Business
International flights landing at only 4 Canadian airports as new travel restrictions take effect – CTV Toronto
CALGARY —
The next round of restrictions on international travel officially kicked in Thursday morning as Ottawa hopes to discourage non-essential trips and slow the spread of new COVID-19 variants.
Effective midnight, all international flights landing in Canada will now be funnelled to Toronto, Montreal, Calgary or Vancouver.
This includes flights from the United States, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and South America, that had been exempted from the previous restriction.
Over the coming weeks, the federal government is also going to require all international travellers to pay a fee of $2,000 to quarantine for up to three days at an approved hotel, while they await the results of their COVID-19 test.
As a result, the international terminal in Calgary was almost entirely empty Wednesday night and Thursday morning, save for a few travellers like Ron Althouse and his wife Marilyn.
The couple flew back to Calgary from Arizona earlier than they originally anticipated.
“We were not planning to come home until the middle of March, but we just heard so much rhetoric going on that we decided to do it,” said Ron. “We got scared.”
Kaylyn Noad, who travelled to Texas for work, says the additional COVID-19 tests and quarantine isn’t worth the hassle.
“I spent enough time away and I just want to get home.”
Despite the changes, American-based airlines are still operating out of the Calgary International Airport and offering flights.
Travellers could leave from Calgary to Cancun on Delta Airlines Thursday, but with stops first in the United States.
United Airlines is also offering Mexico flights with layovers in Houston or Denver. Travel experts highly recommend purchasing travel or COVID-19-related insurance if anyone is considering any sort of international trip.
Canadian-based airlines have grounded flights to warm destinations, including Mexico and the Caribbean, until the end of April.
Ottawa made the request to prevent more travel-related cases of COVID-19 and its variants.
Business
COVID-19 on Vancouver Island: Health officials to provide update after cases surge – CTV Edmonton
Victoria –
Health officials identified 204 new cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Island region over the weekend.
The cases were among 1,692 new cases found across British Columbia since Friday, including 644 cases on Saturday, 613 on Sunday and 435 on Monday.
There are currently 5,608 active COVID-19 cases in B.C., including 661 active cases in the Vancouver Island region, according to a statement from the B.C. health ministry.
Island Health data identified the locations of 558 active cases Monday, including 309 in the South Island, 203 in the Central Island and 46 in the North Island.
Eleven people in the province died from the disease over the weekend, including six deaths in the Fraser Health region, two in the Vancouver Coastal Health region and three in the Northern Health area.
Since the pandemic began, 1,899 people in B.C. have died of COVID-19, including 58 people in the Island Health region.
There are currently 27 people in hospital with COVID-19 on Vancouver Island, with 16 patients in critical care.
There are 21 active outbreaks at B.C. health-care facilities, including one on Vancouver Island.
On Sunday, Island Health declared a COVID-19 outbreak at a Victoria care home. Two cases of the coronavirus have been detected at the Victoria Chinatown Care Centre.
All 31 residents of the home are now being tested for COVID-19, as are staff members, the health authority said.
The last health-care outbreak on the island was at Sunset Lodge long-term care home in Victoria. It ended on Friday, after infecting 21 residents and 15 staff members, killing six residents.
Approximately 86.8 per cent of eligible British Columbians have now received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, while 79.4 per cent have received two doses.
The province has administered 7,711,306 doses of COVID-19 vaccine since it began its immunizing campaign in December.
(Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks followed European shares higher on Tuesday as traders reassessed risks from China’s crackdown on the real-estate sector and looked ahead to this week’s Federal Reserve meeting.
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The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 gained, suggesting some improvement in sentiment after concerns about fallout from China Evergrande Group’s debt woes roiled markets Monday. Dip-buyers in the last hour of trading Monday helped the S&P 500 pare some losses, though the index still posted the biggest drop since May.
“You had a lot of pent-up worries all expressed in one day and some of them were perhaps a bit overwrought — there’s still a desperate search for return by investors and still very much a buy-the-dips mentality,” said David Donabedian, chief investment officer of CIBC Private Wealth Management.
The Stoxx Europe 600 index climbed more than 1%, rebounding from the biggest slump in two months, with energy companies leading the advance and all industry sectors in the green. Royal Dutch Shell Plc rose after the company offered shareholders a payout from the sale of shale oil fields. Universal Music Group BV shares soared in their stock market debut after being spun off from Vivendi SE.
Aside from worries over Evergrande’s ability to make good on $300 billion of liabilities, investors are also positioning for the two-day Fed meeting starting Tuesday, where policy makers are expected to start laying the groundwork for paring stimulus. Treasury yields ticked lower and the dollar was steady.
