Ontario reported 3,009 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday and 3,089 cases on Friday, marking the two highest single-day case counts since Jan. 17.
Saturday’s new cases include 954 in Toronto, 434 in Peel Region, 348 in York Region, 205 in Ottawa and 146 in Hamilton.
On Jan. 17, the province had reported 3,422 cases, marking the last time the daily case count topped 3,000.
Since Friday, the province’s network of labs completed more than 59,100 tests, bringing the test positivity rate to 5 per cent. Friday’s case count comes after more than 62,300 tests were completed.
The seven-day rolling average now stands at 2,552 daily cases, an increase from 1,944 the same time last week.
Ontario’s health ministry did not update the daily case count on Friday because Good Friday is a statutory holiday.
At 12:01 a.m. on Saturday, the province entered a month-long “emergency brake” shutdown, which means personal care services, gyms and indoor dining must shut down, but schools and most retailers can stay open with specific capacity limits in place.
In-person shopping: 50% capacity limit for supermarkets, grocery stores, convenience stores, indoor farmers’ markets, other stores that primarily sell food & pharmacies, and 25% for all other retail incl big box stores, along with other <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/PublicHealth?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#PublicHealth</a> & workplace safety measures. <a href=”https://t.co/VJnj6wra1G”>pic.twitter.com/VJnj6wra1G</a>
Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced the shutdown on Thursday, saying it was necessary due to surging numbers of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations across the province.
The shutdown means tighter restrictions on gatherings and restaurants and it comes after the province allowed outdoor restaurant patios to reopen just two weeks ago.
As well, owners of personal care services had been told they would be allowed to reopen on April 12, but that start date has been delayed because new restrictions will be in place for at least 28 days.
“We are facing a serious situation and drastic measures are required to contain the rapid spread of the virus, especially the new variants of concern,” Ford said in a statement on Thursday.
Shutdown restrictions include:
No indoor organized public events and social gatherings allowed, and a limit on the capacity for outdoor gatherings to a five-person maximum — except for gatherings with members of the same household, or gatherings of members of one household and one other person who lives alone.
Limits on in-person shopping: a 50 per cent capacity limit for supermarkets, grocery stores, convenience stores, indoor farmers’ markets, other stores that primarily sell food and pharmacies; and a 25 per cent limit for all other retail outlets, including big box stores.
No personal care services.
No indoor and outdoor dining. Take out, delivery and drive-thru options are allowed.
No use of facilities for indoor or outdoor sports and recreational fitness, with very limited exceptions.
Closure of day camps.
Limited capacity at weddings, funerals, and religious services to 15 per cent occupancy per room indoors, and to the number of people who can maintain two metres of physical distance outdoors. The limit does not include social gatherings associated with these services such as receptions, which are not permitted indoors and are limited to five people outdoors.
‘The emergency brake will not work,’ ICU doctor says
On Saturday, Ontario’s health ministry reported 796 patients in hospital with COVID-19, with 451 of those people in intensive care units and 261 on ventilators.
Currently, the number of ICU patients is more than at the worst point of the pandemic’s second wave in mid-January, when a total of 420 people were in the ICU.
WATCH | Dr. Michael Warner of Michael Garron Hospital speaks to CBC News Network about Ontario’s latest plan to tackle the pandemic:
Dr. Michael Warner, medical director of critical care at Michael Garron Hospital in Toronto, says the current restrictions are not enough to protect people who are getting sick in the third wave of the pandemic. Warner says the provincial framework won’t stop young people from getting sick and ending up in intensive care units. With permission, Dr. Warner spoke of one patient in particular who was very ill. She has since died. 5:23
Dr. Michael Warner, medical director of critical care at Michael Garron Hospital in Toronto, says the current restrictions are not enough to protect people who are getting sick in the third wave of the pandemic. He said the stay-at-home order, imposed in January, was the only thing that worked during the second wave.
“The emergency brake will not work,” he said in an interview on CBC News Network on Saturday.
“The patients I have in my ICU right now, many of them are younger than me, and unless we take much more drastic action to cut this off, it’s just going to get worse and worse.”
On Thursday, provincial modelling showed that a stay-at-home order could significantly curb the surge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. However, even with a four-week stay-at-home order, admissions to intensive care will likely top 800 this month, experts said.
This number would be nearly double the number seen during the second wave of the pandemic. According to Adalsteinn Brown, co-chair of Ontario’s COVID-19 science advisory table, it is a “definite possibility” that physicians would need to begin implementing a triage protocol if admissions reached this level.
