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Restaurant entrepreneur aims to thank every care-home worker in Canada with a free meal – CBC.ca

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Mohamad Fakih built a restaurant empire from the ground up, and COVID-19 has nearly torn it down. Yet, in a surprising contradiction, his kitchens are humming right now.

Three quarters of his Canadian-based Paramount Middle Eastern Kitchen restaurant locations are closed. And virtually all the seats inside the dining facilities that are still open are stacked up, as fear and lockdowns keep customers away. Financial losses are mounting.

But the Toronto-based business leader, with help from about a dozen long-time staff and volunteers, is cooking and packing hundreds of spiced chicken and rice dishes each day. Every one of the meals is given away free to front-line workers in long-term care homes.

“We’re now at 6,000 meals, but each month we want to be doing 15,000,” said the Toronto-based Lebanese-Canadian entrepreneur.

Their aim is to get one meal into the hands of every worker in the province over the next three months, and eventually reach workers across the country.

Paramount Fine Foods CEO Mohamad Fakih has long donated meals to charitable events and homeless people. His latest project comes as his own business is struggling, having closed three-quarters of his restaurant locations due to the pandemic. (David Common/CBC News)

‘These people are our real heroes’

The hot meals are a thank-you to personal support workers (PSWs) who have been on the front lines caring for seniors during the pandemic.

Fakih has a long history of donating meals to the community, but said he has most recently been struck by the struggle and plight of workers in long term care homes.

“These people are our real heroes, truly, because they go into these homes and they’re so close to the virus, they’re so close to be at risk,” he said. “I know for a fact that they deserve to be paid better and they need to feel safe.”

Frontline workers at the Harold and Grace Baker long-term care home in Toronto get a delivery of 150 free meals. (David Common/CBC News)

Many personal support workers make just above minimum wage and struggle to find full-time work, in spite of unprecedented demand. Many positions are still only part-time, as home operators seek to control costs.

Even full-time PSWs making the average wage in Ontario would fall short of the poverty level for a family of four in Toronto.

Two PSWs living in an Ottawa homeless shelter were recently part of a COVID-19 outbreak.

Though Fakih doesn’t involve himself in the politics of PSW compensation, he said he wants to do what he can to support those who work in the most-likely setting for loss caused by COVID-19.

“Over 3,000 seniors died [in Ontario nursing homes from COVID-19] and the caregivers that looked after them feel so lonely,” he said. So Fakih wanted to send those workers, “a message of love and support.”

Fakih wants to deliver 15,000 free meals to long term care home workers each month, eventually delivering to every facility in Ontario if he can and potentially expanding across the country. (David Common/CBC News)

The workers face risks to their own health, as well. In Ontario, at least 10 PSWs have died after contracting COVID-19, many in long-term care homes, according to data collected by the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions. At least one nurse and a cleaner working in long-term care have also died.

Fakih and a handful of volunteers take packaged hot meals to as many front-line workers as they can, delivering to at least two facilities a day. They often provide 300 or 400 meals daily.

Fakih has spent thousands on the meals out of his own pocket. The initiative has also received donations from others, including the Islamic Relief charity, with Paramount producing the meals at cost. It is now accepting donations to help continue the effort, with the goal of reaching every long-term care home in Ontario.

If enough money is raised, Fakih and the others behind the project hope to expand nationally.

Cooks help Fakih load meals into a waiting vehicle, racing to deliver them before the hot meals get cold. (David Common/CBC News)

‘You melt our heart’

It took three vehicles and volunteer drivers to get the prepared meals to the Harold and Grace Baker Centre long-term care home in north Toronto recently. It was experiencing an outbreak, with COVID-19 confirmed inside the building, so staff there have been especially busy.

Vonetia Reid, a personal support worker, was the first to step out to greet the smiling faces delivering the food.

“I’m so happy to see you guys … you melt our heart, we are so thankful,” she said, as tears began to flow under her face shield.

“It’s not been easy,” said Reid, also a union steward with Services Employees International Union Healthcare (SEIU). “It’s really difficult, like for everybody.”

Even before the pandemic, PSW work was challenging and often physical, with many residents needing help to use a washroom, take a shower or to eat and and drink.

Add in the deaths that have occured at hundreds of homes in Ontario alone, and the safety precautions aimed at preventing the spread of the virus, and the job can often seem overwhelming.

Vonetia Reid said the past year working as a personal support worker has been exhausting. Finding hope is hard, but the gesture of a free meal is heartwarming, she added. (David Common/CBC News)

To acknowledge the risk and responsibility, some provinces introduced wage top-ups for long-term care workers. British Columbia, for instance, added a pay bump of up to $7 an hour and introduced guaranteed hours.

Ontario also announced a pandemic wage increase of $3 an hour, but many PSWs like Reid say months after that announcement, they have yet to see the increase.

