B.C.’s premier is urging people to “get with the program” and cut back on social interactions, warning that a return to tighter restrictions is possible if the province’s COVID-19 case numbers don’t come down.
“This is going to be challenging,” Premier John Horgan said Monday. “No one should be under any illusion based on what’s happening in British Columbia, in Canada, in North America — around the world — that we’re going to be out of this anytime soon.”
The province, which doesn’t publicly report COVID-19 case data on the weekend, on Monday reported 998 new cases of COVID-19 and five more deaths since Saturday. The province’s coronavirus dashboard put the number of hospitalizations at 133, with 43 in intensive care.
Dr. Bonnie Henry, B.C.’s chief public health officer, recently announced a two-week period of tighter restrictions for people living in the Vancouver Coastal and Fraser Health regions. Henry said Monday that health officials are monitoring where people are contracting COVID-19 and the two-week order could change depending on what they learn.
Despite the possibility of a COVID-19 vaccine on the horizon, infectious disease specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch says we need to to double down on efforts to stop the spread of the disease right now. 1:14
As of 8 a.m. ET on Tuesday, provinces and territories in Canada had reported a cumulative total of 268,735 confirmed or presumptive coronavirus cases. Provinces and territories listed 218,400 cases as recovered or resolved. A CBC News tally of deaths based on provincial reports, regional health information and CBC’s reporting stood at 10,564.
In Alberta, health officials reported 644 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Monday and seven deaths. The province reported that 192 people were in hospital, with 39 in ICU. Dr. Deena Hinshaw, the province’s chief medical officer of health, expressed concern Monday about the hospitalization numbers and cautioned that Alberta has “not yet turned the corner that we must turn.”
With case numbers rising, a group of physicians in Alberta on Monday sent a letter to Premier Jason Kenney, the health minister and Hinshaw calling for swift moves to slow the spread of the virus.
“If the rate of COVID-19 spread continues, the consequences to the people of Alberta will be catastrophic,” the letter said. “The province should consider a two-week, short, sharp lockdown, or ‘circuit breaker’ to drop the effective reproductive number and allow contact tracing to catch up.”
Saskatchewan hit a new high in daily reported COVID-19 cases on Monday as officials announced 190 new cases. Health officials also reported one additional death, bringing the province’s death toll to 29.
In Manitoba concern is mounting over case numbers and the situation at some long-term care facilities dealing with outbreaks. Dr. Brent Roussin, the province’s chief public health officer, said Monday he has spoken to Premier Brian Pallister about the possibility of stepped-up restrictions.
“We see these numbers going in the wrong direction, we see increasing demand on our health-care system,” Roussin said. “We’re at a critical point where we need to change these dynamics.”
WATCH | Frustrations grow along with Manitoba’s COVID-19 case numbers:
Manitoba has recorded more than 2,000 COVID-19 cases in just one week and teachers, health-care workers are among those expressing frustrations and sparking calls for more action from the provincial government. 2:02
Across the North, there were no new cases reported in Yukon or the Northwest Territories on Monday. In Nunavut, health officials said an individual at one of the territory’s isolation hubs in Winnipeg had tested positive for COVID-19.
Ontario on Tuesday reported 1,388 new cases of COVID-19, with 520 of them in Toronto and 395 in Peel Region.
Peel, northwest of Toronto, is the only region in Ontario currently listed as “red” in the province’s new colour-coded COVID-19 framework. Faced with mounting cases, the province on Monday announced it is setting up additional testing capacity in Brampton, with three new testing centres and a mobile unit.
WATCH | Peel Public Health implements further COVID-19 restrictions:
Peel became the first region in Ontario to move into the red “control” category of the province’s new tiered, colour-coded system for COVID-19 restrictions. But as Ali Chiasson explains, Peel Public Health chose to implement new restrictions Monday on top of the province’s. 2:33
The province reported 13 additional deaths on Monday and reported 367 hospitalizations, with 84 in ICU. Updated figures on deaths and hospitalizations were expected later Tuesday.
In Quebec, a long-term care facility in Dorval that was hit hard in the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic is closing permanently.
Health officials said Monday that while the situation has improved in some parts of the province, such as Quebec City and Montreal, it is worsening in others — including the Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean area, which currently has more than double the provincial rate of cases per 100,000 people.
From The Associated Press and Reuters, last updated at 11:15 a.m. ET
As of early Tuesday morning, there have been more than 50 million cases of COVID-19 reported worldwide, with more than 33 million listed as recovered on a coronavirus tracking dashboard maintained by Johns Hopkins University. The number of deaths recorded by the U.S.-based university stood at more than 1.2 million.
