Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City flattened three buildings and killed at least 42 people Sunday, Palestinian medics said _ the deadliest single attack in the latest round of violence. Despite the toll and international efforts to broker a cease-fire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signaled the fourth war with Gaza’s Hamas rulers would rage on.
In a televised address, Netanyahu said the attacks were continuing at “full-force” and would “take time.“ Israel “wants to levy a heavy price” on the Hamas militant group, he said, flanked by his defense minister and political rival, Benny Gantz, in a show of unity.
Hamas also pressed on, launching rockets from civilian areas in Gaza toward civilian areas in Israel. One slammed into a synagogue in the southern city of Ashkelon hours before evening services for the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, Israeli emergency services said. No injuries were reported.
In the Israeli air assault, families were buried under piles of cement rubble and twisted rebar. A yellow canary lay crushed on the ground. Shards of glass and debris covered streets blocks away from the major downtown thoroughfare where the three buildings were hit over the course of five minutes around 1 a.m.
The hostilities have repeatedly escalated over the past week, marking the worst fighting in the territory that is home to 2 million Palestinians since Israel and Hamas’ devastating 2014 war.
“I have not seen this level of destruction through my 14 years of work,” said Samir al-Khatib, an emergency rescue official in Gaza. “Not even in the 2014 war.”
Rescuers furiously dug through the rubble using excavators and bulldozers amid clouds of heavy dust. One shouted, “Can you hear me?” into a hole. Minutes later, first responders pulled a survivor out. The Gaza Health Ministry said 16 women and 10 children were among those killed, with more than 50 people wounded.
Haya Abdelal, 21, who lives in a building next to one that was destroyed, said she was sleeping when the airstrikes sent her fleeing into the street. She accused Israel of not giving its usual warning to residents to leave before launching such an attack.
“We are tired,” she said, “We need a truce. We can’t bear it anymore.”
The Israeli army spokesperson’s office said the strike targeted Hamas “underground military infrastructure.”
As a result of the strike, “the underground facility collapsed, causing the civilian houses’ foundations above them to collapse as well, leading to unintended casualties,” it said.
Among those reported killed was Dr. Ayman Abu Al-Ouf, the head of the internal medicine department at Shifa Hospital and a senior member of the hospital’s coronavirus management committee. Two of Abu Al-Ouf’s teenage children and two other family members were also buried under the rubble.
The death of the 51-year-old physician “was a huge loss at a very sensitive time,” said Mohammed Abu Selmia, the director of Shifa.
Gaza’s health care system, already gutted by an Israeli and Egyptian blockade imposed in 2007 after Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces, had been struggling with a surge in coronavirus infections even before the latest conflict.
Israel’s airstrikes have leveled a number of Gaza City’s tallest buildings, which Israel alleges contained Hamas military infrastructure. Among them was the building housing The Associated Press Gaza office and those of other media outlets.
Sally Buzbee, the AP’s executive editor, called for an independent investigation into the airstrike that destroyed the AP office on Saturday.
Netanyahu alleged that Hamas military intelligence was operating inside the building and said Sunday any evidence would be shared through intelligence channels. Neither the White House nor the State Department would say if any had been seen.
“It’s a perfectly legitimate target,” Netanyahu told CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
Asked if he had provided any evidence of Hamas’ presence in the building in a call Saturday with U.S. President Joe Biden, Netanyahu said: “We pass it through our intelligence people.”
Buzbee called for any such evidence to be laid out. “We are in a conflict situation,” Buzbee said. “We do not take sides in that conflict. We heard Israelis say they have evidence; we don’t know what that evidence is.”
Meanwhile, media watchdog Reporters Without Borders asked the International Criminal Court on Sunday to investigate Israel’s bombing of the AP building and others housing media organizations as a possible war crime.
The Paris-based group said in a letter to the court’s chief prosecutor that the offices of 23 international and local media organizations have been destroyed over the past six days. It said the attacks serve “to reduce, if not neutralize, the media’s capacity to inform the public.”
The AP had operated from the building for 15 years, including through three previous wars between Israel and Hamas. The news agency’s cameras, operating from its top floor office and roof terrace, offered 24-hour live shots as militant rockets arched toward Israel and Israeli airstrikes hammered the city and its surroundings.
“We think it’s appropriate at this point for there to be an independent look at what happened yesterday – an independent investigation,” Buzbee said.
The latest outbreak of violence began in east Jerusalem last month, when Palestinians clashed with police in response to Israeli police tactics during Ramadan and the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers. A focus of the clashes was the Al-Aqsa Mosque, a frequent flashpoint located on a hilltop compound revered by both Muslims and Jews.
Hamas began firing rockets toward Jerusalem on Monday, triggering the Israeli assault on Gaza.
At least 188 Palestinians have been killed in hundreds of airstrikes in Gaza, including 55 children and 33 women, with 1,230 people wounded. Eight people in Israel have been killed in some of the 3,100 rocket attacks launched from Gaza, including a 5-year-old boy and a soldier.
Hamas and the Islamic Jihad militant group have acknowledged 20 fighters killed in the fighting. Israel says the real number is far higher and has released the names and photos of two dozen alleged operatives it says were “eliminated.”
