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Canada lacks national public health standards for testing residents and staff in long-term care homes for COVID-19 and that is leaving many regions without an essential tool for detecting and controlling the spread of infections as a growing number of facilities are declaring outbreaks.
British Columbia, Alberta and Manitoba don’t require staff to be tested for the virus even after a nursing home declares an outbreak of COVID-19. The protocol is to screen staff for symptoms at the beginning and end of their shifts. Testing is reserved for residents who have symptoms of the virus.
Health care experts say it is difficult to curb the spread of the virus in long-term care homes without vigorous testing. Simply monitoring residents for symptoms, they say, fails to detect the virus in many elderly people afflicted with COVID-19 who are asymptomatic.
More coverage:
- Virus forces closing of 500 continuing care beds, creating a bottleneck
- Ontario’s Peel region sees surge in workplace COVID-19 infections
- Top experts tapped to lead probe of pandemic warning system, allegations from scientists
Employees of a stretcher service wear personal protective gear as they return a resident to Parkview Place personal care home, which is experiencing an outbreak of the coronavirus disease, in Winnipeg, November 2, 2020.SHANNON VANRAES/Reuters
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Will the pandemic reshape landmark high streets such as Queen West and Robson?
Toronto’s Queen Street West is dotted with closed shops, “for lease” signs and vacant storefronts. In Vancouver, on downtown Robson Street, things are only a bit more lively.
Downtown destination streets such as Robson and Queen West, along with Water Street in St. John’s, and Rue Ste. Catherine in Montreal – have been slammed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
These high streets have always been seen as barometers of urban public life and retail health. They were already facing pressure, with increased competition from Amazon, as well as quick-delivery food options and casual eateries. Now everyone is watching closely to see what happens next. Will they survive and re-emerge, or will they be transformed into something less than what they once were?
More from our Future of Cities series:
Green wave: How Canadian cities are creating new park space
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ALSO ON OUR RADAR
BlackBerry looks to sell majority of its patents as its refocuses: BlackBerry is looking to sell most of its intellectual property in a deal that could mark another turning point for the fallen former smartphone giant and hinder Ottawa’s innovation strategy efforts.
New report outlines how Val-d’Or’s boreal woodland caribou can be saved: The boreal woodland caribou is in a precarious situation because its natural habitat around Val-d’Or, in western Quebec, has been transformed over the years by logging and mining. But a new scientific report offers a path to saving the herd.
Foreign Affairs Minister says Ottawa poised to act against China’s interference in Canada: Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne says Ottawa is planning new measures to crack down on the kinds of intimidation tactics used by Beijing to target Canadians who are critical of China.
Stepping up: An Indigenous-owned airline helps Northern communities: Teara Fraser was a single mom struggling to make ends meet when she took a trip to Africa that changed her life. Now she owns the first female-run Indigenous airline with a goal to boost Indigenous tourism and is one of 18 women featured in a coming graphic novel anthology by DC Comics called Wonderful Women of History.
MORNING MARKETS
World markets tread water: Global shares were little changed and oil rose on Wednesday as weak U.S. retail sales and a surge of new coronavirus cases tempered recent enthusiasm from positive COVID-19 vaccine headlines. Just before 6 a.m. ET, Britain’s FTSE 100 was down 0.15 per cent. Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 gained 0.19 per cent and 0.21 per cent, respectively. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei finished down 1.10 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.49 per cent. New York futures were steady. The Canadian dollar was trading at 76.57 US cents.
WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT
Campbell Clark: “So here is a simplified guide for MPs: Don’t hire relatives. To elaborate: Don’t hire your siblings, or children, or your stepchildren, or your spouse, or in-laws. Don’t hire your colleagues' siblings or spouses or children and so on. And, since Mr. Scheer’s situation raised the question, don’t hire your spouse’s employer, either, because, as other parties noted, that looks like a quid pro quo. In fact, if you have an ethical question that begins with the words, ‘Am I allowed to hire my …’ then assume the answer is ‘No.’ ”
Andrew Coyne: “By sparing provinces the long-run costs of their actions, the federal government is not only encouraging them to take more risks with the pandemic than they might otherwise, but is adding to its own future liabilities. So Ottawa has good reason to want more influence over provincial decisions, if only to correct for its earlier, unintended influence.”
Editorial Board: “If governments are going to act, they have to act now. And if they are going to stay the course, they have to be confident that current measures will suffice. Because of the long time lags from contact to infection to symptoms to, in the worst cases, hospitalization, there is no opportunity to ‘wait and see’ how things go.”
Konrad Yakabuski: “Health transfers will top the agenda at the federal-provincial first ministers' meeting in early December. It will be difficult for Mr. Trudeau to plead poverty, having continually boasted of Ottawa’s strong fiscal position to justify pandemic-related spending.”
TODAY’S EDITORIAL CARTOON
Brian GableBrian Gable/The Globe and Mail
LIVING BETTER
Going outside and exercising is going to be key for your mental health this winter. Here’s how to do it
With a second wave of COVID-19, it’s unlikely that there will be much exercising or socializing indoors this winter. So stock up on snowshoes, skis, boots, warm clothing and all the other gear you’ll need to get active and stay comfortable outdoors over the coming season. Because let’s face it, your mental health may depend on it.
MOMENT IN TIME: NOV. 18, 1939
Author Margaret Atwood, October 21, 1980. Photo by James Lewcun / The Globe and Mail.James Lewcun/The Globe and Mail
Margaret Atwood is born
“At the age of six months, I was carried into the woods in a packsack, and this landscape became my hometown.” Neither the opening of a novel nor a dramatic pandemic response, that’s how Margaret Eleanor Atwood once described her early life. Born to an entomologist father and former nutritionist mother, Atwood and her family would head into Northern Quebec each spring, where her father ran an insect research station. Instead of watching movies or hanging with school friends, the children would occupy themselves with the outdoors and reading. By 9, Atwood was earning Brownie badges with her handmade books. In high school she announced she would become a writer – a young Canadian woman setting out into a literary landscape where Canadian authors were not international successes. She paddled her own canoe and cleared the way for generations of Canadians, producing more than 50 novels – several of which have been adapted for film and TV – essays, books of poetry and graphic novels, winning countless awards around the world. She’s also the inventor of the LongPen, which uses robotics for distance signing – making it as prescient as her novel The Handmaid’s Tale, a tool for our simmering dystopia. — Alison Gzowski
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