Premier Doug Ford is scheduled to hold a news conference beginning at 1 p.m. at Queen’s Park.
You’ll be able to watch it live in this story.
Ontario reported another 1,958 cases of COVID-19 on Monday, as experts heading the province’s vaccination campaign outlined how they are responding to delays in the delivery of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
Other public health units that saw double-digit increases yesterday were:
Windsor-Essex: 85
Niagara Region: 82
Durham Region: 62
Hamilton: 55
Halton Region: 54
Ottawa: 51
Middlesex-London: 46
Simcoe Muskoka: 41
Waterloo Region: 39
Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph: 35
Huron-Perth: 29
Southwestern: 28
Chatham-Kent: 22
Lambton: 19
Eastern Ontario: 11
Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge: 11
(Note: All of the figures used in this story are found on the Ministry of Health’s COVID-19 dashboard or in its Daily Epidemiologic Summary. The number of cases for any region may differ from what is reported by the local public health unit, because local units report figures at different times.)
It was the fewest number of new infections logged on a single day in nearly a week. The seven-day average of daily cases continued its steady decline down to 2,371, the lowest it has been since Dec. 30, 2020. It has been trending downward since its peak of 3,555 on Jan. 11.
Notably, however, Ontario’s network of labs processed just 35,968 test samples for the virus despite capacity for more than 70,000 daily. Collectively, they reported a test positivity rate of 5.5 per cent.
Another 2,448 cases were marked resolved in today’s report. There are now 23,620 confirmed, active infections provincewide, down from a high of more than 30,000 earlier this month.
According to the province, there were 1,398 people with COVID-19 in hospitals, though as is often the case on weekends, about 10 per cent of hospitals did not submit data. A total of 397 patients were being treated in intensive care, while 283 required a ventilator to breathe.
Public health units logged another 43 deaths of people with COVID-19, pushing Ontario’s official death toll to 5,846.
Meanwhile, at a media briefing this morning, members of Ontario’s vaccine distribution task force said the province will delay first doses for health-care workers and essential caregivers amid a shortage of the Pfizer product.
Available doses of vaccines will instead be channelled only to residents of long-term care and at-risk retirement homes, as well as First Nations seniors living in elder care settings. The goal is to have all those who fall into one of these groups be given a first dose of vaccine by Feb. 5, 10 days earlier than first planned.
Health workers in the long-term care sector as well as essential caregivers were slated to be vaccinated during the initial stages of the province’s rollout, alongside residents. Due to delays in expected shipments of the Pfizer vaccine, however, the focus in coming weeks will be solely on people at the highest risk of severe illness or death, officials said.
The shift means that front-line health-care workers in other settings, such as those doing direct patient care in hospitals, will have to wait longer than originally planned to be immunized.
Those who have received a first shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine can wait up to 42 days to be given a second dose, health officials said today. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
Provincial officials also said there is uncertainty surrounding expected shipments of the Pfizer vaccine the weeks of Feb. 8 and Feb. 15. The federal government has not yet specified how many doses Ontario should anticipate receiving in that period, they said, making it difficult to provide a granular timeframe for when those shots will be administered.
Moreover, all of Ontario’s 34 public health units are expected to have vaccines available for priority groups by the end of this week. As of this morning, there were 14 health units that thus far had not received any doses for administration.
The province said it gave out 5,537 doses of vaccines on Sunday. A total of 286,110 shots have been administered, while 71,256 people have received a second dose.
100,000 students return to school
Schools in seven public health units across southern Ontario reopened for in-person classes today.
Education Minister Stephen Lecce said that means 100,000 students will be returning to the classroom for the first time since before the winter break.
The province is implementing more safety measures in areas where schools are reopening, including requiring students in grades 1 through 3 to wear masks indoors and when physical distancing isn’t possible outside as well.
It’s also introducing “targeted asymptomatic testing” in those regions.
While it’s been more than a month since students in southern Ontario have been in the classroom, classes resumed in the northern part of the province on Jan. 11.
The provincial government has said the chief medical officer of health is keeping a close eye on the COVID-19 situation in public health units where schools remain closed to decide when it’s safe for them to reopen.
