Coronavirus Update: How safe is school? It depends on your neighbourhood

Good evening, here are the coronavirus updates you need to know tonight.

Top headlines:

1. How safe is school? It depends on your neighbourhood
2. Californians are wedged between two disasters: a pandemic and wildfires
3. Far-right extremists try to enter German parliament after mass protest against COVID-19 restrictions

In Canada, there have been at least 127,673 cases reported. There have also been at least 113,501 recoveries and 9,113 deaths.

Worldwide, there have been at least 24,452,629 cases confirmed and 831,586 deaths reported.

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: Updates and essential resources • Coronavirus in maps and charts • Lockdown rules and reopening plans in each province • Global rules on mask-wearing • Back to school

Photo of the day

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Number of the day

38,000

Berlin saw a crowd of 38,000 on Saturday protesting measures to contain the coronavirus. Far-right extremists then tried to storm the German parliament building following the protest but were forcibly removed by the police. Protests against mask-wearing and other COVID-19 restrictions also took place in Paris, London and elsewhere on Saturday.

Coronavirus in Canada

• In Edmonton, Alberta Precision Labs has been piloting pooled testing, a new method that could allow labs to analyze more samples of COVID-19 using fewer resources. The process works by combining a number of samples from different people and testing the combined sample. If the sample tests positive, then members of that group are each tested individually to determine who has the virus.
• Two members of the Canadian military who recently flew back to their base in Newfoundland from a Middle East training mission on Aug. 24 have tested positive for COVID-19, the Defence Department said Saturday. All of the crew and passengers have stayed in isolation on the base.
• The Sofina Foods/Lilydale poultry processing plant in Calgary will remain open after 27 employees contracted the virus, according to a company spokesperson. All of the employees were on the same shift and the remaining staff who were working at the same time have also been asked to stay home.

As the federal Conservative leadership race played out in the midst of COVID-19, candidates, supporters and voters had to be physically distanced. Beyond changes in campaigning norms, a central concern for political parties is their fundraising capacity amidst social distancing. With the prospect of another federal election around the corner, political parties are pivoting to Zoom calls, Facebook Live events and biking around parks to gain support.

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The Globe and Mail conducted an analysis looking at recent COVID-19 cases in five major Canadian cities — Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Ottawa and Edmonton — to understand the risks of new outbreaks from school reopening. The analysis found that in four cities, there is so little coronavirus circulating that most neighbourhoods meet the terms of a Harvard guide for safely reopening schools, as long as there are measures in place to control outbreaks.

• Read more: Virtual parties, online movie nights and mandatory masks: Universities prepare to reopen

Coronavirus around the world

• In California, the long-standing climate crisis has started an unseasonably early and aggressive start to the annual wildfire season, sparking two of the biggest blazes in the state’s history. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has only added more challenges for the wildfire response effort.
• La Palma Correctional Center, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility, in Arizona has reported 233 new COVID-19 cases. This single-day increase outstrips that of other detention centres, which are mainly single-digit numbers. The increase also brings La Palma’s total to 356 cases.
• Around 38,000 protestors attend a mass protest against mask-wearing and other COVID-19 restrictions in Berlin, Germany. Some wore T-shirts promoting the “QAnon” conspiracy theory or displaying white nationalist slogans and neo-Nazi insignia. Far-right extremists also tried to storm the German parliament but were forcibly removed by police.

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Globe opinion

• Doug Saunders: “Around the world, the two headline crises of 2020 – the COVID-19 pandemic and the mass awareness of racial injustice and segregation – have exploded not across entire countries or cities but, most often, in specific neighbourhoods. In North America and Europe, they’re places a lot like Bergsjon: apartment districts on the inner-suburban edge where, in the 21st century, most immigrants and other low-income groups have struggled to climb the economic ladder.”
• Katie Mack: “Possibly the best way to think of space-time is as an emergent phenomenon – something that isn’t automatically written into the structure of reality, but appears in our universe anyway, not so much as an illusion, but as an unexpected circumstance we happen to find ourselves in.”
• Thomas Homer-Dixon: “Anxiety about the future, detachment, self-deception, and feelings of resentment and helplessness – this is a perilous psychological state, the starting line of a fast track to the end of hope. It also makes the future we fear far more likely to happen, because the best way to ensure we’ll fail to solve our problems is to believe we can’t.”

Distractions

For the art lover: The enduring magic of Bob Ross

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Bob Ross is having a moment. The Joy of Painting, his PBS show – where he taught what looks like a simple method of creating landscape oil paintings – still airs on public television across the U.S. Twenty-five years after his death, his shows have also become a sensation on the gaming platform Twitch, and on Netflix.

Now Canada is home to his second solo show. The Penticton Art Gallery, a tiny institution in an Okanagan beach town, has created an original exhibition, Bob Ross: Happy Little Accidents.

Information centre

• Rob Carrick’s 10-point checklist of things you should have done by now to protect or improve your money situation. Tips for minimizing damage to your credit score; how to manage retirement anxiety during difficult times; and things to think about if you’re considering home delivery.
• Here are the expectations for self-isolation; tips for managing anxiety and protecting your mental health; and what to do if you think you have the virus. Wash your hands. How to break a bad habit (like touching your face). Is flying safe?
• The best foods to eat to maintain an immune system-friendly diet; and how to keep a healthy diet while working from home; four eating tips when working from home; and five mistakes that might cause you to gain unwanted weight. Here are the essentials to stock up on and how to shop safely for groceries; the best pantry staples and how to stop stress-eating. What to cook with rhubarb (aside from pie).
• Here’s what you should do if you are newly laid off; how to apply for CERB, EI, and other financial benefits; how the CRA might identify CERB fraud; and other coronavirus and employment questions answered. What to do if your employees don’t return to work because they want to collect CERB.

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