Alberta reported 1,887 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday — a new record high — and another 15 deaths.
Across the province, 716 people are being treated in hospitals for the illness, including 136 in ICU beds.
The R-value, or reproduction number, over the past seven days averaged 0.98. An R-value of 1 means an infected person has infected, on average, one other person. If the value is above 1, the spread will continue to grow.
Alberta plans to administer first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to 29,000 health-care workers by the end of December, the province’s health minister says.
Starting this week, 3,900 doses of thePfizer-BioNTech vaccine will go to ICU doctors and nurses, respiratory therapists and long-term care workers in a bid to keep both the workers and those under their care safe.
Details on the vaccine and Alberta’s plans to date can be found here.
Sweeping new restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19 came into effect in Alberta on Sunday at 12 a.m., and are expected to be in place for at least four weeks:
Retail services and malls must now reduce customer capacity to 15 per cent of fire code occupancy.
Restaurants, pubs and bars will be closed to in-person service. Takeout, delivery and curbside pickup are still allowed.
Hair salons, nail salons, casinos, bowling alleys, gyms, movie theatres, libraries and museums will be closed starting on Sunday.
Places of worship are limited to 15 per cent of fire code occupancy.
All employees are now required to work from home unless their employer determines they need to be at work in person.
Indoor and outdoor social gatherings remain prohibited. People who live alone are limited to up to two close contacts for in-person visits.
Masks are mandatory across the province in all indoor workplaces and facilities outside the home, except when working alone in an office or a safely distanced cubicle or a barrier is in place, when in rental accommodations used solely as a private residence or in farm operations. Alberta had been the only province without a mask mandate until late November.
Alberta will triple its small and medium enterprise grants to $20,000, while lowering the eligibility criteria to 30 per cent of revenues lost retroactive to March.
At least a dozen new employee-related cases have been reported by three companies that run grocery store and pharmacy chains in Alberta — Loblaw Companies Ltd., Sobeys Inc. and Co-op — since Dec. 9. The stores are reporting cases on their websites.
An Alberta pilot project that tested international travellers found a low COVID-19 infection rate of 1.4 per cent.
As rising COVID-19 cases put pressure on Alberta’s health-care system, up to 60 per cent of Edmonton-area surgeries will be delayed and diagnostic imaging and other clinical support services will be reduced by as much as 40 per cent.
As of Saturday, Calgary had more than 7,200 active cases and Edmonton had more than 9,700.
The province has already received 3,900 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine and expects to get another 25,350 doses next week, Health Minister Tyler Shandro said Monday at a news conference.
“I said last week that there was a first glimmer of good news with the expected arrival of the first small shipment of vaccines this week,” Shandro said. “Today, I am here to confirm that the news is a lot bigger and it’s a lot better.”
The province will begin immunizing ICU doctors and nurses, respiratory therapists and eligible continuing-care staff in Edmonton and in Calgary on Wednesday, he said.
Alberta reported 1,887 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday and another 15 deaths. Across the province, 716 people are being treated in hospitals for the illness, including 136 in ICU beds.
The R-value, or reproduction number, over the past seven days averaged 0.98.
Sweeping new restrictions intended to curb the surge of COVID-19 in the province took affect at 12 a.m. on Sunday. They will remain in place at least for four weeks — through Christmas and New Year’s:
Retail services and malls must reduce customer capacity to 15 per cent of fire code occupancy.
Restaurants, pubs and bars are closed to in-person service. Takeout, delivery and curbside pickup are allowed.
Hair salons, nail salons, casinos, bowling alleys, gyms, movie theatres, libraries and museums will be closed.
Places of worship are limited to 15 per cent of fire code occupancy.
All employees are required to work from home unless their employer determines they need to be at work in person.
On Dec. 8, Alberta announced the new restrictions — the strictest of the entire pandemic — in an effort to slow the surging COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in the province.
“If you gathered everyone who has been diagnosed with COVID-19 together, it would be the fifth largest city in Alberta,” said Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health.
“Every case is a person.… We are all at risk of COVID-19, we are all impacted by the toll it is taking on our health system.”
