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Why these Canadians living abroad have no plans to move home amid the coronavirus – Global News

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Living abroad during a global health crisis can create concerns about whether coming back home is the best option. 

For many Canadians who’ve spent years away, returning to North America amid the coronavirus outbreak may not be ideal, or even possible.

“I am not expecting Canada to fly people out anytime soon,” said Jason So, a Torontonian who has lived in Seoul, South Korea, for more than eight years. 

“I am more worried about flights being blocked for us to leave commercially or the costs associated with self-isolation for two weeks when — and if— I return to Canada,” he explained.

Coming back to Canadian soil could risk his family’s health, and he doesn’t have a place to return to, said So, 34. 

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South Korea is one of the countries most impacted by the spread of the coronavirus (referred to officially as COVID-19), with more than 6,000 cases reported. 

Officials there have been praised for administering more than 140,000 tests for the virus, resulting in a low death rate and the number of cases dropping in the last few days. Although there’s been a comparatively high number of infections in South Korea, So says his day-to-day life in the country where he runs a restaurant hasn’t changed drastically.

“Seoul does not feel like it’s dangerous or a fearful place to be, it is very orderly and everyone is taking it one day at a time,” he said to Global News via e-mail. 

Canadian officials evacuated hundreds of its citizens out of Wuhan, China, the epicentre of the COVID-19 outbreak, last month along with those on the Diamond Princess cruise ship docked in Japan. When they returned all had to engage in a 14-day quarantine to ensure they posed no risk to the public. 

Returning back to Canada simply isn’t practical at the moment, but the mood in South Korea is one of concern, said So. 






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“Most busy and bustling places are very empty these days so the effects on retail and food and beverage is of great concern on top of all the health risks involved with this virus,” he said.

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There has been xenophobia against Chinese people and come cafes are refusing customers from China, he said.

“Expats are trying their best to avoid going out like most locals in Korea,” he added. 

As he runs a business in South Korea, his feelings on whether he wants to stay will be more dependent on whether he can withstand an economic downturn, he explained. “Or I could cut my losses and be home with family, where I obviously would feel safer,” he said. 

‘There’s no reason to come home’


Leora Courtney-Wolfman says she feels comfortable in Austria. Supplied by Leora Courtney-Wolfman


Supplied by Leora Courtney-Wolfman

Canadian Leora Courtney-Wolfman lives in Vienna, Austria, where there are currently 55 confirmed cases of the coronavirus. But what might be more concerning is the tiny European country borders Italy, where around 4,000 people have been infected and nearly 200 have died.

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“With being near Italy, the Viennese are kind of famous for being blase, very indifferent and not making a big deal about things,” said Courtney-Wolfman, 35. 

Many seem fairly tense and hand sanitizer is being marked-up in stores. But overall, most are calm, she explained. However, the side of the country that’s closer to Italy may be behaving differently, she added.


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To those in Vienna, Italy seems as far away as Vancouver does for Torontonians, she explained. 

Originally from Toronto, Courtney-Wolfman has lived in Vienna for seven years and works as a demographic researcher. She has no plans to return to Ontario amid the coronavirus outbreak.

“There’s no reason to come home. I’ve been following the story in Toronto out of interest … It seems they’ve developed a response plan after SARS that’s doing well,” she said.

“We will have to see what happens in Vienna. It’s a great city to live in, but there’s a lot more people in all of Europe in a much smaller space than Canada.”

One positive about living in Austria, as opposed to Canada, is that the work culture has always encouraged employees to stay home if they are sick, she said. 

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“If you have a mild headache or cough, you’re not going to come into work for a few days … there’s no pressure,” she said. 

“People are less worried because if you’re sick, you don’t see anyone until you’re better. A lot of Canadian cities, you feel guilted into coming into work,” she explained. 

Travel plans haven’t changed

In Germany, there are 349 reported cases of the new coronavirus, which was a steady increase from less than 250 in early March. 

Kevin Caners, originally from Brockville, Ont., has called Berlin home six years and says the extent of the coronavirus impact is starting to feel more omnipresent. 

“It depends a lot on your particular community. The general [mood] is a little on edge or expectant, there’s definitely been shortages all over the city,” he said. Products like pasta, rice and flour have been sold out across Berlin, he explained. 


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Caners says he and his girlfriend just bought tickets to come home to Canada for a short visit this June. Those travel plans were on his agenda before the virus, he explained.

Kevin Caners says he plans to come back to Canada on a planned vacation there. Photo by: Christina Peters.

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“I’m personally dreaming, hoping, expecting that it will eventually blow over. I have no actual idea, but I have a hunch eventually it will blow over,” he said.

“I’m 34, so I’m not in the high at-risk community or demographic, so that plays into it. If I was older or had health complications, I’d be much more concerned.”

‘Everyone is working together’

After living in South Korea for nearly two years, Evan Przesiecki says he’s not overly concerned about his safety in the country. 

He teaches English in Seoul, South Korea, and has returned to Canada once in 2018 for the Christmas holidays.