WATCH | What Pfizer’s vaccine trial means for the pandemic:
Infectious disease doctors answer questions about the COVID-19 pandemic and what the announcement by Pfizer about its early results from its vaccine means. 6:07
In the Middle East, Iran was to impose a nightly curfew on Tuesday on businesses in Tehran and other big cities and towns while Lebanon was preparing for a two-week nationwide lockdown later this week as both countries battle a major surge in coronavirus infections.
Restaurants and non-essential businesses in Tehran and 30 other cities were ordered to close at 6 p.m. local time for one month to keep hospitals from becoming overwhelmed and to slow the worsening outbreak, which has killed more than 39,000 — the highest toll in the Middle East. Iran has set single-day death records 10 times over the past month, a sign of how quickly the virus is spreading.
The announcement of new limits on Tehran’s bustling cafes and shops, the strictest since a brief nationwide business shutdown in April, reflects the growing sense of urgency among officials. In a first, Iranians’ phones lit up on Monday with a personal appeal from Saeed Namaki, the health minister.
“Do not leave your house for as long as you can and stay away from any crowded places,” his text read. “Coronavirus is no joke.”
Yet in the face of a steep economic decline, Iran continues to avoid a tougher lockdown. The country is already squeezed by unprecedented American sanctions reimposed in 2018 when the Trump administration withdrew from Tehran’s nuclear accord with world powers. Iran’s currency has plunged to new lows in recent weeks, hurting millions of destitute citizens.
Authorities may introduce other targeted measures, like a nighttime ban on through traffic on streets to keep Iranians from going to parties, Tehran Gov. Anoushiravan Bandpay said.
In Lebanon, caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab said a lockdown will begin on Saturday and last until the end of the month.
Lebanon has broken daily records in recent weeks, straining the country’s medical sector, where intensive care units are almost full and cannot take more cases. The World Health Organization says 1,527 health workers have tested positive since the first case was reported in Lebanon in late February.
The Lebanese announcement came despite harsh criticism from business sectors that have suffered for more than a year as the country passes through its worst economic and financial crisis. The head of the Lebanon workers union, Bechara el Asmar, warned on Monday the effects of a complete lockdown “will be catastrophic for workers and economic activities.”
A voter, mask-clad due to the COVID-19 pandemic, dips her finger in ink after voting at a polling station in Jordan’s capital Amman on Tuesday. (Khalil Mazraawi/AFP/Getty Images)
Jordanians have begun voting to elect a new parliament amid the ongoing pandemic. The country’s economy has suffered from the virus and the repeated lockdowns, and the tourism industry, a key source of foreign currency, has all but dried up.
Israel said it had asked the U.S. government on Monday to help it get access to Pfizer’s potential COVID-19 vaccine.
In the Americas, Brazil’s health regulator has halted clinical trials of the potential coronavirus vaccine CoronaVac, citing an “adverse, serious event.” The decision posted on Anvisa’s website Monday night elicited immediate surprise from parties involved in producing the vaccine.
The potential vaccine is being developed by Chinese biopharmaceutical firm Sinovac and in Brazil would be mostly produced by Sao Paulo’s state-run Butantan Institute. Sao Paulo state’s government said in a statement it “regrets being informed by the press and not directly by Anvisa, as normally occurs in clinical trials of this nature.”
Therapist Monica Cirne gives physical therapy to COVID-19 survivor Maria dos Santos at the Movement and Life Institute in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on Monday. A volunteer medical team from the institute gives free physical rehabilitation to poor COVID-19 survivors in favelas, many suffering long-term effects from the disease even though they have recovered from the infection. (Silvia Izquierdo/The Associated Press)
Dimas Covas, who leads Butantan, said on TV Cultura late Monday that while a volunteer had died, it was not due to the shot.
Covas told reporters that the suspension of the trials by Brazil’s health regulator had caused “indignation” and had been done without discussion with the organizers.
U.S. president-elect Joe Biden on Monday unveiled the initial details of his plan to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in more than 10 million cases and more than 238,000 deaths in the U.S. alone.
In the Asia-Pacific region, Pakistani authorities have imposed a mini-lockdown in some areas of the capital, Islamabad, sealing off hot spots to contain the surging coronavirus. The latest development comes hours after Pakistan on Tuesday reported 1,637 new COVID-19 cases and 23 deaths in the past 24 hours. The country has registered 346,476 confirmed cases and 7,000 deaths since February.
Authorities in China’s financial hub of Shanghai have quarantined 186 people and conducted coronavirus tests on more than 8,000 after a freight handler at the city’s main international airport tested positive for the virus.
