero.
The seven Canadian teams would be grouped in one division and will only play each other for the duration of the 56-game schedule. The Toronto Raptors — Canada’s lone NBA team — is playing its home games in Tampa, Fla., for at least the first half of the season.
Statement from Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly on NHL Canadian Clubs Playing in Home Arenas. <a href=”https://t.co/mtCLTwlLcB”>pic.twitter.com/mtCLTwlLcB</a>
As of 3:30 p.m. ET on Thursday, Canada’s COVID-19 case count stood at 534,661, with 76,721 of those cases considered active. A CBC News tally of deaths stood at 14,708.
WATCH | Why some families are having a giftless Christmas:
Some families are keeping Christmas simple and spending less because of stores closed by lockdowns and limits on gatherings, while others just can’t afford holiday celebrations or gifts. 2:00
With COVID-19 cases on the rise, communities across Canada were making adjustments to traditional Christmas celebrations. Here’s a look at how some in Canada are celebrating this year.
What’s happening in the U.S.
U.S. officials say they are on track to deliver 20 million vaccine doses by the first week of January. But how quickly those shots will get into arms isn’t clear. In a briefing with reporters Wednesday, Operation Warp Speed official Gen. Gus Perna said states are administering doses at a “good pace” and are “immunizing quite a bit of people.”
But the chief science adviser for the U.S. vaccine push added that vaccinating people is going “slower than we thought it would be.”
WATCH | COVID-19: Is one vaccine better than another?
Infectious disease physicians answer viewer questions about COVID-19 vaccines, including if one is better than another and how vaccinations will impact the health-care system. 6:35
Data from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said about one million doses had been administered as of Wednesday morning out of the 9.5 million doses delivered.
However, Perna saidthere is a lag time in reporting the administration of shots. The shipments are for vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.
A clinician cares for a COVID-19 patient at Providence St. Mary Medical Center in Apple Valley, Calif., on Wednesday. The 213-bed-capacity hospital in San Bernardino County is currently treating at least 140 COVID-19-positive in-patients while operating at approximately 250 percent of ICU capacity. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
The U.S. has seen more than 18.4 million cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began and more than 326,000 deaths, according to a tracking tool maintained by Johns Hopkins University.
Despite health officials’ pleas that people stay home, millions of Americans are travelling ahead of Christmas and New Year’s, much like they did last month for Thanksgiving.
Hospitals in California and elsewhere have been pushed to the brink. They have hired extra staff, cancelled elective surgeries and set up outdoor tents to treat patients, all to boost capacity before the cases contracted over Christmas and New Year’s show up in the next few weeks.
What’s happening around the world
A boy stands near a Christmas tree with a coronavirus-themed decoration in Bali, Indonesia, on Thursday. (Firdia Lisnawati/The Associated Press)
As of Thursday afternoon, more than 79 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, with more than 44.5 million cases considered recovered or resolved, according to a running tally kept by Johns Hopkins University researchers. The global death toll stood at more than 1.7 million.
Another new variant of the coronavirus appears to have emerged in Nigeria, Africa‘s top public health official said Thursday, but further investigation is needed. “It’s a separate lineage from the U.K. and South Africa,” the head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, John Nkengasong, told reporters.
He said the Nigerian CDC and the African Center of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases in that country — Africa’s most populous — will be analyzing more samples. “Give us some time … It’s still very early,” he said.
The alert about the apparent new variant was based on two or three genetic sequences, he said, but that and South Africa’s alert late last week were enough to prompt an emergency meeting of the Africa CDC this week. The news comes as infections surge again in parts of the continent.
The new variant in South Africa is now the predominant one there, Nkengasong said, as confirmed infections in the country approach one million. While the variant transmits quickly and viral loads are higher, it is not yet clear whether it leads to a more severe disease, he said.