The government is taking the necessary precautions and public schools across South Korea have closed to encourage teachers and students to stay at home,” he said.

“Above this, workers like myself are still being paid during this unexpected time off, so financially things are sound too.”

Even though South Korea has faced other outbreaks like SARS and H1N1, like many other countries, the current scenario seems unprecedented, he said. 

“People are avoiding mass gatherings, like going to the movies … it’s a shame. Right now is usually a great time for tourism,” he said.

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“But now everyone is working together to ensure that we control this situation as quickly as possible.”


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Friends and family in Canada have asked Przesiecki if he’s nervous about the virus since the first cases were reported in Wuhan, he said. But the Korean government’s response has made him feel fairly comfortable where he is, he explained. 

“I worked very hard to get my job here in Seoul, and I do have my life here at the moment. Korea has been so welcoming and good to me,” he said.

“It’s hard to just say I’ll drop a place I very much considered home at the moment when there are so many uncertainties.”

Living in Seoul as opposed to Daegu — the centre of Korea’s outbreak — has given Przesiecki some distance from the majority of those infected, he said. 

Regardless of where you live, be informed of this virus, he said. 

“It’s very important that everyone educates themselves about the situation and not to spread fear,” he said.

© 2020 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

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As sports betting addiction takes hold in Brazil, the government moves to crack down

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SAO PAULO (AP) — “King” doesn’t disclose his real name. Even clients of his Sao Paulo newsstand have to call him by his moniker. The Brazilian online sports gambling addict lowered his profile after a loan shark threatened to put bullets in his head if he didn’t pay up.

Broke and embarrassed, King sought treatment and support earlier this year.

“I was once addicted to slot machines, but then sports betting was so easy that I changed. I got carried away all the time,” he told The Associated Press.

King’s story is that of many vulnerable Brazilians in recent years. The country has become the third-biggest market in the world for sports betting, following the U.S. and the U.K., a report by data analysis company Comscore said last year. But unlike those countries, rampant advertising and sponsorship have been coupled with an unregulated market. The government is now — belatedly, some say — striving to get a handle on the epidemic.

On a recent evening, King’s Gamblers Anonymous meeting took place in an improvised classroom inside a church, with coffee and cookies to keep everyone awake, and supportive messages scrawled onto the blackboard. One that’s become ubiquitous in Brazil and beyond: “Only for today I will avoid the first bet.”

King and other attendees, all Christian, started a prayer and the meeting began.

King said his financial problems arose from his addiction to online sports betting, chiefly on soccer.

“I miss the adrenaline rush when I don’t bet,” he said before the gathering. “I have managed to stop for a couple of months, but I know that if I do it once again, even a small bet, it will all come back.”

Driven by the pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic was a key driver for Brazilians embracing sports betting. King said he transformed almost every sale during that time into a bet. His hook was the non-stop advertising on TV, radio, social media as well as sponsorship of local soccer teams’ jerseys. He asked for bank loans to pay his gambling debts and then, to cover those, went to the moneylender. His total debt now amounts to 85,000 reais ($15,000) — impossible to pay off with his monthly income of 8,000 reais.

Digging oneself out of debt in Brazil is especially daunting with its sky-high interest rates. Loans from Brazilian banks could add interest of almost 8% per month to the borrowed sum, and from loan sharks could be even more.

Four Gamblers Anonymous meetings attended by the AP in October featured discussions about difficulties paying down debts, forcing working-class members to postpone housing payments and cancel family vacations.

Some members of impoverished Brazilian families have used welfare money for betting instead of paying for groceries and housing, official data suggests. In August, beneficiaries of Brazil’s flagship program Bolsa Familia spent 3 billion reais ($530 million) on sports betting, according to a report from the central bank. That was more than 20% of the program’s total outlay in the month.

A host of gambling related problems

Sports betting was made legal in 2018 in a bill signed by former President Michel Temer. The subsequent turmoil has recently been setting off alarm bells, with addicts venting on social media and media reports of people losing huge sums.

On Oct. 1, the economy ministry prevented more than 2,000 betting companies from operating in Brazil for having failed to provide all the required documents. Soccer-loving President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in an interview on Oct. 17 that he will shut down the entire market in Brazil if his administration’s new regulations — presented at the end of July— fail to work. And Brazil’s Senate on Oct. 25 opened an investigation into betting companies, focusing on crime and addiction.

“There’s tax evasion, money laundering of organized crime, the use of influencers to trick people into betting. These companies need to be audited,” Sen. Soraya Thronicke, who proposed the inquiry, told journalists in Brasilia.

Sérgio Peixoto, a ride-sharing app driver in Rio, is one of many lower-middle-income Brazilians who have reduced their spending due to sports betting debt. Peixoto’s debt currently amounts to 25,000 reais ($4,400). His monthly income is four times less than that.

“It stopped being a game, it wasn’t fun. I just wanted to get the money back, so I lost even more,” said Peixoto, 26. “I could have invested that money. It would surely have given me more benefits.

