Germany has recorded nearly 20,000 new coronavirus cases in one day, its highest level yet.
The national disease control centre, the Robert Koch Institute, on Thursday said 19,990 infections had been confirmed in the past 24 hours. That tops the previous record of 19,059 set on Saturday. It brought the total case tally in Germany, a nation of 83 million people, since the pandemic began to 597,583. Another 118 deaths raised the total to 10,930.
Like other countries in Europe, Germany has seen a sharp rise in infections in recent weeks. A four-week partial shutdown took effect on Monday, with bars, restaurants, leisure and sports facilities being closed and new contact restrictions imposed. Shops and schools remain open.
Although Germany’s situation is alarming officials, many other European countries are in worse shape. The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control said Wednesday that Germany has 237 new cases per 100,000 residents over 14 days — some seven times lower than in Belgium.
Four regions in Italy are being put under severe lockdown, forbidding people to leave their homes except for essential reasons, in an effort to slow surging COVID-19 infections and prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed.
Premier Giuseppe Conte on Wednesday night announced what he described as “very stringent” restrictions on the so-called “red zone” regions of high risk: Lombardy, Piedmont, Valle d’Aosta in the north and Calabria, the region forming the “toe” in the south of the Italian peninsula.
Except for few circumstances, no one will be allowed to enter or leave “red zone” regions or even travel between their towns, although people can exercise by themselves and while wearing masks near home. Non-essential stores will be closed, although barber shops and hair salons can stay open, and only nursery, elementary and the first year of middle school will have in-class instruction.
Conte said the lockdown will begin Friday to allow time to organize. Designations will be reviewed every two weeks.
A member of the medical staff transports a stretcher past a medical tent used for COVID-19 testing near a hospital in Warsaw on Wednesday. Poland hit a daily high of nearly 24,700 coronavirus cases as the government introduced new restrictions in shops, schools and culture institutions through November. (Czarek Sokolowski/The Associated Press)
Poland reported a record 27,143 new coronavirus infections on Thursday, approaching a threshold at which the government has said it could be forced to impose a nationwide lockdown. On Wednesday, the government announced new restrictions to curb the COVID-19 pandemic and said it would impose a full lockdown if cases continue to surge.
Meanwhile, in England, a four-week lockdown began Thursday that will shut all shops selling items deemed non-essential, such as books and clothes. The other nations of the U.K. — Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — have also announced wide-ranging restrictions on economic activity.
What’s happening in Canada
As of 7:30 a.m. ET on Wednesday, provinces and territories in Canada had reported a cumulative total of 248,218 confirmed or presumptive coronavirus cases. Provinces and territories listed 206,037 as recovered or resolved. A CBC News tally of deaths based on provincial reports, regional health information and CBC’s reporting stood at 10,336.
In Manitoba, the province’s top doctor is urging people to help “turn the tide on the transmission of this virus” as case numbers rise. Hospitals in the province were working to make space as health officials on Wednesday reported 374 new cases of COVID-19, its second highest daily tally. The province had 140 people in hospital, with 21 in intensive care.
“We announced 21 deaths in the last week alone. We had 21 deaths related to the flu last year in total,” Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Brent Roussin said Wednesday.
“We’ve learned a lot over time from this virus, but what we always knew is that this is not simply the flu.”
WATCH | COVID-19 more dangerous than the flu, warns Manitoba’s top doctor:
Manitoba has had 87 COVID-19-related deaths so far, with 21 announced in the last week alone, Dr. Brent Roussin said at a news conference Wednesday. That compares to a total of 21 deaths related to the flu in all of last year, he said. 0:50
In Ontario, Premier Doug Ford’s government is set to unveil its first pandemic-era budget, which is expected to lay out the details of the next stage of its COVID-19 response.
On Thursday, the province reported 998 new cases. Updated hospitalization data was not yet available, but as of Wednesday, the province had reported 367 hospitalizations, with 75 in ICU.
Ontario is reporting 998 cases of <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#COVID19</a>. Locally, there are 350 new cases in Toronto, 269 in Peel and 71 in York Region. There are 948 more resolved cases and nearly 35,800 tests completed.
In Quebec, Premier François Legault is slated to give a COVID-19 update Thursday afternoon. The province reported 1,029 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday and 33 more deaths attributed to the novel coronavirus, including eight in the past 24 hours.
Hospitalizations increased by 13 compared with the prior day, to 539, and 81 people were in intensive care, a decrease of four.
In Atlantic Canada, Nova Scotia reported four new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, New Brunswick reported three new cases and Newfoundland and Labrador reported one new case, bringing an end to an eight-day run with no new cases in that province. Prince Edward Island has no active cases of the novel coronavirus.