Hinshaw said on Dec. 9 that it’s important to follow the spirit of the restrictions if a situation is unclear, rather than working to find loopholes.
“If you are unsure about what to do, please err on the side of caution and make the safest choice,” she said.
In addition to the restrictions that came into affect on Sunday, indoor and outdoor social gatherings are also prohibited. People who live alone are limited to up to two close contacts for in-person visits. Masks are mandatory across the province in all indoor workplaces and facilities outside the home. Until November, Alberta had been the only province without a mask mandate.
Hinshaw said the target of the new restrictions is not to reach zero COVID-19 cases, something other jurisdictions have aimed for, but to no longer have the health-care system be at risk.
“These are decisions that we have arrived at not as a first resort but as a last resort, to protect lives and to preserve our health-care system,” Premier Jason Kenney said.
Calgary City Council voted to extend the possible deadline for the temporary bylaw at the same time as approving an increase in fines — from $50 for a first offence to $100. A second offence would cost $200 and third and subsequent violations would result in tickets of $300.
Click on the map below to zoom in or out on specific local geographic areas in Alberta and find out more about COVID-19 there:
Alberta released a new ad campaign on Friday featuring a man intended to represent the COVID-19 virus at a party and at a holiday gathering.
Hinshaw said the ads were intended to urge Albertans to not socially gather over the holidays.
“Our goal is to get people’s attention, to help them see common situations from a different perspective, and as a result to influence their behaviour,” Hinshaw said at a news conference.
“The campaign uses humour because the situation is serious and we need to use every tool at our disposal to reach all Albertans.”
The number of positive COVID-19 tests in a pilot project for international travellers at the Calgary airport and a United States border crossing in southern Alberta has been reasonably low after its first six weeks.
The program offers Canadians the option of getting a test when they arrive. They must then self-isolate for 24 to 48 hours while they wait for the results.
If the results are negative, they can leave quarantine, but must monitor for symptoms daily and get a second swab within six to seven days of their arrival date.
As of Thursday, the province said 14,382 travellers had taken tests. About 1.4 per cent were positive with the initial swab. After the second test, the infection rate was 0.7 per cent.
The project is scheduled to last six months, or until 52,000 passengers have gone through the process. There are also plans to expand it next year.
Staff prepares free breakfasts at Eggs Oasis on Sunday. (Justin Pennell/CBC)
The staff at Eggs Oasis spent their Sunday giving away 500 free pick-up breakfasts that were prepared with the excess inventory they would have lost when dine-in service came to a halt on Sunday.
And according to owner Noor Sadid, it was a means of preventing history from repeating itself — for a third time.
“The first time this COVID thing happened, it was very sad. We lost quite a significant amount of inventory,” Noor said.
“In June, when they wanted us to reopen … in the evening of that day that we bought our inventory, they announced again that they pushed our reopening. So we lost our inventory there, as well.”
This time around, Noor had an idea.
“I said, ‘No way are we going to lose our inventory. We’re going to give back to our community who supported us for all these years.'”
Business owners and employees across Calgary are digesting the impacts of Alberta’s widespread new restrictions. Ernie Tsu, a board member with the Alberta Hospitality Association and owner of Trolley 5 pub, said the measures are a hard hit to restaurants and bars right before the holidays.
“It’s going to be very tough for us to have to look at our staff, as we have to lay off coming around the corner here. Christmas is usually the best season for every restaurant and local pub,” Tsu said.
Solo Diallo, co-owner of Mumbai Dakar in Edmonton, said he worries whether his restaurant will survive, but still supports the new measures.
“We’ll just try to outlast and then we’ll see how far we can go,” he told CBC’s Edmonton AM on Wednesday.
Alberta is expanding its small and medium business relaunch grant, to make up to 15,000 more businesses eligible for funding. Businesses can now receive 15 per cent of pre-pandemic monthly revenues up to a maximum of $15,000.
The program is also lowering its threshold from businesses who experienced 40 per cent revenue loss to 30 per cent revenue loss, retroactive to March.
