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COVID-19 in Ottawa: Fast Facts for Aug. 26, 2021 – CTV Edmonton
OTTAWA —
Good morning. Here is the latest news on COVID-19 and its impact on Ottawa.
Fast Facts:
- Face masks remain mandatory in Ottawa as municipal mask bylaw expires
- Eastern Ontario’s top doctor suggests vaccination certificates “inevitable” in Ontario
- Ontario reports 660 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, 19 in Ottawa
- Ottawa begins offering third COVID-19 vaccine doses to most vulnerable residents
- Sunwing flying to 11 warm destinations from Ottawa this winter
COVID-19 by the numbers in Ottawa (Ottawa Public Health data):
- New COVID-19 cases: 19 new cases on Wednesday
- Total COVID-19 cases: 28,175
- COVID-19 cases per 100,000 (previous seven days): 13.2
- Positivity rate in Ottawa: 1.5 per cent (seven day average)
- Reproduction Number: 1.03 (seven day average)
Testing:
Who should get a test?
Ottawa Public Health says you can get a COVID-19 test at an assessment centre, care clinic, or community testing site if any of the following apply to you:
- You are showing COVID-19 symptoms;
- You have been exposed to a confirmed case of the virus, as informed by Ottawa Public Health or exposure notification through the COVID Alert app;
- You are a resident or work in a setting that has a COVID-19 outbreak, as identified and informed by Ottawa Public Health;
- You are a resident, a worker or a visitor to long-term care, retirement homes, homeless shelters or other congregate settings (for example: group homes, community supported living, disability-specific communities or congregate settings, short-term rehab, hospices and other shelters);
- You are a person who identifies as First Nations, Inuit or Métis;
- You are a person travelling to work in a remote First Nations, Inuit or Métis community;
- You received a preliminary positive result through rapid testing;
- You are a patient and/or their 1 accompanying escort travelling out of country for medical treatment;
- You are a farm worker;
- You are an educator who cannot access pharmacy-testing; or
- You are in a targeted testing group as outlined in guidance from the Chief Medical Officer of Health.
- Long-term care staff, caregivers, volunteers and visitors who are fully immunized against COVID-19 are not required to present a negative COVID-19 test before entering or visiting a long-term care home.
Where to get tested for COVID-19 in Ottawa:
There are several sites for COVID-19 testing in Ottawa. To book an appointment, visit https://www.ottawapublichealth.ca/en/shared-content/assessment-centres.aspx
- The Brewer Ottawa Hospital/CHEO Assessment Centre: Open Monday to Friday 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
- COVID-19 Drive-Thru Assessment Centre at 300 Coventry Road: Open seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
- The Moodie Care and Testing Centre: Open Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
- The Ray Friel Care and Testing Centre: Open Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
- North Grenville COVID-19 Assessment Centre (Kemptville) – 15 Campus Drive: Open Monday to Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
- Centretown Community Health Centre: Open Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- Sandy Hill Community Health Centre: Open Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 pm.
- Somerset West Community Health Centre: Open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to Wednesday, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday and 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Friday
COVID-19 screening tool:
The COVID-19 screening tool for summer camp children and staff. All campers and staff must complete the COVID-19 School and Childcare screening tool daily.
Symptoms:
Classic Symptoms: fever, new or worsening cough, shortness of breath
Other symptoms: sore throat, difficulty swallowing, new loss of taste or smell, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, pneumonia, new or unexplained runny nose or nasal congestion
Less common symptoms: unexplained fatigue, muscle aches, headache, delirium, chills, red/inflamed eyes, croup
Face masks still mandatory in Ottawa as municipal bylaw expires
Ottawa’s Temporary Mandatory Mask Bylaw expires today, but Ottawa Public Health says you will still need to wear a mask in indoor public places and workplaces.
Face masks are still mandatory under Step 3 of Ontario’s Roadmap to Reopen plan, requiring businesses and organizations to ensure patrons and workers wear masks indoors.
Council decided not to extend the Temporary Mandatory Mask Bylaw beyond Aug. 26. The bylaw came into effect in July 2020, after medical officer of health Dr. Vera Etches issued a directive making masks mandatory in indoor public spaces and workplaces.