“So much of this information is already known that we don’t think it will necessary set off a wave of problems,” John Bilton, head of global multi-asset strategy at JPMorgan Asset Management, said on Bloomberg TV. “I’m more concerned about knock-on sentiment at a time when investor sentiment is a bit fragile. But when we look at the fundamentals — the general growth, and direction in the wider economy — we still feel reasonably confident that the situation will right itself.”
A Hong Kong gauge of real-estate firms steadied, after developers disputed a report of pressure from the Chinese government. Evergrande slid deeper in equity and credit markets. Concerns remain about broader contagion after S&P Global Ratings said the developer is on the brink of default. China’s markets reopen on Wednesday after holidays.
China’s property-sector upheaval — part of President Xi Jinping’s broader clampdown on private industries under his “common prosperity” initiative to reduce inequality — is adding to the risks confronting investors. These include stretched equity valuations and slower economic reopening due to the delta virus strain amid price pressures stoked by commodities. Markets are also digesting an outlook of reduced central bank policy support.
Elsewhere, Bitcoin slid for a third day in volatile trading, tumbling as much as 7.6% before bouncing back to around $43,000. Oil rebounded from two days of declines, while iron ore futures took a breather following Monday’s rout, though stayed below $100 a ton on China’s steel output curbs.
In Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau won a third term in a snap election but fell short of regaining a parliamentary majority. The nation’s currency was among the best performers in the Group-of-10 basket.
Here are key events to watch this week:
-
Bank of Japan rate decision, Wednesday
-
Federal Reserve rate decision, Wednesday
-
Bank of England rate decision, Thursday
-
Fed Chair Jerome Powell, Fed Governor Michelle Bowman and Vice Chairman Richard Clarida discuss pandemic recovery, Friday
For more market analysis, read our MLIV blog.
Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
-
The S&P 500 rose 0.5% as of 9:30 a.m. New York time
-
The Nasdaq 100 rose 0.5%
-
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.4%
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The Stoxx Europe 600 rose 1%
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The MSCI World index rose 0.5%
Currencies
-
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed
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The euro was little changed at $1.1733
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The British pound was unchanged at $1.3657
-
The Japanese yen rose 0.2% to 109.25 per dollar
Bonds
-
The yield on 10-year Treasuries was little changed at 1.31%
-
Germany’s 10-year yield declined two basis points to -0.34%
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Britain’s 10-year yield declined one basis point to 0.78%
Commodities
-
West Texas Intermediate crude rose 0.7% to $70.78 a barrel
-
Gold futures rose 0.5% to $1,773.30 an ounce
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
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FDA advisory body this week recommended coronavirus booster shots for people more than age 65 and those at high risk.
Top health officials in the United States have said broader approval of COVID-19 booster shots could be weeks away, after a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expert advisory panel this week recommended a third jab for a limited segment of the population.
The director of the National Institutes of Health said the FDA panel’s decision on Friday to limit Pfizer COVID-19 booster shots to Americans age 65 and older as well as those at high risk of severe disease was a preliminary step.
In an interview on Fox News Sunday, Dr Francis Collins predicted more wide-ranging approval for most Americans “in the next few weeks”.
Collins said the panel’s recommendation was correct based on a “snapshot” of available data on the effectiveness of Pfizer’s two-jab regimen over time. But he said real-time data from the US and Israel continue to come in showing waning efficacy among more groups of people that will need to be addressed soon.
“I think there will be a decision in the coming weeks to extend boosters beyond the list that they approved on Friday,” said Collins, who also appeared CBS’ Face the Nation programme on Sunday.
Some rich nations, including the US and UK, are considering coronavirus booster shots amid a recent surge in cases linked to the highly contagious Delta variant.
But the World Health Organization (WHO) this month called for a moratorium on booster shots amid concerns about vaccine supplies to poorer nations, where millions have yet to receive their first jab.
A group of international scientists also said last week that even with the threat from the Delta strain, “booster doses for the general population are not appropriate at this stage in the pandemic”.
“Any decisions about the need for boosting or timing of boosting should be based on careful analyses of adequately controlled clinical or epidemiological data, or both, indicating a persistent and meaningful reduction in severe disease,” the scientists wrote in The Lancet medical journal.
Dr Anthony Fauci, who is US President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, on Sunday praised the FDA advisory board’s plan for covering a “good chunk” of Americans. But he stressed that “this is not the end of the story” based on data that was emerging and said the guidance would likely be expanded in the coming weeks to months.
People in the US who have received the two-dose Moderna vaccine or one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine are still awaiting guidance on possible booster shots.
“The actual data that we’ll get [on] that third shot for the Moderna and second shot for the J&J is literally a couple to a few weeks away,” Fauci told NBC’s Meet the Press programme.
“We’re working on that right now to get the data to the FDA so they can examine it and make a determination about the boosters for those people.”
The FDA will consider the advisory group’s advice and make its own decision, probably within days. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also is set to weigh in this week.
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