Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announces an accelerated delivery schedule from Pfizer-BioNTech, with one million doses arriving each week between March 22 and May 10
All available appointments have been booked for COVID-19 vaccinations at the Nepean Sportsplex, which began this week for many Ottawa residents aged 90 and older
The provincial booking system launches Monday, and residents are asked to wait until then and not to call for appointments Friday or on the weekend
Ottawa Public Health reports 62 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday
There were 1,289 tests conducted in Ottawa Thursday with a 2.4 per cent test positivity rate. The weekly average rate is 2.2 per cent in Ottawa, which must remain below 2.4 per cent to remain in Orange
Ontario administers another single-day high of 43,503 vaccine doses across the province
Three more regions are elevating from their current levels in the provincial framework, including Leeds, Grenville and Lanark, which will move from the Green to Yellow (Protect) zone
PC government house leader Paul Calandra criticizes the federal government over an “unreliable” vaccine supply to the province during a hastily called press conference Friday afternoon
THE LATEST COVID NEWS
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday announced an accelerated delivery schedule from Pfizer-BioNTech, with one million doses arriving each week between March 22 and May 10.
“A million doses of Pfizer alone, every seven days,” Trudeau said. “That’s going to make a big difference.”
The new delivery schedules have been shared with the provinces, Trudeau said, so provincial counterparts can make adequate preparations for mass vaccination sites.
Canada has so far delivered 3.8 million doses to the provinces and territories.
Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, said more than 2.7 million of those doses have been administered, including more than 600,000 shots in the past week, the highest weekly numbers since the vaccination campaign began.
Closing out a “week of reflection” following Thursday’s national day of observance, and looking back on the pandemic’s past year, Tam said there is renewed focus on the next steps “that will shape our future.”
There have been 899,757 confirmed cases in Canada and 22,371 deaths. There are now more than 30,670 active cases across the country, with a weekly average of 3,050 new daily cases and 31 deaths each day.
More than 2,050 Canadians are in hospital including 540 in critical care.
And to date, more than 3,000 cases involving variants of concern have been identified in Canada, with the highly-contagious B.1.1.7 strain accounting for more than 90 per cent of those.
“Racing to the finish line could cost us the success we’ve worked so long and hard for,” Tam said, urging Canadians to carry on at a “steady, cautious pace.”
THE LATEST COVID-19 NEWS IN OTTAWA
The city is urging people not to arrive early for vaccination appointments after people lined up outside Nepean Sportsplex Friday on the first day of the mass COVID-19 vaccination clinic for those 90 and over. Some of those in line were in wheelchairs.
City staff had to use megaphones to urge people to wait in their cars until it was time for their appointments and to urge those without appointments to go home and book one.
All available appointments have been booked for COVID-19 vaccinations at the Sportsplex.
The provincial booking system launches Monday, and residents are asked to wait until then and not to call for appointments Friday or on the weekend, according to a statement from Ottawa Public Health.
Additional appointments will be available on Monday with the launch of the provincial system.
Residents who are not yet eligible for the vaccine are asked to follow announcements on when they can receive their shots. Ontario is expected to unveil further details about its centralized appointment booking system.
THE LATEST COVID-19 NEWS IN ONTARIO
PC government house leader Paul Calandra criticized the federal government over an “unreliable” vaccine supply to the province during a hastily called press conference Friday afternoon.
Calandra told reporters Ontario has mass vaccination sites “ready to go, but we have not had the supply to allow those clinics to operate.”
The province has had “tremendous success with the vaccines, but we want more,” Calandra said.
Ontario has been administering around 40,000 doses per day, but Calandra said the province has the capacity for 150,000 shots a day.
That rate of efficiency can only be reached with a reliable supply of vaccines, Calandra said, urging the federal government to deliver the shipments that have been promised.
“They haven’t been able to do it in the past. I am hopeful that they will actually deliver this time,” he said.
Meanwhile, three more regions are elevating from their current levels in the provincial framework, including Leeds, Grenville and Lanark, which will move from the Green to Yellow (Protect) zone.
Lambton Public Health will move into Grey (Lockdown) and the Northwestern region will move into Red (Control).
The decisions were made in consultation with local medical officers of health, provincial officials stated Friday, and were based on the trends in public health indicators and local context and conditions.
The three public health regions will be moving to those levels in the framework effective Monday at 12:01 a.m.
The Ontario government also activated an “emergency brake” in the Sudbury region Friday, moving into the Grey (Lockdown) level “due to the concerning trends in public health indicators … ”
Ontario is also adjusting capacity limits for weddings, funerals, and religious services, rites or ceremonies held in regions currently in Grey zones.
Effective Monday at midnight, weddings, funerals, and religious services, rites or ceremonies will be permitted to allow for up to 15 per cent total occupancy indoors, or up to 50 people outdoors.
NEW CORONAVIRUS CASES IN OTTAWA AND ONTARIO
Ottawa Public Health reported 62 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday. There have now been 15,400 total cases in Ottawa and 446 related deaths.
There are currently 570 active cases in the city, a number that has increased steadily this week, which began with 513 active cases as of Monday.
Hospital admissions are also rising, with 31 patients in local hospitals and three of those in intensive care.
