Édith Blais, centre, and Luca Tacchetto, left, meet with Canada’s ambassador to Mali, Michael Elliott, after being found in Mali. (MINUSMA, the UN Mission in Mali)
The CBC says a Canadian woman, Edith Blais, 34, of Sherbrooke, has apparently escaped captivity after having been abducted with a travelling companion in West Africa 15 months. Ms Blais and Luca Tacchetto 30, had been travelling by car in southwestern Burkina Faso, heading to Togo to do volunteer work, when they vanished around December 15, 2018. They were last seen in the city of Bobo-Dioulasso in southwestern Burkino Faso. The UN mission in Mali has now confirmed to the CBC that the pair is free in neighbouring Mali. The UN said preliminary information suggested Blais and Tacchetto escaped their captors. A civilian vehicle then found them near Kidal and took them to a United Nations camp.
Medical Officer of Health Dr. Eileen de Villa has announced the suspension of all City programs and closure of facilities until April 5. They are:
• City-operated March Break camps are cancelled
• All licensed child care centres
• Community and recreation centres, greenhouses and conservatories, arenas, pools, fitness centres, and ski hills are closed
• Libraries are closed
• City-operated museums and galleries are closed
• Council and Committee meetings are suspended for the current meeting cycle
• Public consultations are suspended
• All event permits for City facilities, including civic centres, recreation facilities, and parks are cancelled (wedding ceremony permits for civic centre Wedding Chambers will be honoured)
Merchants, suppliers say stop worrying about toilet paper
As posted previously, there were controlled panic purchases of such things like toilet paper and paper towels. Unlike Venezuela, Canada can and will continue to make, deliver and market paper products in abundance. Richard Southern touches on this aspect of the economy here.
Friday has seen large crowds shopping for food and household supplies across South Bayview. The phenomenon appears to have been triggered by the cancellation of league sports, travel limitations and enormous losses on stock markets. Behind it all, COVID-19. At Longo’s, lines stretched down aisles and across the store. One shopper guessed she would be 30 minutes checking out. Another called it the Zombie Apocalypse. Some shoppers abandoned their filled carts and left the store rather than wait. At Loblaws on Moore Ave., staff scrambled to refill shelves but seemed unable to keep up with the demand for paper towels, meat, soup, eggs and milk. There were absolutely no bananas, paper towels or maple flavoured cereals.
The world is struggling for context as this tumultuous week nears an end. The National Post offers the reflections of Rose and Greg Yerex. They survived the coronavirus infection and now say that claustrophobia was the worst symptom. Then at the upper right, an escape into a comic-book style hitwoman’s odd world Saturday when author Carole O’Cinneide visits Sleuth of Baker Street on Millwood Rd. between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. Centre left, sadly March Madness weekend has been cancelled because of the virus epidemic. Lower left is a happy glimpse of how one person celebrated Pink Day at Davisville Public School. At lower right is evidence of the odd paper panic associated with coronavirus fear. This scene is from the Metro store at Bayview and Eglinton.
The province will close all public schools in Ontario for two weeks following March Break in response to the novel coronavirus pandemic. In a release, the government said it made the decision on “advice from Dr. David Williams, Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health and the experts at the COVID-19 Command Table.” The order, which will see schools closed from March 14 when March Break begins — until April 5 — has been approved by the Lieutenant Governor in Council. Education minister’s remarks
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s wife Sophie has tested positive for COVID-19. The announcement was made late Thursday after both the prime minister and Mrs Trudeau went into self-isolation earlier in the day. The decision forced the cancellation of an in-person meeting of Canada’s first ministers. The Prime Minister’s Office says Sophie Gregoire Trudeau returned from a speaking engagement in the UK and began exhibiting mild flu-like symptoms, including a low fever late Wednesday night.
Ontario announces 17 new cases for a total of 59
Ontario reported 17 new cases of novel coronavirus infection bringing the total number of cases including recoveries to 59. Two of the new cases are in Waterloo Region, one is in Barrie and nine in Toronto. One is in Ottawa, one in Hamilton, two in Peel Region and one in Halton Region. They range in age from an infant boy at North York General Hospital boy. He is related to a previously announced case. A Mississauga man in his 70s who recently returned from the US was also diagnosed. Eight of the new cases reported recent travel to the United States or its territory of Puerto Rico, One case recently returned from Italy, another returned from Spain and another returned from a myriad of travel across Europe.
A busy shopping Thursday at area Loblaws was marked by what appears to be hoarding in the face of coronavirus fears. Shelves were wiped nearly clear of paper products. To be fair, there was a sale in place but the demand was huge. Stocks of such things are cleaning liquids and soup left many shelves cleared. These pictures were taken at 301 Moore Ave.
The Ministry of Health announced Thursday that it will open dedicated COVID-19 assessment centres across Ontario within days. The stand-alone centres in the GTA are coming to Brampton Civic Hospital, The Ottawa Hospital, North York General Hospital, Mackenzie Health in York Region, Scarborough Health Network and Trillium Health Partners in Peel Region. The centres will be located in separate spaces to protect other patients. More centres are set to be established across the province in the next few weeks. Ontario has also approved new physician billing codes for telephone assessments, which will allow doctors to do more evaluations that way rather than having people come into their clinics. The province is also in the early stages of planning to establish at-home testing.
The stock market plunge which has wiped hundreds of billions of dollars off stock markets continues Thursday after US president Trump declared restrictions of travel from Europe to the United states for 30 days. “We made a lifesaving move with early action on China,” Trump said. “Now we must take the same action with Europe.” The State Department followed Trump’s remarks by issuing an extraordinary global health advisory cautioning U.S. citizens to “reconsider travel abroad” due to the virus and associated quarantines and restrictions.
Hamilton doctor returned from Hawaii
Ontario has announced five new cases of novel coronavirus, including a Hamilton cancer doctor specialist who saw several patients on the day she was diagnosed. The woman, 32, recently returned from Hawaii. She reported to Hamilton Health Sciences Centre with symptoms. But before that, the infected doctor apparently saw patients and colleagues who are now being contacted. She reportedly saw as many as 14 patients on the day she was diagnosed. The provincial total of virus cases is now 42.
NBA suspends season, Raptors told to self-quarantine
With the NBA suspending its season after a player on the Utah Jazz tested positive for COVID-19, the league is asking their recent opponents to self-quarantine, according to ESPN‘s Brian Windhorst. The Toronto Raptors are among the teams that have played against the Jazz over the past 10 days and, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic, the players will have to be in self-quarantine for the next 14 days. Charania added that the Raptors were also given precautionary tests for coronavirus Wednesday night. The Cleveland Cavaliers, New York Knicks, Boston Celtics and Detroit Pistons also played against the Jazz during that stretch and have been asked to self-quarantine.
A water main break has flooded the intersection of Richmond and Simcoe Sts. Wednesday. Work goes on to repair the rupture. The corner has been under construction for weeks.
The World Health Organization has declared COVID-19 a global pandemic and scolded unnamed countries for what it called alarming inaction to battle the virus. WHO said COVID-19 was unknown to world health officials just three months ago but its aggressive nature has romped across carelessly lazy countries to infect more and 121,000 people in Asia, the Middle East, Europe and US. “In the past two weeks the number of cases outside China has increased thirteenfold and the number of affected countries has tripled,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press conference at the organization’s headquarters in Geneva. “In the days and weeks ahead, we expect to see the number of cases, the number of deaths and the number of affected countries to climb even higher,” Tedros said several countries have demonstrated the ability to suppress and control the outbreak, but he accused other world leaders of failing to act quickly enough or drastically enough to contain the spread.