“The city’s decision not to extend its own Temporary Mandatory Mask Bylaw beyond its expiration date of Aug. 26, 2021 does not mean the need or requirement for masking will be abandoned,” said the city of Ottawa in a statement.
“Province-wide masking regulations continue to be in-effect.”
Eastern Ontario’s medical officer of health suggests it is inevitable that Ontario will need to introduce a proof of vaccination system this fall so residents can prove they have received the COVID-19 vaccine.
The Quebec government will implement a vaccine passport on Sept. 1, which will be used to access non-essential services. British Columbia has announced plans for a vaccine passport.
“I do believe that the first thing that Ontarians need given the growing number of institutions, hospitals, businesses and so on that we’re hearing on a daily basis that increase that have mandates, we do need to have an Ontario wide what I call a vaccine certificate,” said Dr. Paul Roumeliotis.
“Just to have a standardized approach, because there’s going to be thousands of thousands of people needing to show proof.”
Ottawa Public Health reported 19 new cases of COVID-19 in Ottawa on Wednesday, the 17th straight day with double-digit case numbers.
Since the first case of COVID-19 in March 2020, there have been 28,175 laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ottawa, including 593 deaths.
The 19 new cases on Wednesday follows 16 cases on Tuesday and 22 cases on Monday.
Ottawa sun-seekers will be able to travel to 11 warm destinations in the Caribbean and Mexico this winter on Sunwing Airlines, as COVID-19 restrictions continue to ease.
The airlines announced flights will depart the Ottawa International Airport for 11 destinations weekly between November and April 2022.
Ottawa residents most at risk of serious illness, including those who are severely immunocompromised, can now receive a third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Meanwhile, third doses will also be offered to residents of long-term care homes and the highest risk retirement homes in Ottawa, five months after the second dose.
Ottawa Public Health says residents who meet the criteria can speak to their specialist or hospital program to ask for a letter to receive a third dose. The third dose of vaccine will be given at least two months after the second dose and will match the vaccine received as the second dose.
Those eligible for the third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine include:
- Transplant recipients (including solid organ transplant and hematopoietic stem cell transplants)
- Patients with hematological cancers (examples include lymphoma, myeloma, leukemia) on active treatment (chemotherapy, targeted therapies, immunotherapy)
- Recipients of an anti-CD20 agent (examples include rituximab, ocrelizumab, ofatumumab)
Tesla has promised to start selling cheaper models next year, days after a Reuters report revealed that the company had shelved its plans for an all-new Tesla that would cost only $25,000.
The news that Tesla was scrapping the Model 2 came amid a drop in sales and profits, and a decision to slash a tenth of the company’s global workforce. Reuters also noted increased competition from Chinese EV makers.
Tesla’s deliveries slumped in the first quarter for the first annual drop since the start of the pandemic in 2020, missing analyst forecasts by a mile in a sign that even price cuts haven’t been able to stave off an increasingly heated competition on the EV market.
Profits dropped by 50%, disappointing investors and leading to a slump in the company’s share prices, which made any good news urgently needed. Tesla delivered: it said it would bring forward the date for the release of new, lower-cost models. These would be produced on its existing platform and rolled out in the second half of 2025, per the BBC.
Reuters cited the company as warning that this change of plans could “result in achieving less cost reduction than previously expected,” however. This suggests the price tag of the new models is unlikely to be as small as the $25,000 promised for the Model 2.
The decision is based on a substantially reduced risk appetite in Tesla’s management, likely affected by the recent financial results and the intensifying competition with Chinese EV makers. Shelving the Model 2 and opting instead for cars to be produced on existing manufacturing lines is the safer move in these “uncertain times”, per the company.
Tesla is also cutting prices, as many other EV makers are doing amid a palpable decline in sales in key markets such as Europe, where the phaseout of subsidies has hit demand for EVs seriously. The cut is of about $2,000 on all models that Tesla currently sells.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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Divisions within the Bank of Canada over the timing of a much-anticipated cut to its key overnight interest rate stem from concerns of some members of the central bank’s governing council that progress on taming inflation could stall in the face of stronger domestic demand — or even pick up again in the event of “new surprises.”