As of 7:45 a.m. ET on Monday, Canada’s COVID-19 case count stood at 460,744, with 74,060 of those cases considered active. A CBC News tally of deaths based on provincial reports, regional health information and CBC’s reporting stood a 13,431.
Canada’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign kicked off in Ontario on Monday with the vaccination of a personal support worker in Toronto, which is still under lockdown as Ontario tries to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus that has infected more than 464,000 Canadians.
Quebec, the hardest-hit province in the country, is expected to launch its own vaccination efforts later Monday after the first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine arrived in Canada Sunday.
Retired general Rick Hillier, who is leading Ontario’s vaccine task force, said the number of vaccinations that will take place in the province Monday is “probably pretty small,” but he said it’s still significant — especially for health-care workers and others who have been at the front line of the pandemic for months.
“This is V-Day,” he told CBC News Network early Monday, before the first dose was given.
Canada received its first batches of the Pfizer-BioBTech COVID-19 vaccine ahead of the planned first stage of immunizations this week. But with so few doses on hand at this stage, the initial delivery is more of a morale boost than a medical victory. 2:26
In Saskatchewan, health officials reported three additional deaths and 222 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday. There were 117 people with COVID-19 in hospital, including 23 in intensive care units.
Manitoba reported seven additional deaths and 273 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday. Health officials in the province reported 304 people in hospital, with 43 people in intensive care.
Ontario reported 1,940 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, with 544 new cases in Toronto and 390 in Peel Region. Health Minister Christine Elliott said the province completed nearly 57,100 tests.
The province also reported 23 additional deaths, bringing the death toll to 3,972.
COVID-19 hospitalizations in Ontario increased to 857, with 244 people in intensive care units, according to a provincial dashboard.
Quebec reported 1,620 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday and 25 additional deaths. Hospitalizations rose to 890, with 122 COVID-19 patients in intensive care units.
There were no new cases reported in Yukon, or the Northwest Territories on Sunday.
British Columbia didn’t provide updated COVID-19 data to the public over the weekend. Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix are expected to provide more details Monday about the limited availability of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
Self-assessment and supports:
With winter cold and influenza season approaching, Alberta Health Services will prioritize Albertans for testing who have symptoms, and those groups which are at higher risk of getting or spreading the virus.
General asymptomatic testing is currently unavailable for people with no known exposure to COVID-19.
Those who test positive will be asked to use the online COVID-19 contact tracing tool, so that their close contacts can be notified by text message.
The province says Albertans who have returned to Canada from other countries must self-isolate. Unless your situation is critical and requires a call to 911, Albertans are advised to call Health Link at 811 before visiting a physician, hospital or other health-care facility.
If you have symptoms, even mild, you are to self-isolate for at least 10 days from the onset of symptoms, until the symptoms have disappeared.
The province also operates a confidential mental health support line at 1-877-303-2642 and addiction help line at 1-866-332-2322, both available 24 hours a day.
Online resources are available for advice on handling stressful situations and ways to talk with children.
There is a 24-hour family violence information line at 310-1818 to get anonymous help in more than 170 languages, and Alberta’s One Line for Sexual Violence is available at 1-866-403-8000, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Speaking from personal experience, a bad hire isn’t a good look. The last thing you want is to hear, “Who the hell hired Bob?” and have your hiring judgment questioned.
The job seeker who’s empathetic to the employer’s side of the hiring desk, which controls the hiring process, is rare.
One of the best things you can do to enhance your job search is to practice perspective-taking, which involves seeing things from a different perspective.
It’s natural for employers to find candidates who have empathy and an understanding of their challenges and pain points more attractive. Candidates like these are seen as potential allies rather than individuals only looking out for themselves. Since most job seekers approach employers with a ‘what’s in it for me’ mindset, practicing perspective-taking sets you apart.
“If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.” – Henry Ford.
Perspective-taking makes you realize that from an employer’s POV hiring is fraught with risks employers want to avoid; thus, you consider what most job seekers don’t: How can I present myself as the least risky hiring option?
