Ontario reported another 1,371 cases of COVID-19 on Friday as a pilot project to offer vaccines at pharmacies expands.
With the exception of March 8, when a data issue caused the case count to be artificially inflated by about 300, this morning’s number is the highest on a single day since February 7.
The additional cases reported today include 371 in Toronto, 225 in Peel Region, 111 in York Region and 109 in Hamilton, according to Minister of Health Christine Elliott.
These public health units saw double-digit increases:
Ottawa: 83
Thunder Bay: 52
Simcoe Muskoka: 43
Windsor-Essex: 39
Sudbury: 37
Waterloo Region: 36
Durham Region: 35
Halton Region: 34
Middlesex-London: 31
Lambton: 27
Niagara Region: 22
Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph: 19
Northwestern: 13
Eastern Ontario: 12
Brant County: 11
Chatham-Kent: 10
Leeds, Grenville and Lanark District: 10
(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 on a given day, because local units report figures at different times.)
They come as labs completed 64,611 tests for SARS-Cov-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and logged a test positivity rate of 2.4 per cent.
Labs also confirmed 49 more cases of the variant first identified in the United Kingdom, bringing the total to 1,005. A single additional case of the variant found in South Africa was identified, while six more instances of the variant identified in Brazil were confirmed.
Identifying a specific variant of concern requires whole genomic sequencing, an intensive process that leads to significant reporting lags, sometimes up to several weeks.
That means those figures don’t represent the actual number of cases linked to variants of concern. A total of 6,859 samples that tested positive for COVID-19 also screened positive for a tell-tale mutation that points to the presence of a variant of concern.
An updated analysis from the science advisory table this morning suggests that the reproduction value — an estimate of how many people each positive case will go on to infect — for variants of concern is about 1.26. Any value above one suggests that the rate of new cases is growing.
The seven-day average of daily total cases, which climbed to 1,269 today, has been trending steadily upward for the last week.
The Ministry of Education reported another 137 school-related infections: 99 students and 38 staff members. There are currently 34 schools due to the illness, or about 0.7 per cent of all publicly-funded schools in Ontario.
Public health units recorded the deaths of 18 more people with the illness, pushing the official toll to 7,127.
Meanwhile, it was a second consecutive day of record-high vaccinations, with 43,503 doses administered yesterday. A total of 282,748 people in Ontario have been given both shots of a vaccine.
Today, more pharmacies were expected to begin offering appointments for a shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine to people aged 60 to 64.
WATCH | Toronto pharmacist Victor Wong discusses Ontario’s vaccine rollout:
Some Ontario pharmacies have begun offering the AstraZeneca vaccine to residents 60 to 64 this week 4:58
The pilot project is running in three public health units: Toronto, Windsor-Essex and Kingston, Frontenac and Lennon & Addington (KFLA).
Of the initial shipment of 194,500 doses, pharmacies are set to administer about 165,000, while the remaining 29,500 will go to primary care providers.
On Monday, four public health units will be moving to new colour-coded levels in the provincial COVID-19 framework, tightening restrictions in all four regions.
The following changes take effect Monday, March 15, 2021 at 12:01 a.m.
Lambton Public Health will move into Grey-Lockdown from Red-Control.
Northwestern Health Unit will move into Red-Control from Yellow-Protect.
Leeds, Grenville and Lanark District Health Unit will move into Yellow-Protect from Green-Prevent.
The province moved Public Health Sudbury and Districts region into the Grey-Lockdown level as of 12:01 a.m. Friday from Red-Control.
Capacity limits increasing for weddings, funerals
The province also announced a change for capacity limits at weddings, funerals and religious ceremonies for regions in the Grey-Lockdown level. Starting Monday, these events will be allowed to have up to 15 per cent capacity indoors and up to 50 people outdoors. That’s a change from previous rules, which allowed just 10 people to gather both indoors and outdoors.
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.