No additional cases have been found, the city government said on its microblog Tuesday. It remains unclear how the 51-year-old man contracted the virus, which has largely spared the sprawling metropolis despite its dense population and strong international links.
In the northern port city of Tianjin, more than 77,000 people have been tested after a locally transmitted case was reported there on Monday. That case was believed to be linked to a cold storage warehouse, reinforcing suspicions that the virus may be spreading to victims from frozen food packaging.
In Europe, Dutch authorities warned on Tuesday that social distancing measures must remain in place despite a sharp fall in coronavirus cases, as hospitals remain under pressure due to heavy numbers of COVID-19 patients.
The National Institute for Health on Tuesday reported 43,621 cases in the week through Nov. 10, a decline of more than 30 per cent from the previous week. Deaths increased to 565 from 435.
Justice Minister Ferd Grapperhaus said it was too soon to discuss relaxing rules from the country’s second partial lockdown, which began on Oct. 13.
“I think we have to realize that we as a society still have to make sure that we get much further into the green zone,” Grapperhaus said after a meeting with regional health and safety officials.
A man in a hazmat suit desinfects a truck as members of the Danish health authority, assisted by members of the Danish Armed Forces, dispose of dead mink in a military area near Holstebro, Denmark on Monday. Denmark will cull about 17 million minks after a mutated form of coronavirus that can spread to humans was found on mink farms. (Morten Stricker/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP/Getty IMages)
Sweden, whose soft-touch virus approach has sparked world-wide attention, has registered 15,779 coronavirus cases since the country’s previous update on Friday, Health Agency statistics showed on Tuesday.
The number compares with 10,177 cases for the corresponding period last week. Cases in the Nordic country, which does not publish updated COVID-19 data over the weekend and Mondays, have risen sharply, repeatedly hitting daily records over the last two weeks.
Sweden registered 35 new deaths, taking the total to 15,779 during the pandemic. Sweden’s death rate per capita is several times higher than Nordic neighbours but lower than some larger European countries, such as Spain and Britain.
In Africa, Botswana has signed an agreement with the global vaccine distribution scheme co-led by the World Health Organization, giving it the option to buy coronavirus vaccines for 20 per cent of its population, a senior health official told Reuters.
The southern African country has registered a relatively low number of coronavirus cases, around 7,800, with 27 deaths, but its economy has been dealt a severe blow by the pandemic.
Unlike many other African countries, Botswana does not qualify for subsidized vaccines under the COVAX scheme because it is classified as an upper-middle income country like neighbours Namibia and South Africa.
“Twenty per cent coverage is the initial allotment guaranteed under the arrangement,” Moses Keetile, deputy permanent secretary in the health ministry, said.
South Africa remained the hardest-hit country in Africa, with John Hopkins putting the number of cases reported in the country at more than 738,000, with nearly 20,000 deaths.
Outside of sports and a “Cold front coming down from Canada,” American news media only report on Canadian events that they believe are, or will be, influential to the US. Therefore, when Justin Trudeau’s announcement, having finally read the room, that Canada will be reducing the number of permanent residents admitted by more than 20 percent and temporary residents like skilled workers and college students will be cut by more than half made news south of the border, I knew the American media felt Trudeau’s about-face on immigration was newsworthy because many Americans would relate to Trudeau realizing Canada was accepting more immigrants than it could manage and are hoping their next POTUS will follow Trudeau’s playbook.
Canada, with lots of space and lacking convenient geographical ways for illegal immigrants to enter the country, though still many do, has a global reputation for being incredibly accepting of immigrants. On the surface, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver appear to be multicultural havens. However, as the saying goes, “Too much of a good thing is never good,” resulting in a sharp rise in anti-immigrant sentiment, which you can almost taste in the air. A growing number of Canadians, regardless of their political affiliation, are blaming recent immigrants for causing the housing affordability crises, inflation, rise in crime and unemployment/stagnant wages.
Throughout history, populations have engulfed themselves in a tribal frenzy, a psychological state where people identify strongly with their own group, often leading to a ‘us versus them’ mentality. This has led to quick shifts from complacency to panic and finger-pointing at groups outside their tribe, a phenomenon that is not unique to any particular culture or time period.
My take on why the American news media found Trudeau’s blatantly obvious attempt to save his political career, balancing appeasement between the pitchfork crowd, who want a halt to immigration until Canada gets its house in order, and immigrant voters, who traditionally vote Liberal, newsworthy; the American news media, as do I, believe immigration fatigue is why Kamala Harris is going to lose on November 5th.
