The Department of National Defence says dozens of Canadian Armed Forces members who refused to get vaccinated have now been kicked out of the military.
Release proceedings have started for hundreds of others facing the same fate, unless they roll up their sleeves for the COVID-19 shot.
A retired police chief and self-described Reagan Republican with decades of public service, Leonard Moty checked all the boxes to represent his community in one of California’s most conservative counties.
But on Tuesday, voters ousted Moty, handing control of the Shasta county board of supervisors to a group aligned with local militia members. The election followed nearly two years of threats and increasing hostility toward the longtime supervisor and his moderate colleagues in response to pandemic health restrictions.
OTTAWA, Feb 3 (Reuters) – The Canadian government has no plans to send in troops to deal with a vaccine mandate protest by truckers that has brought traffic in central Ottawa to a halt, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Thursday.
More than 200 trucks and other vehicles have been blockading downtown roads in the nation’s capital since last Friday in what is an unprecedented protest by Canadian standards.
The city’s police chief, under fire for a passive response by officers, on Wednesday said using the military was an option.
Ottawa’s mayor is calling on several Conservative MPs and a senator from Saskatchewan to apologize for praising the anti-vaccine mandate protest that has brought the capital’s downtown to a standstill for close to a week.
A photo shows MPs Warren Steinley, Kevin Waugh, Andrew Scheer, Fraser Tolmie, Rosemarie Falk and Sen. Denise Batters grinning — some giving the thumbs-up — in front of one of the protest trucks, which have been barricading roads and honking horns in the city almost non-stop since Saturday.
It wasn’t the most confidence-inspiring of news conferences.
On the sixth straight day of the protest that has immobilized the core of the nation’s capital and harassed local residents, Ottawa officials still gave nothing approaching a timeline of when this all might come to an end.
“I can’t give you a definitive, ‘It’s one day, it’s two days. It’s one week, it’s two weeks,'” police Chief Peter Sloly told council members during a public briefing Wednesday afternoon.
No sense of an end date isn’t what anyone wanted to hear. Even more disturbing, the chief floated the unsettling idea that policing alone won’t end this mess.
A cynic might conclude the CBC is floating trial balloons for the powers that be on the best way to implement a Happy Face Laurentian end to the uppity truckers protest.
Ont. reports 75 net new deaths linked to COVID-19 as hospitalizations, positivity rate continue to decline
Ontario has confirmed another 75 net new deaths linked to COVID-19 today as the province continues to see declines in virus-related hospitalizations and the overall positivity rate.
According to the latest data from the Ministry of Health, there are 2,797 patients with COVID-19 receiving treatment in hospital, including 541 in the ICU. This is down from 3,645 and 599 respectively seven days ago.
541 people are in ICU with #COVID19. 83% of patients admitted to the ICU were admitted for COVID-19 and 17% were admitted for other reasons but have tested positive for COVID-19.
There are 4,098 new cases of #COVID19.
— Christine Elliott (@celliottability) February 3, 2022
Europe entering Covid pandemic ‘ceasefire’, says WHO
The World Health Organization’s (WHO) Europe director says the continent could soon enter a “long period of tranquillity” in the Covid-19 pandemic.
Dr Hans Kluge cited high vaccination rates, the end of winter and the less severe nature of the Omicron variant.
Speaking to reporters, he said: “This period of higher protection should be seen as a ‘ceasefire’ that could bring us enduring peace.”
It comes as a number of European nations end Covid-19 restrictions.
Effective Monday, a new rule from Western Australia Premier Mark McGowan bans unvaxxed parents from seeing their own sick kids in the hospital, the Daily Mail reported.
GoFundMe said Wednesday it has paused and is reviewing the fundraiser for Canada’s trucker convoy that has raised over $10 million to date.
A warning that the fundraiser is “under review” has been posted to its page and donation buttons and a list of previous donors have been removed.