Here’s an exercise that’ll help you visualize the employer’s side of the hiring process.
Candidate A or B?
Imagine you’re the Director of Customer Service for a regional bank with 85 branches. You’re hiring a call centre manager who’ll work onsite at the bank’s head office, overseeing the bank’s 50-seat call centre. In addition to working with the call centre agents, the successful candidate will also interact with other departments, your boss, and members of the C-suite leadership team; in other words, they’ll be visible throughout the bank.
The job posting resulted in over 400 applications. The bank’s ATS and HR (phone interview vetting, skill assessment testing) selected five candidates, plus an employee referral, for you to interview. You aim to shortlist the six candidates to three, whom you’ll interview a second time, and then make a hiring decision. Before scheduling the interviews, which’ll take place between all your other ongoing responsibilities, you spend 5 – 10 minutes with each candidate’s resume and review their respective digital footprint and LinkedIn activity.
In your opinion, which candidate deserves a second interview?
Candidate A: Their resume provides quantitative numbers—evidence—of the results they’ve achieved. (Through enhanced agent training, reduced average handle time from 4:32 mins. to 2:43 minutes, which decreased the abandon rate from 4.6% to 2.2%.)
Candidate B: Their resume offers only opinions. (“I’m detail-oriented,” “I learn fast.”)
Candidate A: Looks you in the eye, has a firm handshake, smiles, and exudes confidence.
Candidate B: Doesn’t look you in the eye, has a weak handshake.
Candidate A: Referred by Ariya, who’s been with the bank for over 15 years and has a stellar record, having moved up from teller to credit analyst and is tracking to become a Managing Director.
Candidate B: Applied online. Based on your knowledge, they did nothing else to make their application more visible. (e.g., reached out to you or other bank employees)
Candidate A: Well educated, grew up as a digital native, eager and energetic. Currently manages a 35-seat call center for a mid-size credit union. They mention they called the bank’s call centre several times and suggest ways to improve the caller experience.
Candidate B: Has been working in banking for over 25 years, managing the call center at their last bank for 17 years before being laid off eight months ago. They definitely have the experience to run a call centre. However, you have a nagging gut feeling that they’re just looking for a place to park themselves until they can afford to retire.
Candidate A: Has a fully completed LinkedIn profile (picture, eye-catching banner) packed with quantifying numbers. It’s evident how they were of value to their employers. Recently, they engaged constructively with posts and comments and published a LinkedIn article on managing Generations Y and Z call centre agents. Their Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter/X accounts aren’t controversial, sharing between ‘Happy Birthday’ and ‘Congratulations’ messages, their love of fine dining, baseball, and gardening.
Candidate B: Their LinkedIn profile is incomplete. The last time they posted on LinkedIn was seven months ago, ranting about how the government’s latest interest rate hike will plunge the country into a deep recession. Conspiracy theories abound on their Facebook page.
Candidate A: Notices the golf calendar on your desk, the putter and golf balls in the corner, and a photograph of Phil Mickelson putting on the green jacket at the 2010 Masters hanging on your wall. While nodding towards the picture, they say, “Evidently, you golf. Not being a golfer myself, what made you take up golf, which I understand is a frustrating sport?”
Candidate B: Doesn’t proactively engage in small talk. Waits for you to start the interview.
Which of the above candidates presents the least hiring risk? Will likely succeed (read: achieve the results the employer needs)? Will show your boss, upper management, and employees you know how to hire for competence and fit?
Nick Kossovan, a well-seasoned veteran of the corporate landscape, offers “unsweetened” job search advice. You can send Nick your questions to artoffindingwork@gmail.com.
Though I have no empirical evidence to support my claim, I believe job search success can be achieved faster by using what I call “The Job Seekers’ Trinity” as your framework, the trinity being:
The power of focus
Managing your anger
Presenting evidence
Each component plays a critical role in sustaining motivation and strategically positioning yourself for job search success. Harnessing your focus, managing your anger, and presenting compelling evidence (read: quantitative numbers of achieved results) will transform your job search from a daunting endeavour into a structured, persuasive job search campaign that employers will notice.
