| | Good evening, here is the latest on the coronavirus outbreak for Thursday, Aug. 26, 2021.
Go to cbc.ca/news for complete coverage. |
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|  | Small business owners cite enforcement, liability as concerns for vaccine passport systems. |
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| | Vaccine mandate announced for staff at some of Canada's largest private long-term care operators. |
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| | World roundup: COVID-19 developments in Africa, Japan and South Korea. |
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 | A 110-foot ferris wheel is seen in Times Square in New York City on Wednesday. As part of the city's push to vaccinate residents, 100 rides are being offered each day for free through Sept. 12 to those who have received the COVID-19 vaccine. (Scott Heins/Getty Images) | | | | Vaccine cards will be implemented on Sept. 13 in British Columbia, Premier John Horgan and Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry told reporters earlier this week.
Initially, eligible British Columbians will require proof of one dose of vaccine. By Oct. 24, two doses will be required. The cards will be required for a wide range of non-essential recreational and social activities.
The new vaccine card will be available online for use on a smart phone, but for those who can't access proof of vaccination digitally, the province says a "secure alternative option" will be available. Horgan said efforts are underway to make sure the cards can't be forged or hacked.
Manitoba this week also promised more details soon on a planned passport system in which the vaccinated can access various non-essential activities, while Quebec also gave an update on how it is pushing ahead on plans there, with the health minister saying the presence of the more dangerous delta variant makes a vaccine passport system necessary in the province.
Alberta, Saskatchewan, much of Atlantic Canada and Ontario don't appear to have such plans. Some regional public health officials in Ontario, apparently displeased with the stance of the province, have talked openly this week about some kind of passport plan at a regional level, though there are significant questions about how workable the idea is.
While steering away from the political considerations of such a scheme, Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease physician with the University of Toronto, told CBC News on Thursday that jurisdictions can't go wrong by being prepared.
"If I were a province that is not yet issuing a vaccine certificate program I would at least go through the motions of setting something up, with the full realization you may not pull the trigger to do it, but if you need to pivot, at least you have the infrastructure in place, the communication in place, if you choose to pivot at a later date," said Bogoch.
Multiple public polls since the spring have recorded a high degree of support among Canadians for a vaccine passport system, and the B.C. Restaurant and Foodservices Association expressed its support for the planned system in that province. As well, the province says there's been a noticeable bump in vaccinations since their announcement.
While the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses (CFIB) has expressed nominal support for vaccine passports, it says the "devil is in the details."
CFIB says its members have expressed concerns about enforcement falling to them, as well as their legal obligations and exposure to human rights complaints. Many independent businesses are already struggling with recruitment of staff in a pandemic. Those concerns were generally echoed by some Manitoba business owners who spoke to CBC News.
"I don't understand how individuals are forced to police something within their own business for something like that, to actually ask people for, 'Hey where's your medical record?' " said Jae Park, owner of TRP Academy, a martial arts studio.
There are also concerns about privacy and data security to be addressed in any passport plan, although one Montreal-based digital security analyst says his initial impressions of Quebec's VaxiCode app are positive.
While it appears much of the public will have an enhanced sense of security with a passport system in place, CBC's Sickboy podcast asks a number of questions in its latest edition, including whether a policy initiative that is not easy to implement is worth the cost and resources, considering it could be "transitory" in nature and wouldn't be necessary once the coronavirus pandemic is over.
After all, Canada's vaccination rates will only grow, and it appears likely that many Canadians in the near future will receive booster shots. In addition, due to the delta variant, many jurisdictions are re-implementing other mitigation measures such as capacity limits, distancing and masking. While an overwhelming number of hospital cases are now among the unvaccinated, it is also likely that at some point, a vaccinated person would transmit the virus even under a passport system. | | | |  | Recent studies show a drop in effectiveness for COVID-19 vaccines, but the lack of information about how severe breakthrough cases were has sparked a debate about whether booster shots are necessary. Watch the full video here. |
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IN BRIEF | | | | A group of major Canadian long-term care operators will require COVID-19 vaccination for all staff this fall.
Chartwell Retirement Residences, Extendicare, Responsive Group Inc., Revera Inc., and Sienna Senior Living issued a joint statement Thursday about the plan.
The group says employees who aren't fully vaccinated as of Oct. 12 will be placed on unpaid leaves of absence.
The timing comes as more provinces discuss vaccine mandates, passports and certificates. In fact, the Oct. 12 date was laid out by British Columbia officials earlier this month as they announced a new public health order that would make vaccination mandatory and is a condition of employment for those working in long-term care and assisted living facilities.
Conditions described in the facilities early in the pandemic provoked public outrage and led to political inquiries in provinces such as Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec, as well as recommendations for reform nationwide in the industry.
Working conditions in the industry have been under scrutiny in the wake of these type of reviews, and a B.C. union spokesperson recently warned that while it supported its members getting vaccinated, a mandate could push some out of the industry, adversely affecting staffing levels.
A slight majority of Canada's nearly 2,100 long-term care homes are privately owned, with most of those comprising for profit-companies. It's not clear what the vaccination uptake levels are like with respect to long-term care employees. | Read the full story |
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| | | | A third wave of COVID-19 infections in Africa has stabilized and the continent's slow vaccination drive has picked up pace, the World Health Organization said on Thursday.
Some 248,000 new cases were reported in the past week, down from 282,000 in mid-July, while the number of vaccinations tripled to 13 million, Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organization's regional director, told an online news conference.
Africa, with a population of 1.3 billion, has experienced a third wave of infections since May, straining health systems in countries from South Africa to Tunisia, Zambia and Senegal, where vaccination rates are far lower than in Europe and North America.
COVAX — the global vaccine distribution program co-led by WHO to purchase vaccines for poorer countries — initially hoped to vaccinate 20 per cent of people in Africa this year, but it has been plagued by delays. WHO now hopes to vaccinate 10 per cent of people in Africa by the end of September, Moeti said.
The WHO Africa director said 13 million doses were administered in the past week, three times more than the number of shots given in the previous week as donations of doses increased from developed countries.
In the Asia-Pacific region, Moderna Inc said it has withheld supply of about 1.63 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine in Japan after a report of contamination of vials with particulate matter, which it suspects involves a production line in Spain.
South Korea, meanwhile, has become the first major central bank in the world since the pandemic began to raise interest rates.
In Europe, a Hungarian orchestra conductor received a COVID-19 vaccine booster shot onstage during a free open-air concert in Budapest on Wednesday as part of an effort to encourage people to get vaccinated. | |
|  | Stay informed with the latest COVID-19 data. | |
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| | Find out more about COVID-19 | | For full coverage of how your province or territory is responding to COVID-19, visit your local CBC News site.
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Still looking for more information on the pandemic? Reach out to us at covid@cbc.ca if you have any questions. | |  | | (With files from CBC News, The Canadian Press, The Associated Press, Reuters) |
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