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COVID-19 in Canada: Two years since first case – CTV News

Published

3 years ago

January 25, 2022

After two long years of the COVID-19 pandemic, an infectious disease expert is warning that Canada and other parts of the world may continue to experience waves of cases until the issue of vaccine inequity is addressed.

Dr. Abdu Sharkawy told CTV’s Your Morning on Tuesday it is important for Canadians to not get ahead of themselves in the fight against COVID-19.

“We still have to recognize that it is a pandemic. That means that, until we satisfy the issue of vaccine inequity, which is really problematic across much of the world… it’s not going to be endemic,” Sharkawy said.

“There’s going to be more waves that we unfortunately have in store if we continue to ignore that.”

Sharkawy said bringing the pandemic to an end requires a global effort to ensure everyone has access to vaccines. Once that is achieved, he says the pandemic will change.

“[If] we can marshal the will and sincerity to help other parts of the world… then it will become endemic and at that point, we can look to this becoming something that is potentially seasonal, potentially not that much different from the annual flu vaccine,” he explained.

However, Sharkawy says “we are a ways away from that” despite high vaccine uptake in Canada, and Canadians still have “our work cut out for us” amid the rapid spread of the Omicron variant.

Reflecting on two years since the first COVID-19 case was confirmed in Canada, Sharkawy said he feels “some degree of resignation.”

“It’s a bit surreal that I’m here almost two years later on a COVID ward,” he said. “That’s very disappointing in the sense that I think we knew what tools we had available in terms of vaccines, in terms of improving ventilation, in terms of better masks and testing, and unfortunately, we’re still here.”

It was the evening of Jan. 23, 2020, when the team at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre decided to admit a 56-year-old patient who came into the hospital ER with what seemed to be mild pneumonia.

While the patient wasn’t that sick and might otherwise have been sent home, his chest X-rays were unusual and he had just returned from China, where the novel coronavirus was rapidly spreading.

Less than two days after admission to Sunnybrook, the man would become “Patient Zero” — the first COVID-19 case in Canada.

Since then, Canada has logged nearly three million infections and more than 32,000 deaths, according to data tracked by CTVNews.ca.

Despite this, Sharkawy says he is hopeful for the year ahead, given “how incredibly effective vaccines” have shown at keeping Canadians out of hospitals, as well as the ongoing development of monoclonal antibodies and other therapy treatments in the fight against COVID-19.

According to data tracked by CTVNews.ca, more than 82 per cent of Canada’s eligible population was fully vaccinated as of Tuesday.

LESSONS LEARNED

Since Canada’s first case of COVID-19, Sharkawy says the country has learned a lot not only about the virus itself, but also its impact on vulnerable communities, such as those in long-term care, homeless populations, and racialized groups.

“This pandemic has really been an eye-opener in terms of all of the frailty that exists in those populations and it’s time to finally invest in them and take care of them the right way,” he said.

Sharkawy said the pandemic has shown that health care and community networks in Canada need to be “restructured” to better help these groups moving forward.

“When we get ahead of the game, and we try to target at-risk populations and we do things like… [vaccine] programs that meet people in need and do it with limited barriers in place, we can see tremendous success,” he said.

Sharkawy noted lessons have also been learned in how a proactive response to implementing public health measures can help save lives.

“Waiting for problems to arise, like multiple outbreaks or hospitalizations and ICU admissions and deaths is not the way to go, and unfortunately, we’ve been guilty of that a lot,” he said.

Moving forward, Sharkawy says governments need to invest more in the health-care system and its staff to ensure hospitals don’t become overwhelmed in the case of another, future pandemic.

He added that further messaging needs to refrain from judgment in continuing to increase vaccine uptake for those who may be hesitant.

“I think the lesson here is that we need to help each other, we need to cast aside partisanship and hyperpolarized discourse as that doesn’t help,” Sharkawy said.

“When we break down barriers and not look at people as labels, not saying people are fear mongers versus anti-vaxxers, but instead just meet them as people… there’s a lot to be gained.”

With files from The Canadian Press

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Two youths arrested after emergency alert issued in New Brunswick

Published

3 hours ago

September 17, 2024

Anne Joseph

MONCTON, N.B. – New Brunswick RCMP say two youths have been arrested after an emergency alert was issued Monday evening about someone carrying a gun in the province’s southeast.

Caledonia Region Mounties say they were first called out to Main Street in the community of Salisbury around 7 p.m. on reports of a shooting.

A 48-year-old man was found at the scene suffering from gunshot wounds and he was rushed to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Police say in the interest of public safety, they issued an Alert Ready message at 8:15 p.m. for someone driving a silver Ford F-150 pickup truck and reportedly carrying a firearm with dangerous intent in the Salisbury and Moncton area.

Two youths were arrested without incident later in the evening in Salisbury, and the alert was cancelled just after midnight Tuesday.

Police are still looking for the silver pickup truck, covered in mud, with possible Nova Scotia licence plate HDC 958. They now confirm the truck was stolen from Central Blissville.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.

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World Junior Girls Golf Championship coming to Toronto-area golf course

Published

4 hours ago

September 16, 2024

Anne Joseph

MISSISSAUGA, Ont. – Golf Canada has set an impressive stretch goal of having 30 professional golfers at the highest levels of the sport by 2032.

The World Junior Girls Golf Championship is a huge part of that target.

Credit Valley Golf and Country Club will host the international tournament from Sept. 30 to Oct. 5, with 24 teams representing 23 nations — Canada gets two squads — competing. Lindsay McGrath, a 17-year-old golfer from Oakville, Ont., said she’s excited to be representing Canada and continue to develop her game.