Across the North, there were no new cases in Yukon, the Northwest Territories or Nunavut. But N.W.T.’s chief public health officer cautioned Wednesday that “more cases are inevitable” as cases mount across much of Canada.
British Columbia reported 335 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday and one additional death on Wednesday, bringing the death toll to 273. An update from provincial health officials said there were 92 people in hospital with 25 in intensive care.
WATCH | 3-layer masks now recommended for COVID-19:
Canada’s top public health doctor now recommends three-layer non-medical masks with a filter layer to prevent the spread of COVID-19, something the World Health Organization has been recommending for months. 1:55
In Saskatchewan, which reported 37 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, the provincial health authority is stepping up its staffing to allow for more contact tracing.
What’s happening around the world
An election worker takes ballots from a sorting machine at the King County Elections office in Renton, Wash., on Wednesday. Results of the U.S. presidential election were still being counted in some states on Thursday. (Jason Redmond/AFP/Getty Images)
As of Thursday morning, more than 48 million COVID-19 cases had been recorded worldwide, with nearly 32 million of those considered recovered, according to a case-tracking tool maintained by Johns Hopkins University. The U.S-based institution put the global death toll at more than 1.2 million.
In the Americas, the U.S. set another record for daily confirmed coronavirus cases as several states posted all-time highs Wednesday, underscoring the vexing issue confronting the winner of the presidential race.
The total U.S. death toll is already more than 232,000, and total confirmed U.S. cases have surpassed nine million. Those are the highest totals in the world, and new infections are increasing in nearly every state.
In Minnesota, hospitals are under pressure and ICU beds are nearing full capacity as coronavirus cases reach a new high and hospitalizations continue to surge.
Hospitals in hard-hit El Paso, Texas, are also under serious pressure, with 1,041 hospitalizations reported on Wednesday.
“Our hospitals are near breaking point, we need everyone to do their part to stop this virus,” said Dr. Hector Ocaranza, the health authority for the city and county.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is sending additional medical personnel and equipment to the city and local officials ordered a two-week shutdown of nonessential activities.
In Chile, President Sebastian Pinera said the country’s health regulator had given the go-ahead for clinical trials of AstraZeneca PLC’s COVID-19 vaccine.
In the Asia-Pacific region, mainland China has barred entry to some travelers from Britain and Belgium and set strict testing requirements on visitors from the United States, France and Germany, as it reimposed border restrictions in response to rising global cases.
Australia has agreed to purchase another 50 million doses of two more COVID-19 vaccines, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said, as Canberra aims to complete a mass inoculation program within months.
Registered Nurse Reem Jabbar conducts COVID-19 tests at the Bondi Beach testing clinic on Wednesday in Sydney, Australia. The testing clinic was expanded ahead of summer to increase testing capacity as health authorities encourage residents to remain vigilant for coronavirus symptoms as restrictions ease. (Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images)
India is reporting 50,209 new coronavirus cases for the previous 24 hours amid a surge in the capital of New Delhi, which officials now say is in its third wave of infections.
The Health Ministry on Thursday also reported 704 deaths from COVID-19 across the country, raising its toll for the pandemic to 124,315.
In South Africa, the hardest-hit country in Africa, health officials and cabinet are urging people to keep following guidelines aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19. With COVID-19 cases on the rise, President Cyril Ramaphosa is set to address the nation next week, according to local media. The country has more than 730,000 reported cases of COVID-19 and more than 19,500 reported deaths.
In the Middle East, Bahrain has granted emergency approval for the use of a Chinese vaccine candidate currently in Phase 3 trials on frontline workers, state news agency BNA said.
CALGARY – MEG Energy says it earned $167 million in its third quarter, down from $249 million during the same quarter last year.
The company says revenues for the quarter were $1.27 billion, down from $1.44 billion during the third quarter of 2023.
Diluted earnings per share were 62 cents, down from 86 cents a year earlier.
MEG Energy says it successfully completed its debt reduction strategy, reducing its net debt to US$478 million by the end of September, down from US$634 million during the prior quarter.
President and CEO Darlene Gates said moving forward all the company’s free cash flow will be returned to shareholders through expanded share buybacks and a quarterly base dividend.
The company says its capital expenditures for the quarter increased to $141 million from $83 million a year earlier, mainly due to higher planned field development activity, as well as moderate capacity growth projects.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
Premier David Eby is proposing an all-party committee investigate mistakes made during the British Columbia election vote tally, including an uncounted ballot box and unreported votes in three-quarters of the province’s 93 ridings.
The proposal comes after B.C.’s chief electoral officer blamed extreme weather, long working hours and a new voting system for human errors behind the mistakes in last month’s count, though none were large enough to change the initial results.
Anton Boegman says the agency is already investigating the mistakes to “identify key lessons learned” to improve training, change processes or make recommendations for legislative change.