The Power of Focus
Your job search success is mainly determined by what you’re focused on, namely:
What you focus on.
Your life is controlled by what you focus on; thus, focusing on the positives shapes your mindset for positive outcomes. Yes, layoffs, which the media loves to report to keep us addicted to the news, are a daily occurrence, but so is hiring. Don’t let all the doom and gloom talk overshadow this fact. Focus on where you want to go, not on what others and the media want you to fear.
Bonus of not focusing on negatives: You’ll be happier.
Focus on how you can provide measurable value to employers.
If you’re struggling with your job search, the likely reason is that you’re not showing, along with providing evidence, employers how you can add tangible value to an employer’s bottom line. Business is a numbers game, yet few job seekers speak about their numbers. If you don’t focus on and talk about your numbers, how do you expect employers to see the value in hiring you?
Managing Your Anger
Displaying anger in public is never a good look. Professionals are expected to control their emotions, so public displays of anger are viewed as unprofessional.
LinkedIn has become a platform heavily populated with job seekers posting angry rants—fueled mainly by a sense of entitlement—bashing and criticizing employers, recruiters, and the government, proving many job seekers think the public display of their anger won’t negatively affect their job search.
When you’re unemployed, it’s natural to be angry when your family, friends, and neighbours are employed. “Why me?” is a constant question in your head. Additionally, job searching is fraught with frustrations, such as not getting responses to your applications and being ghosted after interviews.
The key is acknowledging your anger and not letting it dictate your actions, such as adding to the angry rants on LinkedIn and other social media platforms, which employers will see.
Undoubtedly, rejection, which is inevitable when job hunting, causes the most anger. What works for me is to reframe rejections, be it through being ghosted, email, a call or text, as “Every ‘No’ brings me one step closer to a ‘Yes.'”
Additionally, I’ve significantly reduced triggering my anger by eliminating any sense of entitlement and keeping my expectations in check. Neither you nor I are owed anything, including a job, respect, empathy, understanding, agreement, or even love. A sense of entitlement and anger are intrinsically linked. The more rights you perceive you have, the more anger you need to defend them. Losing any sense of entitlement you may have will make you less angry, which has no place in a job search.
Presenting Evidence
As I stated earlier, business is a numbers game. Since all business decisions, including hiring, are based on numbers, presenting evidence in the form of quantitative numbers is crucial.
Which candidate would you contact to set up an interview if you were hiring a social media manager:
“Managed Fabian Publishing’s social media accounts, posting content daily.”
“Designed and executed Fabian Publishing’s global social media strategy across 8.7 million LinkedIn, X/Twitter, Instagram and Facebook followers. Through consistent engagement with customers, followers, and influencers, increased social media lead generation by 46% year-over-year, generating in 2023 $7.6 million in revenue.”
Numerical evidence, not generic statements or opinions, is how you prove your value to employers. Stating you’re a “team player” or “results-driven,” as opposed to “I’m part of an inside sales team that generated in 2023 $8.5 million in sales,” or “In 2023 I managed three company-wide software implementations, all of which came under budget,” is meaningless to an employer.
Despite all the job search advice offered, I still see resumes and LinkedIn profiles listing generic responsibilities rather than accomplishments backed by numbers. A statement such as “managed a team” doesn’t convey your management responsibilities or your team’s achievements under your leadership. “Led a team of five to increase sales by 20%, from $3.7 million to $4.44 million, within six months” shows the value of your management skills.
Throughout your job search, constantly think of all the numbers you can provide—revenue generated, number of new clients, cost savings, reduced workload, waste reduction—as evidence to employers why you’d be a great value-add to their business.
The Job Seekers’ Trinity—focusing on the positive, managing your anger and providing evidence—is a framework that’ll increase the effectiveness of your job search activities and make you stand out in today’s hyper-competitive job market, thus expediting your job search to a successful conclusion.
Nick Kossovan, a well-seasoned veteran of the corporate landscape, offers “unsweetened” job search advice. You can send Nick your questions to artoffindingwork@gmail.com.
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.