“This fundraiser is currently paused and under review to ensure it complies with our terms of service and applicable laws and regulations,” GoFundMe’s warning reads.
You just know the LPC did this.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the federal government is working with the Ottawa police to put an end to the ongoing trucker protest in the nation’s capital as officials brace for a resurgence in demonstrators in the downtown core this coming weekend.
“We will continue to work with law enforcement agencies to ensure that people are protected and to ensure that this protest, which is now becoming illegal, does come to an end,” Trudeau said in French in the House of Commons on Wednesday, when asked what the federal government is doing to remove truckers from downtown Ottawa as the demonstration stretches into its sixth day.
Ottawa police expect ‘Freedom Convoy’ protest to grow this weekend
Ottawa police say they’re anticipating the “Freedom Convoy” protest that has snarled traffic and filled downtown Ottawa with relentless noise to grow again this weekend as more demonstrators return and that policing may not bring the protest to an end.
“The intelligence that we’re seeing currently is that we will continue to see the convoy attempt to hold what they have,” said deputy chief Steve Bell at a technical briefing on Wednesday. “Expect to see increased vehicular traffic Saturday and through weekend, decreasing Monday.”
Alberta RCMP have clarified reports that officers had been assaulted Tuesday at a protesters’ blockade near the Coutts border crossing, saying that while there were dangerous incidents, no assaults on police had been reported.
The information from police seems to contradict a statement Alberta Premier Jason Kenney made Tuesday while updating media on the tense situation in Coutts, where a blockade of vehicles has snarled traffic since Saturday in a protest against vaccine mandates.
The kids in school who used to call out at the end of the day, “Teacher, teacher, you forgot to assign homework!”, are now in charge in politics and government.
And being good little rule-followers, they are reluctant to ease up and give individuals back the control that so many Canadians willing relinquished early in the pandemic.
COUTTS, ALTA. – There has been a breakthrough to resolve the impasse at a protest blockade at the United States border in southern Alberta.
Chad Williamson, a lawyer representing truckers blocking access to the border crossing at Coutts, Alta., says they have spoken with Mounties and agreed to open some blocked lanes.
Trucks and other vehicles have begun clearing two lanes — one going north and one going south.
Two FDA “approvals,” two shell games.
On Monday, the FDA “approved” Moderna’s Spikevax COVID-19 vaccine for all US customers. Just like the Pfizer “approval” episode, this vaccine will not be able for anyone for an indefinite period of time. And according to the FDA, the shot was approved without being tested for Omicron, which accounts for 99.9% of current U.S. COVID cases.
The White House indicated Tuesday that Spotify’s attempts to address what they described as coronavirus “misinformation” on podcaster Joe Rogan’s interviews was not a strong enough response to the freedom of speech controversy.
Ontario reports 72 more COVID-19 deaths; under 3,000 hospitalizations
Ontario reported 72 more COVID-19 deaths that occurred in the past month and under 3,000 patients in hospital with the virus today as both hospitalizations and ICU capacity continue to gradually decline.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Health says 67 of the latest deaths occurred over the past 24 hours, with four deaths occurring on Feb. 1, 18 deaths on Jan. 31, 17 deaths on Jan. 30 and the remaining deaths in the preceding days.
555 people are in ICU with #COVID19. 83% of patients admitted to the ICU were admitted for COVID-19 and 17% were admitted for other reasons but have tested positive for COVID-19.
There are 3,909 new cases of COVID-19.
— Christine Elliott (@celliottability) February 2, 2022
Experts hopeful about Omicron’s end but wary about what lies ahead
VANCOUVER — The Omicron wave appears to be cresting across the country, but it’s difficult to predict what’s next for the pandemic, experts say.
Prof. Bernard Crespi, an evolutionary biologist at Simon Fraser University, said the development of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 gives clues as to what might come.
Omicron evolved to evade pre-existing immunity and reproduce at a much faster rate, he said.