Because they frequently get the outcome wrong, I don’t take polls seriously. According to polls in 2014, Tim Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives and Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals were in a dead heat in Ontario, yet Wynne won with more than twice as many seats. In the 2018 Quebec election, most polls had the Coalition Avenir Québec with a 1-to-5-point lead over the governing Liberals. The result: The Coalition Avenir Québec enjoyed a landslide victory, winning 74 of 125 seats. Then there’s how the 2016 US election polls showing Donald Trump didn’t have a chance of winning against Hillary Clinton were ridiculously way off, highlighting the importance of the election day poll and, applicable in this election as it was in 2016, not to discount ‘shy Trump supporters;’ voters who support Trump but are hesitant to express their views publicly due to social or political pressure.
My distrust in polls aside, polls indicate Harris is leading by a few points. One would think that Trump’s many over-the-top shenanigans, which would be entertaining were he not the POTUS or again seeking the Oval Office, would have him far down in the polls. Trump is toe-to-toe with Harris in the polls because his approach to the economy—middle-class Americans are nostalgic for the relatively strong economic performance during Trump’s first three years in office—and immigration, which Americans are hyper-focused on right now, appeals to many Americans. In his quest to win votes, Trump is doing what anyone seeking political office needs to do: telling the people what they want to hear, strategically using populism—populism that serves your best interests is good populism—to evoke emotional responses. Harris isn’t doing herself any favours, nor moving voters, by going the “But, but… the orange man is bad!” route, while Trump cultivates support from “weird” marginal voting groups.
To Harris’s credit, things could have fallen apart when Biden abruptly stepped aside. Instead, Harris quickly clinched the nomination and had a strong first few weeks, erasing the deficit Biden had given her. The Democratic convention was a success, as was her acceptance speech. Her performance at the September 10th debate with Donald Trump was first-rate.
Harris’ Achilles heel is she’s now making promises she could have made and implemented while VP, making immigration and the economy Harris’ liabilities, especially since she’s been sitting next to Biden, watching the US turn into the circus it has become. These liabilities, basically her only liabilities, negate her stance on abortion, democracy, healthcare, a long-winning issue for Democrats, and Trump’s character. All Harris has offered voters is “feel-good vibes” over substance. In contrast, Trump offers the tangible political tornado (read: steamroll the problems Americans are facing) many Americans seek. With Trump, there’s no doubt that change, admittedly in a messy fashion, will happen. If enough Americans believe the changes he’ll implement will benefit them and their country…
The case against Harris on immigration, at a time when there’s a huge global backlash to immigration, even as the American news media are pointing out, in famously immigrant-friendly Canada, is relatively straightforward: During the first three years of the Biden-Harris administration, illegal Southern border crossings increased significantly.
The words illegal immigration, to put it mildly, irks most Americans. On the legal immigration front, according to Forbes, most billion-dollar startups were founded by immigrants. Google, Microsoft, and Oracle, to name three, have immigrants as CEOs. Immigrants, with tech skills and an entrepreneurial thirst, have kept America leading the world. I like to think that Americans and Canadians understand the best immigration policy is to strategically let enough of these immigrants in who’ll increase GDP and tax base and not rely on social programs. In other words, Americans and Canadians, and arguably citizens of European countries, expect their governments to be more strategic about immigration.
The days of the words on a bronze plaque mounted inside the Statue of Liberty pedestal’s lower level, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” are no longer tolerated. Americans only want immigrants who’ll benefit America.
Does Trump demagogue the immigration issue with xenophobic and racist tropes, many of which are outright lies, such as claiming Haitian immigrants in Ohio are abducting and eating pets? Absolutely. However, such unhinged talk signals to Americans who are worried about the steady influx of illegal immigrants into their country that Trump can handle immigration so that it’s beneficial to the country as opposed to being an issue of economic stress.
In many ways, if polls are to be believed, Harris is paying the price for Biden and her lax policies early in their term. Yes, stimulus spending quickly rebuilt the job market, but at the cost of higher inflation. Loosen border policies at a time when anti-immigrant sentiment was increasing was a gross miscalculation, much like Trudeau’s immigration quota increase, and Biden indulging himself in running for re-election should never have happened.
If Trump wins, Democrats will proclaim that everyone is sexist, racist and misogynous, not to mention a likely White Supremacist, and for good measure, they’ll beat the “voter suppression” button. If Harris wins, Trump supporters will repeat voter fraud—since July, Elon Musk has tweeted on Twitter at least 22 times about voters being “imported” from abroad—being widespread.
Regardless of who wins tomorrow, Americans need to cool down; and give the divisive rhetoric a long overdue break. The right to an opinion belongs to everyone. Someone whose opinion differs from yours is not by default sexist, racist, a fascist or anything else; they simply disagree with you. Americans adopting the respectful mindset to agree to disagree would be the best thing they could do for the United States of America.
