Another weekend safety blitz at big-box stores across Ontario has led to 20 tickets thus far, resulting in a 59 per cent compliance rate.
“There’s no excuses at this point in the game,” Minister of Labour Monte McNaughton said on Sunday afternoon. “Every business knows what to do.”
The other week Brian Lilley and I engaged in a video debate about lockdowns that was posted to YouTube.
My perspective was, broadly speaking, that many of the current restrictions in Ontario aren’t really necessary and they need to be rolled back. I won’t speak for Brian — you can find the video online to hear what we both had to say — but he had a differing opinion from some of the points I made.
Canada may be a G7 country, and we may be a top 10 economy in the world, but when it comes to vaccinating our population, we’re 23rd and falling.
Just two weeks ago we were 12th in the world.
Ontario is reporting 1,848 cases of #COVID19 and nearly 49,400 tests completed. Locally, there are 726 new cases in Toronto, 306 in Peel and 168 in York Region.
As of 8:00 p.m. yesterday, 339,644 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered.
— Christine Elliott (@celliottability) January 31, 2021
Lights still on in federal buildings in National Capital Region even as civil servants work from home
The lights remain on at some federal government buildings in Canada’s capital region, even though most civil servants have been working at home for nearly a year to stop the spread of COVID-19.
Responding to photographs taken by CBC News showing lit-up office towers before dawn, Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) said that while occupancy levels are currently reduced, federal buildings remain operational.
“As part of its commitment to energy savings, Public Services and Procurement Canada turns off non-essential lighting where possible during non-working hours,” reads a statement from the department, which runs and maintains federal buildings.
Los Angeles County public health officials announced restaurants and breweries are allowed to reopen, but “televisions or other screens that broadcast programming must remain off until further notice.”
Canadians are understandably feeling anxious and impatient when it comes to the question of vaccine availability.
After all, Canada is falling behind numerous other countries when it comes to overall percentage of the population that’s been vaccinated, we’ve seen disruptions in the delivery of the two vaccines that have been approved for use here, and we’re hearing all sorts of protectionist rumblings that could further disrupt — or block — vaccine shipments.
Twitter threw me in the gulag for speaking out against baseless COVID-19 fear mongering. My sin, according to their COVID-19 monitoring team (which is an army of “fact checkers” who follow loose guidelines set forth by the World Health Organization, a massively corrupt “global health organization” that is largely beholden to the Chinese government): expressing contempt for an article about COVID-19 variants.
With Canadian governments now scrambling to contain the spread of COVID-19 and its variants, a petition signed by thousands of parents in York Region last January that was condemned as racist at the time, now sounds prophetic.
Attacked by politicians, public health officials and media pundits for promoting fear and hysteria, it begs two questions…
The first step is admitting you have a problem. So, let’s do that: Canada is doing a terrible job fighting COVID. How terrible? The Lowy Institute, one of Australia’s most-respected think tanks, is tracking pandemic metrics to gauge the performance of 98 countries as they respond to this global crisis. Canada ranks 61st. We are behind El Salvador, Belarus and Myanmar.
And the Lowy rankings do not yet take into account vaccination rates. Among nations which have access to the vaccine, and keeping in mind we were one of the first nations to get that access, we rank 35th with a per capita rate one fifth the United States’. It gets worse. Today it was revealed that even that low number is inflated because the Ford government in Ontario has been incompetently double-counting vaccinations.
SYDNEY (Reuters) – BGI Group, the world’s largest genomics company, has worked with China’s military on research that ranges from mass testing for respiratory pathogens to brain science, a Reuters review of research, patent filings and other documents has found.
…But top U.S. security officials have warned American labs against using Chinese tests because of concern China was seeking to gather foreign genetic data for its own research. BGI has denied that.
…Chinese technology companies have come under increasing scrutiny by the United States and were subject to mounting restrictions under the administration of Donald Trump. In November, the Department of Commerce proposed a rule to add gene editing software to the U.S. export control list, saying it could be used to create biological weapons. Officials in the new administration of President Joe Biden have signalled a continued tough approach to what they see as a rising threat from Beijing.
So long as President 10% gets his cut everything is AOK!
The Biden administration has been blasted after it was revealed that COVID-19 vaccines will be offered to Guantanamo Bay detainees, including Al Qaeda terrorists and 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, as early as next week.
Prosecutor Clayton Trivett Jr, who is leading the case against five terrorists behind the September 11 attacks, made the disclosure in a letter to defense lawyers Thursday.
‘[A]n official in the Pentagon has just signed a memo approving the delivery of the Covid-19 vaccine to the detainee population Guantánamo,’ he wrote, according to the New York Times.
The COVID-19 response is slowly squeezing the lives out of people like a Boa Constrictor would.
This evil snake, like those slithering along enjoying the power this troubling time gives them, is wrapping around us and sucking people’s breath a little at a time.
An incorrect COVID-19 test in Dallas led to an Edmonton woman being detained the Calgary airport and being sent to a federal isolation facility.
Pastor Chris Mathis wrote an emotional Facebook post Thursday night detailing what his wife, Nikki, had gone through when her flight from Dallas had arrived.
Federal law states anyone returning to Canada must have had a negative COVID-19 test before they board their aircraft. Nikki said she went for a test in Dallas but the doctor administered the wrong one.
Ontario is reporting 2,063 cases of #COVID19 and nearly 59,600 tests completed. Locally, there are 713 new cases in Toronto, 379 in Peel and 178 in York Region.
As of 8:00 p.m. yesterday, 336,828 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered.
— Christine Elliott (@celliottability) January 30, 2021
MPs question what ‘best reasonable effort’ means for drug companies as vaccine deliveries dwindle
The fineprint of pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca’s vaccine delivery contract was cause for concern among members of the House of Commons defence committee on Friday as politicians questioned the military officer in charge of the distribution effort.
Despite temporary cuts to upcoming shipments from both Moderna and Pfizer, Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin, head of pandemic logistics at the Public Health Agency of Canada, stuck with his optimistic assessment that the drug companies will meet their commitments to deliver millions of doses before the end of March.
It means Trudeau is recognized as a punk idiot and the world pushes him around.