Against the fatigue and loneliness, the quick drop-off of free meals — and the smiles that come with them — go a long way, according to nurse Alisa Abdul Qadir.

“When you’re feeling down, such things make you feel inspired,” she said. “To know you have the support. You have somebody to carry you. You have somebody to boost you up.”

Alisa Abdul Qadir is one of the few nurses working at the Harold and Grace Baker home in Toronto’s north. She said small gestures like the meal delivery are deeply appreciated as the months of hard work wear on. (David Common/CBC News)

Fakih disagrees with her, at least to some extent.

“I believe that you’re supporting us, and we’re here to say thank you,” he told Reid and Qadir.

For all the complexity of the world’s woes and the challenges brought on by COVID-19, Fakih has a simple message: “I think the solution of the world today, with all these problems, is having more people doing good things.”

And he’s not one to sit still. As soon as nearly 150 meals were dropped off at one home, he was on his way to the next. And he says he plans to keep doing the same thing for as long as the group has the funds and the need exists.


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STD epidemic slows as new syphilis and gonorrhea cases fall in US

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NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. syphilis epidemic slowed dramatically last year, gonorrhea cases fell and chlamydia cases remained below prepandemic levels, according to federal data released Tuesday.

The numbers represented some good news about sexually transmitted diseases, which experienced some alarming increases in past years due to declining condom use, inadequate sex education, and reduced testing and treatment when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

Last year, cases of the most infectious stages of syphilis fell 10% from the year before — the first substantial decline in more than two decades. Gonorrhea cases dropped 7%, marking a second straight year of decline and bringing the number below what it was in 2019.

“I’m encouraged, and it’s been a long time since I felt that way” about the nation’s epidemic of sexually transmitted infections, said the CDC’s Dr. Jonathan Mermin. “Something is working.”

More than 2.4 million cases of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia were diagnosed and reported last year — 1.6 million cases of chlamydia, 600,000 of gonorrhea, and more than 209,000 of syphilis.

Syphilis is a particular concern. For centuries, it was a common but feared infection that could deform the body and end in death. New cases plummeted in the U.S. starting in the 1940s when infection-fighting antibiotics became widely available, and they trended down for a half century after that. By 2002, however, cases began rising again, with men who have sex with other men being disproportionately affected.

The new report found cases of syphilis in their early, most infectious stages dropped 13% among gay and bisexual men. It was the first such drop since the agency began reporting data for that group in the mid-2000s.

However, there was a 12% increase in the rate of cases of unknown- or later-stage syphilis — a reflection of people infected years ago.

Cases of syphilis in newborns, passed on from infected mothers, also rose. There were nearly 4,000 cases, including 279 stillbirths and infant deaths.

“This means pregnant women are not being tested often enough,” said Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a professor of medicine at the University of Southern California.

What caused some of the STD trends to improve? Several experts say one contributor is the growing use of an antibiotic as a “morning-after pill.” Studies have shown that taking doxycycline within 72 hours of unprotected sex cuts the risk of developing syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia.

In June, the CDC started recommending doxycycline as a morning-after pill, specifically for gay and bisexual men and transgender women who recently had an STD diagnosis. But health departments and organizations in some cities had been giving the pills to people for a couple years.

Some experts believe that the 2022 mpox outbreak — which mainly hit gay and bisexual men — may have had a lingering effect on sexual behavior in 2023, or at least on people’s willingness to get tested when strange sores appeared.

Another factor may have been an increase in the number of health workers testing people for infections, doing contact tracing and connecting people to treatment. Congress gave $1.2 billion to expand the workforce over five years, including $600 million to states, cities and territories that get STD prevention funding from CDC.

Last year had the “most activity with that funding throughout the U.S.,” said David Harvey, executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors.

However, Congress ended the funds early as a part of last year’s debt ceiling deal, cutting off $400 million. Some people already have lost their jobs, said a spokeswoman for Harvey’s organization.

Still, Harvey said he had reasons for optimism, including the growing use of doxycycline and a push for at-home STD test kits.

Also, there are reasons to think the next presidential administration could get behind STD prevention. In 2019, then-President Donald Trump announced a campaign to “eliminate” the U.S. HIV epidemic by 2030. (Federal health officials later clarified that the actual goal was a huge reduction in new infections — fewer than 3,000 a year.)

There were nearly 32,000 new HIV infections in 2022, the CDC estimates. But a boost in public health funding for HIV could also also help bring down other sexually transmitted infections, experts said.

“When the government puts in resources, puts in money, we see declines in STDs,” Klausner said.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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World’s largest active volcano Mauna Loa showed telltale warning signs before erupting in 2022

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists can’t know precisely when a volcano is about to erupt, but they can sometimes pick up telltale signs.