CALGARY – Sam Edney and Jesse Lumsden sat on a bench on Parliament Hill during an athlete celebration after the 2014 Winter Olympic Games.
Having just represented Canada in their sliding sports — Lumsden in bobsled and Edney in luge — the two men pondered their futures together.
“There was actually one moment about, are we going to keep going? Talking about, what are each of us going to do? What’s the next four years look like?” Edney recalled a decade later.
“I do remember talking about that now. That was a big moment,” Lumsden said.
As the two men were sounding boards for each other as athletes, they are again as high-performance directors of their respective sliding sports.
Edney, an Olympic relay silver medallist in 2018 and the first Canadian man to win a World Cup gold medal, became Luge Canada’s HPD upon his retirement the following year.
Lumsden, a world and World Cup bobsled champion who raced his third Olympic Games in 2018, leaned on his sliding compatriot when he returned from five years of working in the financial sector to become HPD at Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton in July.
“The first person I called when BCS reached out to me about the role that I’m in now is Sam,” Lumsden said recently at Calgary’s WinSport, where they spent much of their competitive careers and now have offices.
“It’s been four months. I was squatting in the luge offices for the first two months beside him.
“We had all these ideas about we’re going to have weekly coffees and workouts Tuesday and Thursday and in the four months now, we’ve had two coffees and zero workouts.”
Canada has won at least one sliding-sport Olympic medal in each of the last five Winter Games, but Edney and Lumsden face a challenge as team leaders that they didn’t as athletes.
WinSport’s sliding track, built for the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary and where Edney and Lumsden did hundreds of runs as athletes, has been closed since 2019 needing a $25-million renovation.
There is no sign that will happen. WinSport took the $10 million the provincial government offered for the sliding track and put the money toward a renovation of the Frank King Lodge used by recreational skiers and snowboarders.
Canada’s only other sliding track in the resort town of Whistler, B.C., has a fraction of Calgary’s population from which to recruit and develop athletes.
“The comparison is if you took half the ice rinks away in the country, hockey and figure skating would be disarray,” Edney said.
“It just changes the dynamic of the sports completely, in terms of we’re now scrambling to find ways to bring people to a location that’s not as easy to get to, or to live out of, or to train out of full time.
“We’re realizing how good we had it when Calgary’s (track) was here. It’s not going to be the end of us, but it’s definitely made it more difficult.”
Lumsden, a former CFL running back as well as an Olympian, returned to a national sport organization still recovering from internal upheaval that included the athlete-led ouster of the former president and CEO after the 2022 Winter Olympics, and Olympic champion pilot Kaillie Humphries suing the organization for her release to compete for the U.S. in 2019.
“NSOs like Luge Canada and Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton, they’re startups,” Lumsden said. “You have to think like a startup, operate like a startup, job stack, do more with less, especially in the current environment.
“I felt it was the right time for me to take my sporting experience and the skill set that I learned at Neo Financial and working with some of the most talented people in Canada and try to inject that into an NSO that is in a state of distress right now, and try to work with the great staff we have and the athletes we have to start to turn this thing around.”
Edney, 40, and Lumsden, 42, take comfort in each other holding the same roles in their sports.
“It goes both ways. I couldn’t have been more excited about who they hired,” Edney said. “When Jesse was coming in, I knew that we were going to be able to collaborate and work together and get things happening for our sports.”
Added Lumsden: “We’ve been friends for a long time, so I knew how he was going to do in his role and before taking the role, having the conversation with him, I felt a lot of comfort.
“I asked ‘are you going to be around for a long time?’ He said ‘yeah, I’m not going anywhere.’ I said ‘OK, good.'”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2024.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe remain undefeated in women’s doubles at the WTA Finals.
The 2023 U.S. Open champions, seeded second at the event, secured a 1-6, 7-6 (1), (11-9) super-tiebreak win over fourth-seeded Italians Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini in round-robin play on Tuesday.
The season-ending tournament features the WTA Tour’s top eight women’s doubles teams.
Dabrowski and Routliffe lost the first set in 22 minutes but levelled the match by breaking Errani’s serve three times in the second, including at 6-5. They clinched victory with Routliffe saving a match point on her serve and Dabrowski ending Errani’s final serve-and-volley attempt.
Dabrowski and Routliffe will next face fifth-seeded Americans Caroline Dolehide and Desirae Krawczyk on Thursday, where a win would secure a spot in the semifinals.
The final is scheduled for Saturday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on Nov. 5, 2024.
