B.C.’s top doctor says the province is facing its “most challenging” period of the pandemic to date as hospitalizations climb and transmission in long-term care increases.
Dr. Bonnie Henry said Monday that “we are all feeling the strain” as the COVID-19 pandemic stretches on.
“This virus doesn’t pause, though, when we’re tired and frustrated and we want it to be over,” she said. “It spreads quickly and doesn’t wait for us to catch up.”
Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix announced 1,933 new cases of COVID-19 over three days, along with 17 additional deaths, bringing the province’s pandemic death toll to 348.
Monday’s update brought the number of active cases in the province to 7,360. Of those, 277 were in hospital and 59 were in critical care or ICU.
The chief public health officer said over the next two weeks, people in the province need to “urgently” work to reduce transmission in order to keep schools and workplaces open and relieve the “very real stress” on the health-care system.
Health officials in the province recently put out provincewide health orders, including a mask mandate for indoor public spaces, to try to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.
What’s happening across Canada
As of 7:30 a.m. ET on Tuesday, Canada’s COVID-19 case count stood at 337,555, with 56,832 of those considered active cases. A CBC News tally of deaths based on provincial reports, regional health information and CBC’s reporting stood at 11,521.
Alberta‘s chief medical officer of health said Monday the province has hit a “precarious point” in the pandemic and must take action.
“Waiting any longer will impact our ability to care for Albertans in the weeks and months ahead,” Dr. Deena Hinshaw said Monday, as the province reported 1,549 new cases of COVID-19 and five additional deaths.
In Saskatchewan, Premier Scott Moe is self-isolating after a potential COVID-19 exposure at a restaurant in Prince Albert. A spokesperson for the premier said Moe was not experiencing symptoms but was tested out of an abundance of caution. Saskatchewan reported 235 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday and four additional deaths.
Manitoba on Monday reported more than 540 new cases of COVID-19 — a record high in the Prairie province. The province also reported seven additional deaths.
Chief Provincial Public Health Officer Dr. Brent Roussin said as of Nov. 1, the province had reported a total of 75 deaths due to COVID-19. As of Monday, that figure stood at 236.
“It might be easy just to think of these as numbers, but we all know these are Manitobans,” he said. “These are people who are loved, who are missed right now.”
Ontario also reported a record high daily case number on Monday with 1,589 cases. The province, which reported 19 additional deaths, also saw hospitalizations increase to 507, with 156 in ICU.
Quebec, another province hit hard by the pandemic, reported 1,164 new cases of COVID-19 and 13 more deaths on Monday. Hospitalizations stood at 634, with 98 in ICU, the province reported.
To the east, the Atlantic travel bubble came apart on Monday as Prince Edward Islandand Newfoundland and Labrador announced they would be pulling out of the arrangement for at least two weeks.
Premier Blaine Higgs said New Brunswick won’t be making any changes to its participation in the Atlantic bubble “for the time being.” The province reported 15 new cases of COVID-19 and one death on Monday.
Nova Scotia reported 11 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday. One of the cases was detected over the weekend as part of a rapid COVID-19 testing program for employees and patrons at a bar in downtown Halifax.
Across the North, there were four new cases of COVID-19 in Nunavut and six in Yukon. Yukon increased restrictions last week as infection rates jumped in jurisdictions around it, requiring all but critical services workers to self-isolate for two weeks when they enter the territory.
Nunavut is in the midst of a lockdown to try to beat back an increase in cases. Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Michael Patterson cautioned on Monday that case numbers will “go up and down from day to day regardless of what’s happening in the community” because of the timing of testing and “variability of flights.”
There were no new COVID-19 cases reported in the Northwest Territories on Monday, leaving its total case number at 15.
What’s happening around the world
As of early Tuesday morning, there were more than 59.2 million cases of COVID-19 reported worldwide with more than 37.9 million of them considered recovered or resolved, according to a tracking tool maintained by Johns Hopkins University. The global death toll was approaching 1.4 million.
In the Americas, new cases of the coronavirus in the U.S. have rocketed to all-time highs, averaging more than 170,000 per day, and deaths have soared to over 1,500 a day, the highest level since the spring. The virus is blamed for more than a quarter-million deaths in the U.S. and over 12 million confirmed infections.
“There is so much community transmission all over the United States that the chances of you encountering somebody that has COVID-19 is actually very, very high, whether it’s on an airplane, at the airport or at a rest area,” said Dr. Syra Madad, an infectious-disease epidemiologist for New York City hospitals.
Nurse Caren Williams talks to a passenger waiting for a coronavirus test at the Tom Bradley international terminal at LAX on Monday. Millions of people in the U.S. are sticking to Thanksgiving travel plans despite warnings from health officials. (Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)
The largest county in the U.S. is on the brink of a stay-home order after a coronavirus surge surpassed a level set by Los Angeles County public health officials to trigger such an action. A swell of new cases Monday put the county over an average of 4,500 cases per day.
In Mexico, church and civic leaders cancelled an annual gathering that attracts massive crowds of Catholic pilgrims to protect people.
In Europe, state and federal health authorities in Germany say they are shortening quarantine periods for people who have come into contact with a confirmed COVID case from 14 days to 10, if they provide a negative test.
The European Medicines Agency could produce a scientific opinion on COVID-19 vaccines seeking regulatory approval by the end of the year in a best-case scenario.
WATCH | Trials show AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine ‘highly effective’:
British drugmaker AstraZeneca has said the COVID-19 vaccine it’s developed with the University of Oxford is 70 per cent effective on average. The vaccine is one of several that Canada has already preordered and is considered more globally accessible. 4:04
In the Asia-Pacific region, China has reported new coronavirus cases in the cities of Shanghai and Tianjin as it seeks to prevent small outbreaks from becoming larger ones.
The National Health Commission said Tuesday that there were two new locally spread cases in the previous 24-hour period, one in each city. It also reported 20 cases among people who had arrived from overseas.
Malaysia said it would close some factories of the world’s biggest rubber glove maker as more than 2,000 of its workers had tested positive for COVID-19.
A medical worker in protective gear carries test tubes at a community testing centre for COVID-19 in Hong Kong’s Yau Tsim Mong district on Tuesday. (Joyce Zhou/Reuters)
Hong Kong, meanwhile, will close bars, nightclubs and other entertainment venues for the third time this year.
In Africa, Nigeria will bar passengers who fail to follow the country’s COVID-19 protocol from flying for six months.
In the Middle East, Iran reported a record high 13,721 new cases and a near-record 483 deaths in the past 24 hours.
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.