Ottawa remains in the Orange (Restrict) zone of the provincial framework
Ontario is reporting 1,371 new laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases Friday and 18 related deaths.
There have now been 341,891 total cases since the beginning of the pandemic and Ontario’s death toll is 7,127.
Another 1,124 cases were resolved in the past 24-hour period and of Ontario’s total case count, 296,252 are now considered resolved.
Hospitalization rates have flattened across the province after showing signs of decline in recent weeks. There are now 676 patients in hospital, 282 in intensive care and of those, 189 require a ventilator.
The majority of new cases continue to be identified in provincial hot spots around the Greater Toronto Area, with 371 in Toronto, 225 in Peel, 111 in York and another 109 in Hamilton.
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Daily case counts continue to rise in surrounding regions, with 12 new cases in the Eastern Ontario public health unit, which includes Cornwall and Alexandria, a day after 18 new cases were confirmed in the same region. There are nine new cases in Kingston, nine in Renfrew County and 10 in Leeds, Grenville & Lanark. One new case was identified in the Hastings region.
COVID-19 TESTING INFORMATION
There were 1,289 tests conducted in Ottawa Thursday with a 2.4 per cent test positivity rate. The weekly average rate is 2.2 per cent in Ottawa, which must remain below 2.4 per cent to remain in Orange.
Ottawa’s weekly average rate of infection is 36.7 cases per 100,000 population, and must remain under 40 cases per 100,000 population to remain in Orange.
The R(t) number — another key indicator measuring the secondary cases generated by a single confirmed COVID-19 infection — must be between 1.0 and 1.1 to remain in Orange.
Ottawa’s R(t) number had approached that threshold in recent days with a 1.08 score on Monday, but that has since receded to an average 0.95 weekly score as of Friday.
Any number above 1.0 indicates the virus is spreading in the community, any score under 1.0 indicates the spread is coming under control.
New outbreaks were declared at the Peter D. Clark long-term care home on Wednesday and at the Lord Lansdowne retirement residence Thursday, each involving a single confirmed infection in a staff member. There are now 21 open outbreaks at health-care institutions and eight in child-care settings.
According to the latest update from OPH, Ottawa has now administered 73,009 vaccine doses of the 80,540 total the city has received.
There were 64,611 tests conducted in Ontario with a 2.4 per cent positivity rate, which has also flattened in recent days.
Provincial officials continue to track the spread of variants of concern, with 49 new cases of the B.1.1.7 strain identified Friday, including four in Ottawa. There are now 1,005 known cases of B.1.1.7 in Ontario and 13 in Ottawa.
There was one new case of B.1.351. There are now 42 known cases of that strain in Ontario, with two of those in Ottawa.
Another six cases of P.1 were found and there are now 34 cases in Ontario.
There are 6,859 other cases in the province where a mutation has been detected, though the lineage has not been determined. Those include 121 cases in Ottawa that remain under investigation.
COVID-19 VACCINE NEWS AND UPDATES
On the vaccination front, Ontario administered another single-day high of 43,503 vaccine doses across the province, with 1,062,910 total doses administered and 282,748 Ontarians now fully immunized with both shots.
According to the latest update from OPH, Ottawa has now administered 73,009 vaccine doses of the 80,540 total the city has received.
MORE COVID-19 NEWS AND UPDATES
Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Wiliams on Thursday said the declines in case numbers, hospitalizations and ICU occupancy the province saw through February are now slowing.
Public health measures have decreased transmission and slowed the spread of variants of concern, Williams said, though with the B.1.1.7. variant, in particular, continuing to spread across Ontario, it is likely that cases, hospitalizations, and ICU admissions will soon increase.
The next few weeks are “critical” to understanding the impact of the variants, Williams said, and there is still a period of risk before the pandemic likely recedes in the summer.
Williams said there is likely still “four to five months of clear, hard work” while Ontario administers vaccines to those most vulnerable.
University of Toronto Prof. Adalsteinn Brown, who joined Williams for a weekly update on the province’s modelling projections, said there is clear evidence the vaccines are working to reduce severe outcomes and deaths, but there are also some concerning trends developing in the province.
Daily case counts have increased in 24 of Ontario’s 34 public health units, and 14 of those have seen case numbers rise by more than 30 per cent.
“This growth isn’t random,” Brown warned, with mobility increasing in the province as public health restrictions are loosened, along with the spread of variants of concern.
“We can keep the gains we have made by watching the spread very closely, and by loosening public health measures only carefully,” Brown said. “We must be nimble in applying public health measures to extinguish flare-ups quickly.”
Brown also warned of a “significant backlog” of post-pandemic hospital care, with surgeries, screening and in particular mental health and addictions services under immense pressure, Brown said.
“There will be a substantial and prolonged surge in the need for post-pandemic care across all sectors,” he said Thursday.
Vaccinations in long-term care homes, meanwhile, have been a “clear success,” he said.
“We know that vaccines work … especially if we deploy them strategically,” Brown said, and focusing vaccination efforts where they have the biggest impact on deaths and hospitalizations “are key to controlling the impact of the pandemic.”
There are 25 long-term care homes currently in outbreak in Ontario, a dramatic reduction from the pandemic’s peak, and 13 public health units have no home outbreaks.
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