“Some members emphasized that, with the economy performing well, the risk had diminished that restrictive monetary policy would slow the economy more than necessary to return inflation to target,” according to a summary of deliberations for the April 10 rate decision that were published Wednesday. “They felt more reassurance was needed to reduce the risk that the downward progress on core inflation would stall, and to avoid jeopardizing the progress made thus far.”
Article content
Others argued that there were additional risks from keeping monetary policy too tight in light of progress already made to tame inflation, which had come down “significantly” across most goods and services.
Some pointed out that the distribution of inflation rates across components of the consumer price index had approached normal, despite outsized price increases and decreases in certain components.
“Coupled with indicators that the economy was in excess supply and with a base case projection showing the output gap starting to close only next year, they felt there was a risk of keeping monetary policy more restrictive than needed.”
In the end, though, the central bankers agreed to hold the rate at five per cent because inflation remained too high and there were still upside risks to the outlook, albeit “less acute” than in the past couple of years.
Despite the “diversity of views” about when conditions will warrant cutting the interest rate, central bank officials agreed that monetary policy easing would probably be gradual, given risks to the outlook and the slow path for returning inflation to target, according to the summary of deliberations.
Article content
They considered a number of potential risks to the outlook for economic growth and inflation, including housing and immigration, according to summary of deliberations.
The central bankers discussed the risk that housing market activity could accelerate and further boost shelter prices and acknowledged that easing monetary policy could increase the likelihood of this risk materializing. They concluded that their focus on measures such as CPI-trim, which strips out extreme movements in price changes, allowed them to effectively look through mortgage interest costs while capturing other shelter prices such as rent that are more reflective of supply and demand in housing.
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They also agreed to keep a close eye on immigration in the coming quarters due to uncertainty around recent announcements by the federal government.
“The projection incorporated continued strong population growth in the first half of 2024 followed by much softer growth, in line with the federal government’s target for reducing the share of non-permanent residents,” the summary said. “But details of how these plans will be implemented had not been announced. Governing council recognized that there was some uncertainty about future population growth and agreed it would be important to update the population forecast each quarter.”
• Email: bshecter@nationalpost.com
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Shares in US tech giant Meta have sunk in US after-hours trading despite better-than-expected earnings.
The Facebook and Instagram owner said expenses would be higher this year as it spends heavily on artificial intelligence (AI).
Its shares fell more than 15% after it said it expected to spend billions of dollars more than it had previously predicted in 2024.
Meta has been updating its ad-buying products with AI tools to boost earnings growth.
It has also been introducing more AI features on its social media platforms such as chat assistants.
The firm said it now expected to spend between $35bn and $40bn, (£28bn-32bn) in 2024, up from an earlier prediction of $30-$37bn.
Its shares fell despite it beating expectations on its earnings.
First quarter revenue rose 27% to $36.46bn, while analysts had expected earnings of $36.16bn.
Sophie Lund-Yates, lead equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said its spending plans were “aggressive”.
She said Meta’s “substantial investment” in AI has helped it get people to spend time on its platforms, so advertisers are willing to spend more money “in a time when digital advertising uncertainty remains rife”.
More than 50 countries are due to have elections this year, she said, “which hugely increases uncertainty” and can spook advertisers.
She added that Meta’s “fortunes are probably also being bolstered by TikTok’s uncertain future in the US”.
Meta’s rival has said it will fight an “unconstitutional” law that could result in TikTok being sold or banned in the US.
President Biden has signed into law a bill which gives the social media platform’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, nine months to sell off the app or it will be blocked in the US.
Ms Lund-Yates said that “looking further ahead, the biggest risk [for Meta] remains regulatory”.
Last year, Meta was fined €1.2bn (£1bn) by Ireland’s data authorities for mishandling people’s data when transferring it between Europe and the US.
And in February of this year, Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg faced blistering criticism from US lawmakers and was pushed to apologise to families of victims of child sexual exploitation.
Ms Lund-Yates added that the firm has “more than enough resources to throw at legal challenges, but that doesn’t rule out the risks of ups and downs in market sentiment”.
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