“I’m really grateful to be here,” said McGrath on Monday after a news conference in Credit Valley’s clubhouse in Mississauga, Ont. “It’s just such an awesome feeling being here and representing our country, wearing all the logos and being on Team Canada.

“I’ve always wanted to play in this tournament, so it’s really special to me.”

McGrath will be joined by Nobelle Park of Oakville, Ont., and Eileen Park of Red Deer, Alta., on Team Canada 2. All three earned their places through a qualifying tournament last month.

“I love my teammates so much,” said McGrath. “I know Nobelle and Eileen very well. I’m just so excited to be with them. We have such a great relationship.”

Shauna Liu of Maple, Ont., Calgary’s Aphrodite Deng and Clairey Lin make up Team Canada 2. Liu earned her exemption following her win at the 2024 Canadian Junior Girls Championship while Deng earned her exemption as being the low eligible Canadian on the world amateur golf ranking as of Aug. 7.

Deng was No. 175 at the time, she has since improved to No. 171 and is Canada’s lowest-ranked player.

“I think it’s a really great opportunity,” said Liu. “We don’t really get that many opportunities to play with people from across the world, so it’s really great to meet new people and play with them.

“It’s great to see maybe how they play and take parts from their game that we might also implement our own games.”

Golf Canada founded the World Junior Girls Golf Championship in 2014 to fill a void in women’s international competition and help grow its own homegrown talent. The hosts won for the first time last year when Vancouver’s Anna Huang, Toronto’s Vanessa Borovilos and Vancouver’s Vanessa Zhang won team gold and Huang earned individual silver.

Medallists who have gone on to win on the LPGA Tour include Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., who was fourth in the individual competition at the inaugural tournament. She was on Canada’s bronze-medal team in 2014 with Selena Costabile of Thornhill, Ont., and Calgary’s Jaclyn Lee.

Other notable competitors who went on to become LPGA Tour winners include Angel Yin and Megan Khang of the United States, as well as Yuka Saso of the Philippines, Sweden’s Linn Grant and Atthaya Thitikul of Thailand.

“It’s not if, it’s when they’re going to be on the LPGA Tour,” said Garrett Ball, Golf Canada’s chief operating officer, of how Canada’s golfers in the World Junior Girls Championship can be part of the organization’s goal to have 30 pros in the LPGA and PGA Tours by 2032.

“Events like this, like the She Plays Golf festival that we launched two years ago, and then the CPKC Women’s Open exemptions that we utilize to bring in our national team athletes and get the experience has been important in that pathway.”

The individual winner of the World Junior Girls Golf Championship will earn a berth in next year’s CPKC Women’s Open at nearby Mississaugua Golf and Country Club.

Both clubs, as well as former RBC Canadian Open host site Glen Abbey Golf Club, were devastated by heavy rains through June and July as the Greater Toronto Area had its wettest summer in recorded history.

Jason Hanna, the chief operating officer of Credit Valley Golf and Country Club, said that he has seen the Credit River flood so badly that it affected the course’s playability a handful of times over his nearly two decades with the club.

Staff and members alike came together to clean up the course after the flooding was over, with hundreds of people coming together to make the club playable again.

“You had to show up, bring your own rake, bring your own shovel, bring your own gloves, and then we’d take them down to the golf course, assign them to areas where they would work, and then we would do a big barbecue down at the halfway house,” said Hanna. “We got guys, like, 80 years old, putting in eight-hour days down there, working away.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.

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Purple place: Mets unveil the new Grimace seat at Citi Field

Published

4 hours ago

September 16, 2024

Anne Joseph

NEW YORK (AP) — Fenway Park has the Ted Williams seat. And now Citi Field has the Grimace seat.

The kid-friendly McDonald’s character made another appearance at the ballpark Monday, when the New York Mets unveiled a commemorative purple seat in section 302 to honor “his special connection to Mets fans.”

Wearing his pear-shaped purple costume and a baseball glove on backwards, Grimace threw out a funny-looking first pitch — as best he could with those furry fingers and short arms — before New York beat the Miami Marlins at Citi Field on June 12.

That victory began a seven-game winning streak, and Grimace the Mets’ good-luck charm soon went viral, taking on a life of its own online.

New York is 53-31 since June 12, the best record in the majors during that span. The Mets were tied with rival Atlanta for the last National League playoff spot as they opened their final homestand of the season Monday night against Washington.

The new Grimace seat in the second deck in right field — located in row 6, seat 12 to signify 6/12 on the calendar — was brought into the Shannon Forde press conference room Monday afternoon. The character posed next to the chair and with fans who strolled into the room.

The seat is available for purchase for each of the Mets’ remaining home games.

“It’s been great to see how our fanbase created the Grimace phenomenon following his first pitch in June and in the months since,” Mets senior vice president of partnerships Brenden Mallette said in a news release. “As we explored how to further capture the magic of this moment and celebrate our new celebrity fan, installing a commemorative seat ahead of fan appreciation weekend felt like the perfect way to give something back to the fans in a fun and unique way.”

Up in Boston, the famous Ted Williams seat is painted bright red among rows of green chairs deep in the right-field stands at Fenway Park to mark where a reported 502-foot homer hit by the Hall of Fame slugger landed in June 1946.

So, does this catapult Grimace into Splendid Splinter territory?

“I don’t know if we put him on the same level,” Mets executive vice president and chief marketing officer Andy Goldberg said with a grin.

“It’s just been a fun year, and at the same time, we’ve been playing great ball. Ever since the end of May, we have been crushing it,” he explained. “So I think that added to the mystique.”

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