That happened two years ago with the world’s largest active volcano. About two months before Mauna Loa spewed rivers of glowing orange molten lava, geologists detected small earthquakes nearby and other signs, and they warned residents on Hawaii‘s Big Island.

Now a study of the volcano’s lava confirms their timeline for when the molten rock below was on the move.

“Volcanoes are tricky because we don’t get to watch directly what’s happening inside – we have to look for other signs,” said Erik Klemetti Gonzalez, a volcano expert at Denison University, who was not involved in the study.

Upswelling ground and increased earthquake activity near the volcano resulted from magma rising from lower levels of Earth’s crust to fill chambers beneath the volcano, said Kendra Lynn, a research geologist at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and co-author of a new study in Nature Communications.

When pressure was high enough, the magma broke through brittle surface rock and became lava – and the eruption began in late November 2022. Later, researchers collected samples of volcanic rock for analysis.

The chemical makeup of certain crystals within the lava indicated that around 70 days before the eruption, large quantities of molten rock had moved from around 1.9 miles (3 kilometers) to 3 miles (5 kilometers) under the summit to a mile (2 kilometers) or less beneath, the study found. This matched the timeline the geologists had observed with other signs.

The last time Mauna Loa erupted was in 1984. Most of the U.S. volcanoes that scientists consider to be active are found in Hawaii, Alaska and the West Coast.

Worldwide, around 585 volcanoes are considered active.

Scientists can’t predict eruptions, but they can make a “forecast,” said Ben Andrews, who heads the global volcano program at the Smithsonian Institution and who was not involved in the study.

Andrews compared volcano forecasts to weather forecasts – informed “probabilities” that an event will occur. And better data about the past behavior of specific volcanos can help researchers finetune forecasts of future activity, experts say.

(asterisk)We can look for similar patterns in the future and expect that there’s a higher probability of conditions for an eruption happening,” said Klemetti Gonzalez.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Waymo’s robotaxis now open to anyone who wants a driverless ride in Los Angeles

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Waymo on Tuesday opened its robotaxi service to anyone who wants a ride around Los Angeles, marking another milestone in the evolution of self-driving car technology since the company began as a secret project at Google 15 years ago.

The expansion comes eight months after Waymo began offering rides in Los Angeles to a limited group of passengers chosen from a waiting list that had ballooned to more than 300,000 people. Now, anyone with the Waymo One smartphone app will be able to request a ride around an 80-square-mile (129-square-kilometer) territory spanning the second largest U.S. city.

After Waymo received approval from California regulators to charge for rides 15 months ago, the company initially chose to launch its operations in San Francisco before offering a limited service in Los Angeles.

Before deciding to compete against conventional ride-hailing pioneers Uber and Lyft in California, Waymo unleashed its robotaxis in Phoenix in 2020 and has been steadily extending the reach of its service in that Arizona city ever since.

Driverless rides are proving to be more than just a novelty. Waymo says it now transports more than 50,000 weekly passengers in its robotaxis, a volume of business numbers that helped the company recently raise $5.6 billion from its corporate parent Alphabet and a list of other investors that included venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz and financial management firm T. Rowe Price.

“Our service has matured quickly and our riders are embracing the many benefits of fully autonomous driving,” Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said in a blog post.

Despite its inroads, Waymo is still believed to be losing money. Although Alphabet doesn’t disclose Waymo’s financial results, the robotaxi is a major part of an “Other Bets” division that had suffered an operating loss of $3.3 billion through the first nine months of this year, down from a setback of $4.2 billion at the same time last year.

But Waymo has come a long way since Google began working on self-driving cars in 2009 as part of project “Chauffeur.” Since its 2016 spinoff from Google, Waymo has established itself as the clear leader in a robotaxi industry that’s getting more congested.

Electric auto pioneer Tesla is aiming to launch a rival “Cybercab” service by 2026, although its CEO Elon Musk said he hopes the company can get the required regulatory clearances to operate in Texas and California by next year.

Tesla’s projected timeline for competing against Waymo has been met with skepticism because Musk has made unfulfilled promises about the company’s self-driving car technology for nearly a decade.

Meanwhile, Waymo’s robotaxis have driven more than 20 million fully autonomous miles and provided more than 2 million rides to passengers without encountering a serious accident that resulted in its operations being sidelined.

That safety record is a stark contrast to one of its early rivals, Cruise, a robotaxi service owned by General Motors. Cruise’s California license was suspended last year after one of its driverless cars in San Francisco dragged a jaywalking pedestrian who had been struck by a different car driven by a human.

Cruise is now trying to rebound by joining forces with Uber to make some of its services available next year in U.S. cities that still haven’t been announced. But Waymo also has forged a similar alliance with Uber to dispatch its robotaxi in Atlanta and Austin, Texas next year.

Another robotaxi service, Amazon’s Zoox, is hoping to begin offering driverless rides to the general public in Las Vegas at some point next year before also launching in San Francisco.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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