Before Ford’s announcement on Thursday, 153 ICU physicians wrote an open letter to the province, arguing that the current framework will not be enough to curb rising number of cases, given the variants of concern. They urged the province to implement stricter public health measures.
The letter warned that doctors are seeing younger patients, including parents of school-aged children, and entire families infected by the more transmissible variants of concern.
According to Critical Care Services Ontario (CCSO), a government agency that puts together daily internal reports for hospitals and health organizations, the number of patients in ICU with COVID-19-related critical illnesses stands at 447.
Anthony Dale, president and CEO of the Ontario Hospital Association, says 25 per cent of all open ICU beds in Ontario are now occupied by COVID-19 patients.
April 3 – 447 patients now in ICUs with COVID related critical illness on a total census of 1,782. 43 new admissions yesterday. <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/onhealth?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#onhealth</a> <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/onpoli?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#onpoli</a> <a href=”https://t.co/nbtegGIQFZ”>pic.twitter.com/nbtegGIQFZ</a>
For his part, Warner called the term “emergency brake” meaningless because it simply means shifting the whole province into the grey-lockdown zone of the province’s colour-coded framework. Toronto and Peel Region, the areas that have continuously seen the highest number of infections throughout the pandemic, have been under this zone since March 8.
“I haven’t heard the premier say anything about the people who are actually getting infected. My patients. What is he going to do for my patients who are still going to factories without adequate protection, who are not vaccinated, who do not have paid sick leave and they continue to die?” Warner said.
‘Take the vaccine to the workplaces’ Unifor president says
Unifor National President Jerry Dias says essential workers are still having to decide between going to work feeling sick or staying at home and receiving no money. He said lack of access to vaccines as well as no paid leave are major contributors to their plight.
“We’re frustrated,” he said in an interview on CBC News Network. “If you’re going to send people to work, then you better make sure they can go to work safely.”
Dias said he represents 55,000 essential workers in Ontario, most of whom are minimum wage workers and can’t afford to take off work if they’re sick.
“People have gone to work that have tested positive for COVID. Why? Because they have financial responsibilities at home. They cannot afford not to have a roof over their children’s head.”
Unifor National President Jerry Dias says essential workers are still having to decide between going to work feeling sick or staying at home and receiving no money. (CBC)
He said everybody understands this except for the government, who in 2019 amended the Employment Standards Act and repealed two paid personal emergency leave days and replaced them with three unpaid days for personal illness.
“When workers are sick, tell them to stay at home, but make sure they’re paid. It’s the only way that they’re going to stay at home,” Dias said.
As of Saturday, Ontario’s health ministry says more than 2.4 million vaccine doses have been administered in the province, adding that over 80 per cent of individuals aged 80 years and older have received at least one dose of the vaccine.
The two-day accumulation of new deaths pushed the total number of COVID-19-related deaths to 7,428.
CALGARY – MEG Energy says it earned $167 million in its third quarter, down from $249 million during the same quarter last year.
The company says revenues for the quarter were $1.27 billion, down from $1.44 billion during the third quarter of 2023.
Diluted earnings per share were 62 cents, down from 86 cents a year earlier.
MEG Energy says it successfully completed its debt reduction strategy, reducing its net debt to US$478 million by the end of September, down from US$634 million during the prior quarter.
President and CEO Darlene Gates said moving forward all the company’s free cash flow will be returned to shareholders through expanded share buybacks and a quarterly base dividend.
The company says its capital expenditures for the quarter increased to $141 million from $83 million a year earlier, mainly due to higher planned field development activity, as well as moderate capacity growth projects.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
Premier David Eby is proposing an all-party committee investigate mistakes made during the British Columbia election vote tally, including an uncounted ballot box and unreported votes in three-quarters of the province’s 93 ridings.
The proposal comes after B.C.’s chief electoral officer blamed extreme weather, long working hours and a new voting system for human errors behind the mistakes in last month’s count, though none were large enough to change the initial results.
Anton Boegman says the agency is already investigating the mistakes to “identify key lessons learned” to improve training, change processes or make recommendations for legislative change.
He says the uncounted ballot box containing about 861 votes in Prince George-Mackenzie was never lost, and was always securely in the custody of election officials.
Boegman says a failure in five districts to properly report a small number of out-of-district votes, meanwhile, rippled through to the counts in 69 ridings.
Eby says the NDP will propose that a committee examine the systems used and steps taken by Elections BC, then recommend improvements in future elections.