But the province has said that in five hot spot regions — Windsor-Essex, Peel, York, Toronto and Hamilton — that won’t happen until at least Feb. 10.
The public health units where schools are reopened today were:
HALIFAX – Ottawa is negotiating a $500-million bailout for Nova Scotia’s privately owned electric utility, saying the money will be used to prevent a big spike in electricity rates.
Federal Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson made the announcement today in Halifax, saying Nova Scotia Power Inc. needs the money to cover higher costs resulting from the delayed delivery of electricity from the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric plant in Labrador.
Wilkinson says that without the money, the subsidiary of Emera Inc. would have had to increase rates by 19 per cent over “the short term.”
Nova Scotia Power CEO Peter Gregg says the deal, once approved by the province’s energy regulator, will keep rate increases limited “to be around the rate of inflation,” as costs are spread over a number of years.
The utility helped pay for construction of an underwater transmission link between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, but the Muskrat Falls project has not been consistent in delivering electricity over the past five years.
Those delays forced Nova Scotia Power to spend more on generating its own electricity.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
TORONTO – Roots Corp. may have built its brand on all things comfy and cosy, but its CEO says activewear is now “really becoming a core part” of the brand.
The category, which at Roots spans leggings, tracksuits, sports bras and bike shorts, has seen such sustained double-digit growth that Meghan Roach plans to make it a key part of the business’ future.
“It’s an area … you will see us continue to expand upon,” she told analysts on a Friday call.
The Toronto-based retailer’s push into activewear has taken shape over many years and included several turns as the official designer and supplier of Team Canada’s Olympic uniform.
But consumers have had plenty of choice when it comes to workout gear and other apparel suited to their sporting needs. On top of the slew of athletic brands like Nike and Adidas, shoppers have also gravitated toward Lululemon Athletica Inc., Alo and Vuori, ramping up competition in the activewear category.
Roach feels Roots’ toehold in the category stems from the fit, feel and following its merchandise has cultivated.
“Our product really resonates with (shoppers) because you can wear it through multiple different use cases and occasions,” she said.
“We’ve been seeing customers come back again and again for some of these core products in our activewear collection.”
Her remarks came the same day as Roots revealed it lost $5.2 million in its latest quarter compared with a loss of $5.3 million in the same quarter last year.
The company said the second-quarter loss amounted to 13 cents per diluted share for the quarter ended Aug. 3, the same as a year earlier.
In presenting the results, Roach reminded analysts that the first half of the year is usually “seasonally small,” representing just 30 per cent of the company’s annual sales.
Sales for the second quarter totalled $47.7 million, down from $49.4 million in the same quarter last year.
The move lower came as direct-to-consumer sales amounted to $36.4 million, down from $37.1 million a year earlier, as comparable sales edged down 0.2 per cent.
The numbers reflect the fact that Roots continued to grapple with inventory challenges in the company’s Cooper fleece line that first cropped up in its previous quarter.
Roots recently began to use artificial intelligence to assist with daily inventory replenishments and said more tools helping with allocation will go live in the next quarter.
Beyond that time period, the company intends to keep exploring AI and renovate more of its stores.
It will also re-evaluate its design ranks.
Roots announced Friday that chief product officer Karuna Scheinfeld has stepped down.
Rather than fill the role, the company plans to hire senior level design talent with international experience in the outdoor and activewear sectors who will take on tasks previously done by the chief product officer.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Mediated talks between the union representing HandyDART workers in Metro Vancouver and its employer, Transdev, are set to resume today as a strike that has stopped most services drags into a second week.
No timeline has been set for the length of the negotiations, but Joe McCann, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1724, says they are willing to stay there as long as it takes, even if talks drag on all night.
About 600 employees of the door-to-door transit service for people unable to navigate the conventional transit system have been on strike since last Tuesday, pausing service for all but essential medical trips.
Hundreds of drivers rallied outside TransLink’s head office earlier this week, calling for the transportation provider to intervene in the dispute with Transdev, which was contracted to oversee HandyDART service.
Transdev said earlier this week that it will provide a reply to the union’s latest proposal on Thursday.
A statement from the company said it “strongly believes” that their employees deserve fair wages, and that a fair contract “must balance the needs of their employees, clients and taxpayers.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
