Politics Insider for January 4: Ontario’s New Restrictions; Newfoundland COVID count; and the fate of Prince Andrew
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A tsunami of new cases: Doug Ford imposed new restrictions on Monday to deal with a wave of omicron infections, delay the return of students to schools by two weeks, the Balloon reports.
Prime Minister Doug ford, at a news conference Monday, said that 1 percent of people infected with the Omicron variant will need hospital care. New daily hospital admissions have reached “triple digits” in Ontario, he said. Given the rapid spread of Omicron, the government said that I had to take action stop the spread in order to protect the health system and the economy. The province reported 1,232 people hospitalized with COVID-19, with a total of 13,578 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday. “We face a tsunami of new cases in the coming days and weeks, ”Ford said. “Virtually everyone in this province will know someone who has been exposed to this virus. Now we are preparing for impact. “
Frustrated: The news was not well received by frustrated Ontarians, Star reports.
Educators and families in Ontario are struggling after the province’s decision to close schools to in-person learning and move students online for two weeks as COVID-19 cases continue to increase. The sudden twist, which begins Wednesday when classes resume after winter break, has frustrated many and has intensified calls for the province to do more to ensure schools reopen safely.
Bad for kids: In Postmedia articles, Dr. Jennifer Grant write that everything is a mistake.
It is almost impossible to list the damages associated with school closings, and many will only be discovered within a few years in economic and social damages that will take generations to recover.
‘Most people will get it’ Newfoundland is also dealing with a growing number of cases, the Balloon reports.
During a news conference Monday, the province’s medical director of health said active case counts increased from 30 to nearly 3,000 in about two weeks, overwhelming public health capacity for case investigations. “Identify each case and contact, which is no longer possible, and our goal at this time is to stop the inevitable spread, ”Dr. Janice Fitzgerald told reporters at St. John’s. “The reality of this virus is that it is so infectious that most people will contract it.”
The American virus: In Maclean’s, your correspondent investigates the misinformation of COVID-19 on social media that makes ending the pandemic much more difficult, and drives the victims of the infodemic to the early graves, and finds the roots of most of our problems in the feverish swamps south of the border.
As we fight the coronavirus, we are also fighting an american virus– Misinformation – that is spread mainly through American social media platforms that have dissolved the old bureaucratic borders against the dark side of American political culture. It is a virus as dangerous as the one that causes COVID-19.
Do something: Maclean’s He also has an editorial on the subject, in which politicians are asked to control the problem.
While our media landscape changed dramatically in recent decades, creating new avenues for malicious actors and street vendors to mislead the public, legislators were left in their hands. Canada’s policy makers must make it easier to track toxic misinformation, seek voluntary compliance from big platforms, regulate where necessary, and empower public health communicators to reject dangerous lies faster and faster.
Families earn: An Ontario court has awarded $ 107 million to the families of six who died when Iran shot down a civilian plane over Tehran almost two years ago, CBC reports. In May, an Ontario court ruled that the plane was shot down in an act of terrorism.
[Lawyer Mark] Arnold has said that his team will seek to seize Iranian assets in Canada and abroad. He said Iran has oil tankers in other countries and that his team will seek to seize whatever it can to pay what the families are owed.
F35 or Gripen-E? Murray Brewster of CBC has an in-depth look in this year’s election between American and Swedish fighters for the Canadian military.
This year’s decision “will be a moment of fork in the road“Said an expert on defense and military affairs. “If we buy the F-35, we would be getting more intricately into an American military alliance, which we have been a part of for decades, but acquiring that particular aircraft would raise that ratio a couple of notches in a couple of years. in different ways, ”said David Perry, senior analyst and vice president of the Canadian Institute for Global Affairs based in Ottawa. If the Swedish aircraft is chosen, it would be the first time in nearly half a century that Canadians have flown more than just a US-designed fighter jet.
Desirable costs: A CBC poll on where Canadians can feel comfortable living, he finds that British Columbia (65 percent) and Atlantic Canada (63 percent) are at the top of the list.
Dishonored prince: In Maclean’s Patricia treble reflect on the fate of Prince Andrew, which seems to go from bad to worse.
Whatever the final results of this week’s legal proceedings, the damage to “Prince Andrew, Duke of York, aka Andrew Albert Christian Edward, in a personal capacity ”, as identified in US legal documents, is incalculable. It has been more than two years since the interview he gave to the BBC about his relationship with Epstein had a boumeral effect on the prince, forcing him to stop making official commitments on behalf of his mother. The pressure only intensifies with each new reveal, including photos from Maxwell’s trial of her and Epstein having fun as Andrew’s guests on the queen’s private Balmoral estate.
Powerless: The arrest of the Canadian Cantonese pop star Denise Ho in Hong Kong, along with six journalists, is a reminder of how little Canada can do to influence China, writes Daphne bramham at Vancouver Sun..
Perhaps we have learned something from that. If so, the big bottom line should be how powerless Canada is to exert any influence over China’s decisions. Gone are the days when Canada boasted that its global influence exceeded its middle power status. And the idea that, somehow, with some 300,000 Canadians living in Hong Kong, Canada might have some influence on the future of the former British colony is naive.
– Stephen Maher
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