The Honda Celebration of Light, a mid-summer fireworks festival held in Vancouver for the past 30 years has been cancelled due to COVID-19. Organizers are considering alternatives.
This is the week medical experts discovered that COVID-19 has been circulating in North America much longer than expected. That nasty cold you had in January or February might very well have been COVID-19. Tests to see who has had the disease are finding more results than expected, but the tests are not super reliable.
Meanwhile, it’s been six weeks of covidian self-isolation and social distancing. The days are all blurring together, it’s hard to focus and time is flying by.
This week, B.C. has 1,824 cases, 94 people have died and 103 people are in the hospital, including 46 in intensive care.
Last week, B.C. had 1,575 cases, 78 people had died and 120 people were in the hospital, including 56 in intensive care. The number of people who have recovered rose from 983 last week to 1,092 this week, leaving B.C. with 638 active cases. We’ve tested 68,553 people, or 13,519 per million. If you’re comparing to Worldometer, B.C. now has 360 cases per one million in population and has had 19 deaths per one million in population.
Last week, Canada had 30,092 cases and 1,193 deaths. This week, Canada has 42,750 cases and 2,390 deaths. The number of deaths has 2,197 in the past week, and the number of cases has gone up by 42 per cent.
Dr. Bonnie Henry, B.C.’s provincial health officer, is cautiously optimistic.
“We have averted a major crisis in our province and it's because people have done what we asked them to,” Henry said.
Remarkable, unprecedented changes continued this week. Here’s my list:
- Canada’s Parliament agreed to meet once a week in person and twice a week online. Britain’s Parliament is operating in a similar way.
- The price of oil plunged below zero for a time this week and carbon emissions will likely fall by five per cent this year.
- More than 26 million people are unemployed in the United States and by mid-April nearly six million Canadians applied for the Canada Emergency Response Benefit.
- Forty per cent of Canadians are now working from home, Statistics Canada reported. People with at least a bachelor’s degree are more likely to be able to work from home.
- All airline travellers must now wear a mask.
- An elderly Asian man was attacked in East Vancouver, part of what police characterize as a wave of anti-Asian hate crimes linked to COVID-19.
- The Canada-U.S. border will stay closed until at least May 20. That’s the second 30-day closure.
- Germany and New Zealand announced plans to partially reopen their countries and send students back to school.
- Several homeless advocates broke into Strathcona elementary school in east Vancouver. The advocates said homeless people are not able to be socially distant. They were arrested.
- The province of B.C. brought in $2,000 fines for people who are caught reselling medical supplies or price gouging.
- The province of B.C. widened its testing strategy so that anyone with COVID-19 symptoms can now get tested.
- There is an outbreak of COVID-19 in a chicken processing plant in Vancouver and the outbreak at the Mission Institution correctional institute continues. Dr. Henry says “presenteeism” or pressure to come to work when you’re sick must stop. Employers are encouraged to give paid sick leave.
- The province brought in new rules so that companies and organizations can have virtual general meetings during the pandemic.
- The first significant wildfire of note in B.C. for this year broke out in Squamish this week. The weather has been sunny for most of the pandemic in B.C., with very little rain.
- Dr. Bonnie Henry has said B.C. may be ready to relax some restrictions by mid-May. She encourages businesses, sports teams and schools to start thinking about how they might restart in a socially-distant way to prevent transmission of COVID-19.
- Nearly 100 physicians and more than 1,000 nurses in B.C. who have left medical practice have returned to help with the COVID-19 outbreak.
- The Celebration of Light, a fireworks competition in B.C., has been cancelled for this year.
- The Calgary Stampede is cancelled.
- Dr. Henry said large events like the Pacific National Exhibition will not be able to go ahead and people planning weddings and funerals should “think small.”
- Oktoberfest in Germany and the running of the bulls in Spain are both cancelled.
- A small study of the use of hydroxychloroquine for the treatment of COVID-19 found that it didn’t work.
- Turkey, Russia and Brazil had steep climbs in their numbers of cases.
- The New York Times reports the coronavirus has brought a food crisis to millions of people around the world. People have lost their incomes, international supply chains are disrupted and the people who grow the food are often temporary foreign workers, who are not as mobile.
- Two pet cats tested positive for COVID-19.
- Work is underway for a vaccine – with one promising candidate at Oxford University in England beginning human trials soon.
- Work is also underway for treatments and one promising candidate was developed in Vancouver at the University of British Columbia.
- People are avoiding emergency rooms and family doctors’ offices, sometimes putting themselves at risk.
- The Canadian government is providing $9 billion in support to students affected by COVID-19
- Canada Post is seeing a huge increase in the number of packages it is delivering. They say it’s “Christmas level.”
- Some banks and credit unions in Canada have reduced their hours and now require appointments to visit a branch.
- The Dr. Bonnie Henry John Fluevog shoe broke the Fluevog website when it went on presale on Thursday.
Let’s hope next week brings better news and that those countries that are tentatively stepping out are able to do so with some success. Stay healthy, everyone.
To make sure you never miss a post, click to subscribe.
留言