Africa’s top public health official, John Nkengasong, said further investigation is needed about a new variant of the coronavirus that appears to have emerged in Nigeria. (Michael Tewelde/AFP/Getty Images)
“We believe this mutation will not have an effect” on the deployment of COVID-19 vaccines to the continent, he said of the South Africa variant. Late on Wednesday, South Africa’s health minister announced an “alarming rate of spread” in that country, with more than 14,000 new cases confirmed in the past day, including more than 400 deaths.
The country has more than 950,000 infections and COVID-19 is “unrelenting,” Zwelini Mkhize said in a statement. The African continent now has more than 2.5 million confirmed cases, or 3.3 per cent of global cases. Infections across the continent have risen 10.9 per cent over the past four weeks, Nkengasong said, including a 52 per cent increase in Nigeria and 40 per cent increase in South Africa.
In Europe, Denmark has identified 33 infections with the new variant of the coronavirus that has been spreading rapidly in parts of Britain.
Irish health chiefs believe a new variant of COVID-19 found in neighbouring Britain is present in Ireland, but not solely responsible for a rapid spread of the disease.
Ukraine’s tally of confirmed coronavirus cases surpassed one million on Thursday. Ukrainian health officials reported 11,490 new infections Thursday, which brought the country’s total to 1,001,132. Ukraine has also reported 17,395 deaths in the pandemic.
The rapid rise in virus cases in Ukraine started in September and put a strain on the country’s health-care system. In a bid to curb the spread of contagions, Ukrainian authorities decided to impose tight lockdown restrictions in January.
Russian authorities reported 29,935 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, the highest daily spike in the pandemic. This is nearly 2,700 infections more than was registered the previous day. Russia’s total of over 2.9 million remains the fourth-largest coronavirus caseload in the world. The government’s coronavirus task force has also registered more than 53,000 deaths in all.
People wearing face masks to protect against coronavirus walk in Moscow on Wednesday. Russia’s COVID-19 case numbers continue to rise. (Alexander Zemlianichenko/The Associated Press)
Russia has been swept by a rapid resurgence of the outbreak this fall, with numbers of confirmed COVID-19 infections and deaths significantly exceeding those reported in the spring. The country’s authorities have resisted imposing a second nationwide lockdown or a widespread closure of businesses.
French President Emmanuel Macron no longer has virus symptoms and is leaving isolation after a week with COVID-19, but is urging the French public to limit contacts and remain vigilant to keep infections under control during the holiday season.
Macron’s office said in a statement on Thursday that he is finishing a week of isolation at a presidential retreat in Versailles based on French health protocols, which recommend seven days of confinement following a positive virus test.
In the Americas, Mexico now has more people hospitalized for COVID-19 than it saw at the peak of the first wave of the pandemic in late July. The Health Department says 18,301 people are in hospital across Mexico being treated for the disease that can be caused by the coronavirus. That is 0.4 per cent more than in July.
An Army National Guard soldier processes a line of cars full of people getting COVID-19 tests in Santa Fe, N.M., on Wednesday. (Cedar Attansio/The Associated Press)
Mexico City is the epicentre of the current wave of infections and 85 per cent of its hospital beds are in use.
In the Asia-Pacific region, Singapore confirmed its first case of the new coronavirus variant found in the United Kingdom, while 11 others who were already in quarantine had returned preliminarily positive results for the new strain
Indonesia has banned travellers from Britain and tightened the rules for those arriving from Europe and Australia to try to limit the spread of a new coronavirus variant.
A man and a woman sit in a rest area with a clear dome installed on a shopping street in Tokyo on Thursday. (Hiro Komae/The Associated Press)
Taiwan’s tourism department on Wednesday cancelled an annual New Year celebration at the northeastern tip of the island, after a report of the first locally transmitted COVID-19 case since April 12.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has reported 888 new coronavirus cases as of Thursday, an all-time daily high.
In the Middle East, Israel has detected four cases of the new, highly infectious variant that has emerged in Britain. The country will impose a third national lockdown to fight climbing COVID-19 infections, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
Kuwait has started its vaccine rollout, with the first Pfizer shots given to health-care and essential workers, older adults and those with chronic health conditions.
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.