Pressure to bet

Pressure on people to gamble is everywhere. Current and former soccer players, including Vinicius Júnior, Ronaldo Nazário and Roberto Rivellino, are among the poster boys for local and foreign brands. All but one of the top-tier soccer clubs have betting companies among their main sponsors, with their name and logo emblazoned on their kits. There have been cases of kids and teenagers setting up accounts using their parents’ personal information and money, multiple local media outlets have reported.

Brazil’s economy ministry estimates that Brazil’s sports betting market had $21 billion in transactions last year, a 71% increase compared with the first year of the pandemic, 2020.

The ministry’s newly presented regulations include facial recognition systems for gamblers to bet, the identification of a single bank account for transactions involving sports betting, new protections against hackers and the government-authorized domain, bet.br, which will host all betting sites that are legal in Brazil. Once they are in place, come January, between 100 and 150 betting companies will continue to operate in the South American nation.

The changes in Brazil have prompted some companies to take preemptive action. A report by Yield Sec, a technical intelligence platform for online marketplaces, said several betting companies voluntarily restricted their operations in different places after the latest editions of the European Championships and Copa America in the hopes of presenting “the best possible license application face to the Brazilian authorities.”

Magnho José Santos de Sousa, the president of the Legal Gambling Institute, a betting think tank, said Brazil is currently “invaded by illegal websites that have licenses in Malta, Curação, Gibraltar and the United Kingdom.”

De Sousa expressed hope that the new regulations for advertising, responsible gambling and qualification of sports betting companies will transform the country’s deregulated arena into a more serious one that doesn’t exploit the vulnerable.

“The whole operation could turn from water into wine,” he said.

Gamblers Anonymous in high demand

Meantime, the demand for Gamblers Anonymous meetings in Sao Paulo has grown so much in recent years that the weekly gathering, in place since the 1990s, was no longer enough. Many groups have added a second day in the week to help new people recover, mostly sports bettors.

Earlier in October, a group on Sao Paulo’s northern edge admitted a man who was struggling with sports betting and card games. The 13 other people in the room stressed that he wasn’t alone.

“Welcome,” one long-time attendee said, in a greeting that has become a regular for the group. “Today, you are the most important person here.”

___

Dumphreys reported from Rio de Janeiro.



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Saskatchewan’s Jason Ackerman improves to 6-0 at mixed curling nationals

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SAINT CATHARINES, Ont. – Saskatchewan’s Jason Ackerman remained undefeated on Wednesday with a 7-4 win over Newfoundland and Labrador’s Trent Skanes at the Canadian mixed curling championship.

After going down 3-1 through four ends, Ackerman (6-0) outscored Skanes (3-3) 6-1 the rest of the way, including three points in the seventh end.

Alberta’s Kurt Alan Balderston also earned a win, defeating New Brunswick’s Charlie Sullivan 9-2 in another matchup in the final draw.

The win improved Balderston’s record to 4-2 and sits in third in Pool B.

The top four teams from each pool will play four more games against the survivors from the other pool. The remaining three teams from the pool will play three more seeding games to help set the rankings for next year’s event.

The championship final is scheduled for Saturday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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Oilers fall 4-2 to Golden Knights in McDavid’s return from injury

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EDMONTON – Noah Hanifin had a pair of goals as the Vegas Golden Knights won their first road game of the season, coming from behind to shock the Edmonton Oilers 4-2 on Wednesday.

Jack Eichel had a goal and two assists and Mark Stone also scored for the Golden Knights (9-3-1), who have won two in a row and six of their last seven. The Knights entered the game 0-3-1 on the road this year.

Brett Kulak and Zach Hyman replied for the Oilers (6-7-1), who have lost two straight despite getting captain Connor McDavid back from injury earlier than expected for the game.

Adin Hill made 27 saves for Vegas, while Stuart Skinner managed 31 stops for Edmonton.

Takeaways

Golden Knights: With an assist on the Knights’ second goal, William Karlsson has recorded at least a point in all five games he has played this season (two goals, four assists).

Oilers: McDavid was a surprise starter for the Oilers, coming back just nine days after suffering an ankle injury in Columbus and initially being expected to miss two to three weeks. The star forward came into the contest with 11 points (three goals, eight assists) during a six-game point streak versus the Golden Knights, but was held pointless on the night.

Key moment

With just 48.4 seconds left to play, the Golden Knights won a race to the corner and Ivan Barbashev was able to send it out to a hard-charging Hanifin, who sent a shot glove-side that beat Skinner for his second goal of the third period and third of the season.

Key stat

It was Hyman’s third goal in the last four games after the veteran forward went scoreless in his first 10 games this season following a 54-goal campaign last year. Hyman now has five goals in his last six games against Vegas.

Up next

Golden Knights: Head to Seattle to face the Kraken on Friday.

Oilers: Travel to Vancouver on a quick one-game trip to clash with the Canucks on Saturday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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