He says the uncounted ballot box containing about 861 votes in Prince George-Mackenzie was never lost, and was always securely in the custody of election officials.
Boegman says a failure in five districts to properly report a small number of out-of-district votes, meanwhile, rippled through to the counts in 69 ridings.
Eby says the NDP will propose that a committee examine the systems used and steps taken by Elections BC, then recommend improvements in future elections.
“I look forward to working with all MLAs to uphold our shared commitment to free and fair elections, the foundation of our democracy,” he said in a statement Tuesday, after a news conference by Boegman.
Boegman said if an independent review does occur, “Elections BC will, of course, fully participate in that process.”
He said the mistakes came to light when a “discrepancy” of 14 votes was noticed in the riding of Surrey-Guildford, spurring a review that increased the number of unreported votes there to 28.
Surrey-Guildford was the closest race in the election and the NDP victory there gave Eby a one-seat majority. The discovery reduced the NDP’s victory margin from 27 to 21, pending the outcome of a judicial review that was previously triggered because the race was so close.
The mistakes in Surrey-Guildford resulted in a provincewide audit that found the other errors, Boegman said.
“These mistakes were a result of human error. Our elections rely on the work of over 17,000 election officials from communities across the province,” he said.
“Election officials were working 14 hours or more on voting days and on final voting day in particular faced extremely challenging weather conditions in many parts of the province.
“These conditions likely contributed to these mistakes,” he said.
B.C.’s “vote anywhere” model also played a role in the errors, said Boegman, who said he had issued an order to correct the results in the affected ridings.
Boegman said the uncounted Prince George-Mackenzie ballot box was used on the first day of advance voting. Election officials later discovered a vote hadn’t been tabulated, so they retabulated the ballots but mistakenly omitted the box of first-day votes, only including ballots from the second day.
Boegman said the issues discovered in the provincewide audit will be “fully documented” in his report to the legislature on the provincial election, the first held using electronic tabulators.
He said he was confident election officials found all “anomalies.”
B.C. Conservative Party Leader John Rustad had said on Monday that the errors were “an unprecedented failure by the very institution responsible for ensuring the fairness and accuracy of our elections.”
Rustad said he was not disputing the outcomes as judicial recounts continue, but said “it’s clear that mistakes like these severely undermine public trust in our electoral process.”
Rustad called for an “independent review” to make sure the errors never happen again.
Boegman, who said the election required fewer than half the number of workers under the old paper-based system, said results for the election would be returned in 90 of the province’s 93 ridings on Tuesday.
Full judicial recounts will be held in Surrey-Guildford and Kelowna-Centre, while a partial recount of the uncounted box will take place in Prince George-Mackenzie.
Boegman said out-of-district voting had been a part of B.C.’s elections for many decades, and explained how thousands of voters utilized the province’s vote-by-phone system, calling it a “very secure model” for people with disabilities.
“I think this is a unique and very important part of our elections, providing accessibility to British Columbians,” he said. “They have unparalleled access to the ballot box that is not found in other jurisdictions in Canada.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
WINNIPEG – A public memorial honouring former judge, senator and chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission into residential schools, Murray Sinclair, is set to take place in Winnipeg on Sunday.
The event, which is being organized by the federal and Manitoba governments, will be at Canada Life Centre, home of the NHL’s Winnipeg Jets.
Sinclair died Monday in a Winnipeg hospital at the age of 73.
A teepee and a sacred fire were set up outside the Manitoba legislature for people to pay their respects hours after news of his death became public. The province has said it will remain open to the public until Sinclair’s funeral.
Sinclair’s family continues to invite people to visit the sacred fire and offer tobacco.
The family thanked the public for sharing words of love and support as tributes poured in this week.
“The significance of Mazina Giizhik’s (the One Who Speaks of Pictures in the Sky) impact and reach cannot be overstated,” the family said in a statement on Tuesday, noting Sinclair’s traditional Anishinaabe name.
“He touched many lives and impacted thousands of people.”
They encourage the public to celebrate his life and journey home.
A visitation for extended family, friends and community is also scheduled to take place Wednesday morning.
Leaders from across Canada shared their memories of Sinclair.
Premier Wab Kinew called Sinclair one of the key architects of the era of reconciliation.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Sinclair was a teacher, a guide and a friend who helped the country navigate tough realities.
Sinclair was the first Indigenous judge in Manitoba — the second in Canada.
He served as co-chair of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba to examine whether the justice system was failing Indigenous people after the murder of Helen Betty Osborne and the police shooting death of First Nations leader J.J. Harper.
In leading the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, he participated in hundreds of hearings across Canada and heard testimony from thousands of residential school survivors.
The commissioners released their widely influential final report in 2015, which described what took place at the institutions as cultural genocide and included 94 calls to action.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
