One Mississauga neighbourhood has one of the highest COVID-19 percent positivity rates (percentage of positive COVID-19 tests in the area) in Ontario, according to Toronto-based research group ICES.
ICES provided an overview of the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of individuals in Ontario who tested and confirmed positive for COVID-19 during the week of January 10 to 16.
From January 10 to 16, the Mississauga area with postal code beginning with L5W (area of Derry and Mavis Rd) had one the highest percent positivity rates at 16.9%.
The top 10 Ontario neighbourhoods included five from Peel:
L6P, Brampton at 19.4% (area of Castlemore and The Gore Rd)
L5W, Mississauga at 16.9% (area of Derry and Mavis Rd)
L6T, Brampton at 16.6% (area of Highway 407 from the 410 to Goreway Dr)
L6W, Brampton at 16.0% (area of Steeles Ave East and Kennedy Rd South)
L6R, Brampton at 15.8% (area of Bramalea Rd at Sandalwood Pkwy East)
The rest of the top 10 constituted four neighbourhoods in Toronto and one in York Region.
According to ICES’ data, Peel had the highest percent positivity (11.7%) out of all of Ontario’s 34 Public Health Units, followed by Toronto and Windsor-Essex County. Ontario’s overall percent positivity was 5.4%.
“The percent positivity was relatively lower among persons living in long-term care homes (4.5%), compared to those not living in long-term care (5.5%),” ICES said.
“Twelve FSAs (forward sortation areas) had 15% positivity or greater (within Toronto, Peel, and York), representing a decrease in the number of high-positivity FSAs compared to the week of January 3 (during which twenty four FSAs had greater than 15% positivity). Numerous high-positivity FSAs (L5W, L6W, L6Y, L4T, N4W, M6M, M1C, L4Z, N8H, MU, L4L, M2J, M2R) were also experiencing outbreaks in long-term care homes.”
ICES says percent positivity increased among children over the course of December, but these changes did not always correlate with changes in incidence, likely due in part to decreased testing rates.
Testing rates decreased over the course of December for all age groups, especially for children aged 2-13 years.
Pension fund writes off $150-million investment in bankrupt Celsius
Publishing date:
Aug 17, 2022 • 13 hours ago • 3 minute read • 22 Comments
The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec posted a negative return of 7.9 per cent for the first six months of the year.Photo by Allen McInnis / Postmedia
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The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec posted a negative return of 7.9 per cent for the first six months of the year, in what chief executive Charles Emond noted was the worst period for stock and bond markets over the past 50 years.
As of June 30, the Caisse had net assets of $392 billion, with the $28.2-billion decrease due to investment losses of $33.6 billion offset by $5.4 billion in net deposits. The losses included a full write off of the fund’s US$150 million investment in crypto lender Celsius Network LLC, which is now in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in the United States.
“The first six months of the year were very challenging,” Emond said in a statement. “The mix of factors we faced had not been witnessed in several decades: spiking inflation that triggered rapid and sharp interest rate hikes, rare simultaneous corrections in both stock and bond markets, fears of an economic downturn and the war in Ukraine with its many collateral effects.”
Over the same period, the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board reported a positive return of 1.2 per cent on Monday.
During a news conference Wednesday to discuss the Caisse results, Emond said the Quebec pension fund wrote off the Celsius crypto investment even though it is considering its legal options and intends to preserve its rights in the court-monitored U.S. bankruptcy proceedings.
“We decided to take it now” out of prudence, Emond said of the writeoff. “The last chapter hasn’t been written.”
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He said his team conducted extensive due diligence with outside experts and consultants. They were aware of management and regulatory issues at Celsius and underestimated the time it would take to resolve them, he said, adding the Caisse was keen on “seizing the potential of block chain technology” and perhaps the investment in Celsius had been made “too soon” in the company’s development.
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He noted that the investment was a very small part of a large venture portfolio that has produced 35 per cent returns over the past five years.
“In these disruptive technologies, there’s ups and downs…. Some big winners and many losers,” Emond said.
Although the Caisse posted an overall return in negative territory for the first six months of the year, the performance exceeded that of its benchmark portfolio — which posted a negative return of 10.5 per cent.
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“Over five and 10 years, annualized returns were 6.1 per cent and 8.3 per cent respectively, also outpacing benchmark portfolio returns,” the pension manager noted.
Emond said the Caisse is managing the “turbulence” with a combination of asset diversification and strategic adjustments made since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
“For the past two years, we’ve been working in an environment of extremes characterized by particularly fast and pronounced changes. These unusual and unstable conditions will persist for some time,” he said.