“I look forward to working with all MLAs to uphold our shared commitment to free and fair elections, the foundation of our democracy,” he said in a statement Tuesday, after a news conference by Boegman.
Boegman said if an independent review does occur, “Elections BC will, of course, fully participate in that process.”
He said the mistakes came to light when a “discrepancy” of 14 votes was noticed in the riding of Surrey-Guildford, spurring a review that increased the number of unreported votes there to 28.
Surrey-Guildford was the closest race in the election and the NDP victory there gave Eby a one-seat majority. The discovery reduced the NDP’s victory margin from 27 to 21, pending the outcome of a judicial review that was previously triggered because the race was so close.
The mistakes in Surrey-Guildford resulted in a provincewide audit that found the other errors, Boegman said.
“These mistakes were a result of human error. Our elections rely on the work of over 17,000 election officials from communities across the province,” he said.
“Election officials were working 14 hours or more on voting days and on final voting day in particular faced extremely challenging weather conditions in many parts of the province.
“These conditions likely contributed to these mistakes,” he said.
B.C.’s “vote anywhere” model also played a role in the errors, said Boegman, who said he had issued an order to correct the results in the affected ridings.
Boegman said the uncounted Prince George-Mackenzie ballot box was used on the first day of advance voting. Election officials later discovered a vote hadn’t been tabulated, so they retabulated the ballots but mistakenly omitted the box of first-day votes, only including ballots from the second day.
Boegman said the issues discovered in the provincewide audit will be “fully documented” in his report to the legislature on the provincial election, the first held using electronic tabulators.
He said he was confident election officials found all “anomalies.”
B.C. Conservative Party Leader John Rustad had said on Monday that the errors were “an unprecedented failure by the very institution responsible for ensuring the fairness and accuracy of our elections.”
Rustad said he was not disputing the outcomes as judicial recounts continue, but said “it’s clear that mistakes like these severely undermine public trust in our electoral process.”
Rustad called for an “independent review” to make sure the errors never happen again.
Boegman, who said the election required fewer than half the number of workers under the old paper-based system, said results for the election would be returned in 90 of the province’s 93 ridings on Tuesday.
Full judicial recounts will be held in Surrey-Guildford and Kelowna-Centre, while a partial recount of the uncounted box will take place in Prince George-Mackenzie.
Boegman said out-of-district voting had been a part of B.C.’s elections for many decades, and explained how thousands of voters utilized the province’s vote-by-phone system, calling it a “very secure model” for people with disabilities.
“I think this is a unique and very important part of our elections, providing accessibility to British Columbians,” he said. “They have unparalleled access to the ballot box that is not found in other jurisdictions in Canada.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
WINNIPEG – A public memorial honouring former judge, senator and chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission into residential schools, Murray Sinclair, is set to take place in Winnipeg on Sunday.
The event, which is being organized by the federal and Manitoba governments, will be at Canada Life Centre, home of the NHL’s Winnipeg Jets.
Sinclair died Monday in a Winnipeg hospital at the age of 73.
A teepee and a sacred fire were set up outside the Manitoba legislature for people to pay their respects hours after news of his death became public. The province has said it will remain open to the public until Sinclair’s funeral.
Sinclair’s family continues to invite people to visit the sacred fire and offer tobacco.
The family thanked the public for sharing words of love and support as tributes poured in this week.
“The significance of Mazina Giizhik’s (the One Who Speaks of Pictures in the Sky) impact and reach cannot be overstated,” the family said in a statement on Tuesday, noting Sinclair’s traditional Anishinaabe name.
“He touched many lives and impacted thousands of people.”
They encourage the public to celebrate his life and journey home.
A visitation for extended family, friends and community is also scheduled to take place Wednesday morning.
Leaders from across Canada shared their memories of Sinclair.
Premier Wab Kinew called Sinclair one of the key architects of the era of reconciliation.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Sinclair was a teacher, a guide and a friend who helped the country navigate tough realities.
Sinclair was the first Indigenous judge in Manitoba — the second in Canada.
He served as co-chair of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba to examine whether the justice system was failing Indigenous people after the murder of Helen Betty Osborne and the police shooting death of First Nations leader J.J. Harper.
In leading the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, he participated in hundreds of hearings across Canada and heard testimony from thousands of residential school survivors.
The commissioners released their widely influential final report in 2015, which described what took place at the institutions as cultural genocide and included 94 calls to action.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
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