Good evening, here are the COVID-19 updates you need to know tonight.
Top headlines:
- In Beijing, tens of millions of residents are submitting to multiple COVID-19 tests in the hopes that the city can prevent a lockdown like Shanghai.
- The pandemic has settled down to a point where it appears we can live a mostly normal existence again, writes Rob Carrick. But in the financial world, we are heading for a period of disruption like we haven’t seen since the 1980s and 90s.
- Both Ontario and Quebec continue to see increased hospitalizations and ICU patients for COVID-19.
In the past seven days, there were 410 deaths announced, up eight per cent over the same period. At least 6,475 people are being treated in hospitals. Canada’s inoculation rate is 13th among countries with a population of one million or more people.
Sources: Canada data is compiled from government websites, Johns Hopkins and COVID-19 Canada Open Data Working Group; international data is from Johns Hopkins University.
Coronavirus explainers: Coronavirus in maps and charts • Tracking vaccine doses • Lockdown rules and reopening
Photo of the day
A couple on opposite sides of a gate in a neighborhood under lockdown in Shanghai on April 25.THE NEW YORK TIMES/The New York Times News Service
Coronavirus in Canada
- Ontario saw another day of increases for hospitalizations and ICU patients, while also reporting 22 new deaths from the virus.
- Quebec was also reporting more patients in the hospital, as well as ICU, with 9,514 health-care workers off the job due to infection.
Coronavirus around the world
- In Shanghai, more than 20,000 bankers, traders and other workers have been sleeping in office towers in an attempt to keep China’s giant financial hub running during the lockdown. Now, a lobbying group is urging authorities to let them go home. Meanwhile in Beijing, 20 million of the city’s 22 million residents will be tested for COVID-19 three times this week.
- Dr. Anthony Fauci said the coronavirus is under better control in the United States. but the pandemic isn’t over – and the challenge is how to keep improving the situation. Fauci’s comments came after he told the Washington Post that the country was finally “out of the full-blown explosive pandemic phase.”
- In a document from the European Commission outlining the strategy for the postemergency phase of the pandemic, Brussels urged governments to continue pushing for the immunization of the unvaccinated, especially children, before the start of next school season in the autumn.
Coronavirus and business
Companies in North America and Europe plan to give more employees an equity stake in their businesses to help retain talent amid a pandemic-induced “Great Resignation,” a survey showed on Wednesday.
- “By granting condition-linked shares to more employees as part of an LTI, companies are … supporting potential wealth creation for the longer term and helping to stop some workers living from paycheque to paycheque,” said Danyle Anderson, chief executive at GEO, the not-for-profit organization behind the survey.
- Many companies also said they were paying close attention to where staff carried out their work and could use the information to change worker pay.
Also today: Rob Carrick asks, are you prepared for the pandemic wealth boom to blow up in our faces?
Information centre
- Everything you need to know about Canada’s travel restrictions for vaccinated and unvaccinated people
- Where do I book a COVID-19 booster or a vaccine appointment for my kids? Latest rules by province
- What is and isn't 'paid sick leave' in Canada? A short primer
- Got a vaccine 'hangover'? Here's why
Sources: Canada data are compiled from government websites, Johns Hopkins University and COVID-19 Canada Open Data Working Group; international data are from Johns Hopkins.
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