“In the short term, we’ll be watching what central banks do to contain inflation and how that impacts the economy.”
During the first six months of the year, negative returns in equities and fixed income were partially offset by gains in the Caisse’s investments in real assets including infrastructure and real estate.
The pension giant posted a negative return of 13.1 per cent in fixed income, which beat the negative 15.1 per cent return for its benchmark portfolio. This represented nearly $3 billion in “value added” attributable to all credit activities, the Caisse said.
A negative return of 16 per cent in equities beat the negative 17.2 per cent return in the benchmark portfolio.
The Caisse’s real estate and infrastructure portfolios, meanwhile, generated a 7.9 per cent six-month return, “demonstrating their diversifying role which contributes to limiting inflation’s impact on the total portfolio.”
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The real asset class performance also beat the benchmark portfolio’s return, which was 2.4 per cent.
“So that asset class played its role. The two portfolios are doing well,” Emond said.
He said it is challenging to compare the short-term performance of Canadian pension funds because they have e different mandates and investment models. The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, for example, has less exposure to equity markets than the Caisse and more exposure to natural resources and commodities, which performed well in the first half of the year.
Air Canada travellers wait at the check-in area as baggage handlers at Pierre Elliott Trudeau airport walked off the job, causing cancellations and delay, in Montreal March 23, 2012. REUTERS/Olivier Jean (CANADA – Tags: BUSINESS EMPLOYMENT CIVIL UNREST TRANSPORT)
Air Canada says it has improved its service levels through the summer, reducing wait times and cancellations and bringing its baggage mishandling rate back to 2019 levels.
The Montreal-based airline provided an update on Wednesday on the operational improvement initiatives that have been underway as the company grapples with numerous challenges in the post-pandemic recovery.
Air Canada says that from the week of June 27 to the week of August 8, it saw the strongest improvement in baggage handling. While the company did not disclose its baggage mishandling rate, it says that the rate during the week of June 27 was 2.5 times the rate in 2019, before the pandemic hit. As of Aug. 8, Air Canada says the rate has returned to pre-pandemic levels, with a baggage handling success rate of 98 per cent.
The airline has also experienced a reduction in flight delays of more than one hour between, with 1,160 fewer flights per week facing longer delays. Air Canada also says delays are getting shorter, with the average arrival delay improving from 28 minutes longer than 2019 levels in the week of June 27, to 12 minutes longer than 2019 levels in the week of Aug. 8.
The number of flights cancelled fell 77 per cent between June 27 and Aug. 8. The airline’s flight completion rate reached 96.7 per cent, less than one percentage point lower than in the same week in 2019.
“We know how much our customers value travel and their reliance on us to transport them safely, comfortably and without disruption. This is always our goal and we share with them their disappointment that, coming out of the pandemic, the global industry faltered due to the unprecedented challenges of restarting after a two-year, virtual shutdown,” Air Canada chief executive Michael Rousseau said in a statement on Wednesday.
“While I am very satisfied with the progress to date… we all continue to work hard on behalf of our customers to complete our recovery.”
Air Canada says it currently operates an average of nearly 1,100 flights per day and it will operate 79 per cent of its pre-pandemic schedule through the summer. It now employs 34,000 workers, slightly below the 34,700 that were on staff before the pandemic.
Despite the improvements, Air Canada’s stock was trading down nearly 2 per cent on the Toronto Stock Exchange as of 1 p.m. ET.
RBC Capital Markets analyst Walter Spracklin says the improvements are a key positive for the airline, and reinforce that “the worst is behind them in terms of travel disruptions.”
“Taken together, these improvements should offer greater confidence to Air Canada’s customer base,” Spracklin said.
“Looking ahead, we hope to see capacity growth as the system gains resilience from the summer travel boom.”
Air Canada apologized to customers earlier this month for the operational instability seen in the post-pandemic ramp-up that came after travel demand surged for the first time in more than two years. The increase in demand strained the global air transport system and resulted in challenges for Air Canada and chaos at some of the country’s biggest airports.
The airline had pointed to challenges throughout the system as a key source of the issues, including resource challenges that impacted airport security screening, Canada and U.S. border customs processing, air traffic control, maintenance providers, equipment, supply chain, aircraft catering and fuelling partners. Air Canada also says a series of mechanical failures at airport baggage handling systems contributed to ongoing issues.
Alicja Siekierska is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance Canada. Follow her on Twitter @alicjawithaj.
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