After months of playing defence and hunkering down against the deadly coronavirus, London can now finally begin to fight back.
On Wednesday, the city’s first citizen received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccination, launching what will be a long, concerted program to inoculate London and its surrounding region against a virus that has killed more than 14,000 Canadians, including 93 locally.
Those who work in long-term care will be the first to get the shot before the program expands to those who work in frontline health care. Also near the front of the line will be people in home care with chronic conditions that make them vulnerable to COVID-19.
A 1-800 number has been set up to allow long-term care workers who’ve been approved to get the vaccine to make an appointment.
And though it will likely be a long time — perhaps months — before members of the general public can receive the vaccine, the fact that vaccinations have started was welcome news at the Western Fair District’s Agriplex building, where all COVID-19 vaccinations will happen at a clinic set up in just seven days.
The first person to get vaccinated Wednesday was Karen Dann, a registered nurse and administrator at Country Terrace, a care home in Komoka dealing with an active COVID-19 outbreak.
BREAKING. Karen Dann who works at Country Terrace care home in Komoka becomes the first person in <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/ldnont?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#ldnont</a> to get the <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#COVID19</a> vaccine. <a href=”https://t.co/9IpuLxdML6″>pic.twitter.com/9IpuLxdML6</a>
“This is going to be a game-changer for us,” said Dann. “We have been in a 10- or 11-month battle now with COVID that we are not winning. We’re not winning in the community and we’re certainly not winning in the long-term care homes.
Dann said COVID-19 has taken a toll on Country Terrace residents and staff and she hopes the vaccine’s arrival means better days ahead.
“We’ve got our armour, we never had a weapon,” she said. “Today we have a weapon. The COVID vaccine is the weapon that we needed to keep our residents safe and our staff safe.”
Cheers went up moments after Dann received the shot from the clinic’s health care workers who will administer thousands of vaccinations in the months to come.
The vaccine’s arrival in London is a welcome Christmas present and comes as Ontario deals with skyrocketing COVID-19 infection numbers, increasing deaths and mounting pressure on hospital intensive care wards.
On Wednesday, London reported 88 new cases, a daily record health officials say is likely to be broken in the coming days as case counts continue to rise.
London’s vaccination clinic will be operated by the Middlesex-London Health Unit in partnership with London Health Sciences (LHSC).
Neil Johnson, LHSC’s COO, led reporters on a tour of the vaccination clinic Wednesday.
‘Everyone is pumped’
Neil Johnson is the Chief Operating Officer at the London Health Sciences Centre. He gave media representatives a tour of the vaccine clinic on Dec. 23, 2020. (Andrew Lupton/ CBC News)
He wouldn’t say exactly how many vaccine doses London has received, estimating it was “a few thousand.”
He said the clinic will start operating four, eight-hour clinics, two clinics this week, resuming again Monday through to Thursday, Dec. 31. If the vaccine supply holds up and enough staff are available, they will move to 12-hours of operation in the New Year.
“This is one of the most exciting days for people who work in health care,” said Johnson. “Everyone is pumped. This is the only thing that is going to turn the corner for our community and for our country.”
Wednesday’s news that Health Canada has approved the Moderna vaccine has the potential to help ease the supply problem in London and elsewhere.
Once delivered to the Agriplex, the Pfizer vaccine can’t be moved because it must be stored at -70 C, which requires special freezers. The Moderna vaccine can be stored in a standard freezer, which makes its distribution less limited, a help in getting the vaccine to more remote and rural areas.
Can’t let up on safety measures
For all the hope the vaccine brings, local health officials have cautioned that its arrival doesn’t mean it’s time to abandon the now familiar measures to guard against infection, such as limiting personal contact to people in your household, wearing a mask, and practising physical distancing.
Mayor Ed Holder tweeted that though this is a crucial milestone in London’s fight against COVID-19, it’s only the first step in what will be a long process.
“The vaccine has arrived, it’s being administered, but this will take time,” he said. “Let’s stay focused, determined and committed. We’re almost there.”
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.
