While Hollywood actors and directors mill around the streets of Alberta’s picturesque Canmore, the very storefronts they use to film their Hallmark movies are closed down.
“China eats weird animals disease”
Provinces should impose tougher COVID-19 restrictions now, says WHO Flunkie
OTTAWA – Canada’s chief public health officer is calling for tougher COVID-19 restrictions to be imposed immediately in many parts of the country as new case numbers continue to rise.
Provinces like Ontario still have hotspots where the epidemic is not under control, Dr. Theresa Tam told reporters in Ottawa on Friday, and the situation threatens to overwhelm critical-care workers.
Tam said provinces need to re-evaluate the measures they have in effect now because case numbers are continuing to grow.
Ford confirms Toronto and Peel lockdowns will be extended, says announcement coming Monday on other restrictions
Premier Doug Ford says that his government will be making an announcement on Monday regarding what its next steps will be amid the surging number of COVID-19 cases in the province.
Ford made the comment as he delivered prepared remarks prior to an emergency meeting via teleconference with 113 Ontario hospital leaders.
He said that the lockdown orders in Toronto and Peel that are set to expire next week will be extended and that his government will have “additional information on Monday for the balance of the province.”
Ontario reports 2,290 new Covid infections
Ontario is reporting nearly 2,300 new cases of COVID-19 ahead of an announcement from the Ford government that could see new restrictions introduced in some regions.
The Ministry of Health says that there were 2,290 new cases of the disease caused by the novel coronavirus confirmed on Thursday as well as an additional 40 deaths. That is down from the record 2,432 infections reported one day prior but it still represents the second highest number that we have ever seen in a single day.
The rolling seven-day average also continues to rise and now stands at 2,089, which is up 11.6 per cent from this time last week and nearly 19 per cent from two weeks ago.
Doug Ford says ‘everything is on the table’ as pressure mounts for wider and stricter COVID-19 lockdowns
Premier Doug Ford is under mounting pressure to impose wider lockdowns and make them more strict as the daily number of new COVID-19 cases continues to rise, hitting another record and risking a major surge over the holidays.
The Ontario Hospital Association called on Ford to put almost half of the province’s regional health units into a four-week lockdown along with Toronto, Peel Region, York Region and Windsor-Essex when he announces the weekly changes to public health measures Friday.
The COVID Vaccine Messaging Is Just Getting More Confusing
Is it just me, or is the messaging on the COVID vaccines more than a little off? Here’s NBC medical analyst Dr. Vin Gupta either contradicting himself, moving the goalposts again, or just saying the vaccine can’t be trusted yet but he’s getting it anyway to virtue-signal to us unwashed commoners.
China’s Horrific Triumph
As the end of the year approaches, we must reluctantly acknowledge that it has been a year of unimaginable triumph for America’s only serious rival, the People’s Republic of China. We will probably never know exactly how the coronavirus originated, and there appears to be a plausible scientific consensus that it was not deliberately and artificially created in the Wuhan viral laboratory, but it does seem likely that it originated there, rather than in the live-animal market of that city. In any case, there can be no possible doubt that once the Chinese government became aware of the virus, it took draconian measures, even by totalitarian standards, to contain and suppress it within China, and did absolutely nothing to prevent its spread out of China to the four corners of the world. The government of the People’s Republic, as is its frequent habit, went to very great lengths to disguise the extent of the virus in China, and the published official number of fatalities is a ludicrous underestimate. There is news film of special Chinese police riveting and welding shut the doors of homes and buildings to contain people at the height of the pandemic in that country, and there are many credible reports of special crematoria to dispose of the corpses of the very numerous victims.
Ontario reports new record 2,432 Covid cases
Ontario set a new record for COVID-19 cases detected for the second time this week, with 2,432 new infections, as 23 more deaths were reported and intensive care unit occupancy and ventilator use continued to rise.
“Locally, there are 737 new cases in Toronto, 434 in Peel, 209 in York Region, 190 in Windsor-Essex County and 142 in Hamilton,” Health Minister Christine Elliott wrote on Twitter.
Toronto’s top doctor urges people to call out friends, family who plan to break COVID-19 holiday rules
Toronto’s top doctor is urging people to call out friends and family who intend to break COVID-19 lockdown measures and gather during the holidays.
Speaking at a news conference Tuesday afternoon, Toronto’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Eileen de Villa said that this year’s holiday season poses “a real threat” and demands “difficult decisions.”
PIC – Masks reduce COVID-19 transmission between hamsters
CSIS warns of threats to vaccine distribution chain
The country’s spy agency is warning companies in the vaccine supply chain that malicious foreign actors could threaten the largest inoculation program in Canadian history — by targeting their workers, among other tactics.
Just prior to the arrival of hundreds of thousands of vaccine doses in Canada, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) recently offered a briefing to industry players about the emerging threat.
One of the people taking part in that briefing was Pina Melchionna, president of the Canadian Institute of Traffic and Transportation. The non-profit association helps Canadian companies manage delivery logistics.
Sounds like Justin’s China boys.
We Don’t Know if COVID Vaccines Are Safe
Last week, the Canadian government refused to tell the public whether it had granted legal immunity to COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers. Health Canada said it couldn’t release “details of its contracts due to confidentiality clauses.”
On Monday, this changed. A cabinet minister has now acknowledged that pharmaceutical companies will be protected from lawsuits in the event that Canadians are harmed.
Europe Confronts Second Wave of Coronavirus
The German government has reimposed strict lockdown measures in an effort to reverse a spike in Covid-19 infections. Beginning on December 16, all non-essential shops and businesses, as well as all schools and daycare centers, will be closed until at least January 10.
The new restrictions, which were agreed upon after talks between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the leaders of Germany’s 16 federal states, come after less intrusive lockdown measures that began on November 2 failed to significantly bring down the number of infections.
Mall security FORCEFULLY eject woman with PTSD for not wearing a mask — despite exemption
You’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Audrey Pinnell was accosted, harassed and assaulted by mall security on her way to meet a friend at White Oaks Mall in London, Ontario, for a cinnamon bun — a criminal act indeed.
Viral Panic
Situated between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara counties on the California coast, Ventura County boasts a population of about 850,000, living amidst pristine beaches, occasionally snowcapped mountains, and plentiful farmland. Since April, Ventura County’s 7-day rolling average for deaths attributed to Covid-19 (SARS-CoV-2) has only barely exceeded 2 a handful of times, and for the past 14 days our County has had one death due to the Coronavirus. Only 0.02% of the population has succumbed to Covid-19 and to the best of my ability to determine, all of these poor souls were elderly and/or had comorbidities.
Wearing a used mask could be worse than no mask amid COVID-19: study
Wearing a used mask could be more dangerous than not wearing one at all when it comes to warding off COVID-19, a new study has found.
A new three-layer surgical mask is 65 percent efficient in filtering particles in the air — but when used, that number drops to 25 percent, according to the study published Tuesday in the Physics of Fluids.
With A Bleak Awards Season Looming, Hollywood Enters 2021 Changed Forever
The pandemic continues to act as a great cultural accelerant, bulldozing institutions that were lurching slowly towards irrelevance. The impending awards show season may be COVID’s last big cultural casualty before the dawn of the new normal.
The question is whether that damage is irreversible. For the entertainment industry, this question looms large over awards shows and, more importantly, movie theaters. As summer faded to fall, some in Hollywood optimistically believed the months-long national theater closure had created a pent-up demand that would boost new releases like “Unhinged” and “Tenet.”