The assault has displaced some 34,000 Palestinians from their homes, U.N. Mideast envoy Tor Wennesland told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council, where eight foreign ministers spoke about the conflict.
Efforts by China, Norway and Tunisia to get the U.N. body to issue a statement, including a call for the cessation of hostilities, have been blocked by the United States, which, according to diplomats, is concerned it could interfere with diplomatic efforts to stop the violence.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Al-Malki urged the Security Council to take action to end Israeli attacks. Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Gilad Erdan, urged the council to condemn Hamas’ “indiscriminate and unprovoked attacks.”
The turmoil has also fueled protests in the occupied West Bank and stoked violence within Israel between its Jewish and Arab citizens, with clashes and vigilante attacks on people and property.
On Sunday, a driver rammed into an Israeli checkpoint in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where Palestinian families have been threatened with eviction, injuring six officers before police shot and killed the attacker, Israeli police said.
The violence also sparked pro-Palestinian protests in cities across Europe and the United States.
Israel appears to have stepped up strikes in recent days to inflict as much damage as possible on Hamas as international mediators work to end the fighting and stave off an Israeli ground invasion in Gaza.
The Israeli military said it destroyed the home Sunday of Gaza’s top Hamas leader, Yahiyeh Sinwar, in the southern town of Khan Younis. It was the third such attack in the last two days on the homes of senior Hamas leaders, who have gone underground.
Israel on Thursday said it was massing troops along the Gaza frontier and calling up 9,000 reservists ahead of a possible ground invasion of the Hamas-ruled territory, as the two bitter enemies plunged closer to all-out war.
This follows a clarification from Israeli officials that there are “currently” no ground troops inside Gaza, citing an “internal communications” error that informed reporters that Israeli ground troops had entered the territory.
Egyptian mediators rushed to Israel for cease-fire efforts but showed no signs of progress.
The stepped-up fighting came as communal violence in Israel erupted for a fourth night, with Jewish and Arab mobs clashing in the flashpoint town of Lod.
The fighting took place despite a bolstered police presence ordered by the nation’s leaders.
The four-day burst of violence has pushed Israel into uncharted territory — dealing with the most intense fighting it has ever had with Hamas while simultaneously coping with the worst Jewish-Arab violence inside Israel in decades.
A late-night barrage of rocket fire from Lebanon that landed in the sea threatened to open a new front along Israel’s northern border.
Early Friday, the Israeli military said air and ground troops struck Gaza in what appeared to be the heaviest attacks yet.
Masses of red flames illuminated the skies as the deafening blasts from the outskirts of Gaza City jolted people awake.
The strikes were so strong that people inside the city, several kilometers away, could be heard screaming in fear.
“I said we would extract a very heavy price from Hamas,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a videotaped statement. “We are doing that, and we will continue to do that with heavy force.”
The fighting broke out late Monday when Hamas, claiming to be the defender of Jerusalem, fired a barrage of long-range rockets toward the city in response to what it said were Israeli provocations.
Israel quickly responded with a series of airstrikes.
Since then, Israel had attacked hundreds of targets in Gaza. The strikes set off scores of earth-shaking explosions across the densely populated territory.
Gaza militants have fired nearly 2,000 rockets into Israel, bringing life in the southern part of the country to a standstill.
Several barrages targeted the seaside metropolis of Tel Aviv, some 70 kilometers away.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said the death toll has climbed to 103 Palestinians, including 27 children and 11 women, with 530 people wounded.
The Hamas and Islamic Jihad militant groups have confirmed 20 deaths in their ranks, though Israel says that number is much higher.
Seven people have been killed in Israel, including a 6-year-old boy.
In Washington, President Joe Biden said he spoke with Netanyahu about calming the fighting but also backed the Israeli leader by saying “there has not been a significant overreaction.”
He said the goal now is to “get to a point where there is a significant reduction in attacks, particularly rocket attacks that are indiscriminately fired into population centers.”
He called the effort a “a work in progress.”
Thursday’s visit by Egyptian officials marked an important step in the cease-fire efforts.
Egypt often serves as a mediator between Israel and Hamas, and it has been a key player in ending past rounds of fighting.
The officials met first with Hamas leaders in Gaza before holding talks with Israelis in Tel Aviv, two Egyptian intelligence officials said.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. Hamas’ exiled leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was also in touch with the Egyptians, the group said.
Israeli firefighters take cover as a siren sounds warning of incoming rockets fired from Gaza strip, at the southern Israeli town of Ashkelon, Tuesday, May 11, 2021. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Despite those efforts, the fighting only intensified. Israeli aircraft pummeled targets in Gaza throughout the day.
And late Thursday, Israel fired tank and artillery shells across the border for the first time, sending scores of terrified residents fleeing for safety.
The airstrikes have destroyed scores of buildings, including three high rises. Israel says the buildings housed Hamas militants or facilities, but civilians were inside as well.
In the northern Gaza Strip, Rafat Tanani, his pregnant wife and four children were killed after an Israeli warplane reduced the building to rubble, residents said.
Sadallah Tanani, a relative, said the family was “wiped out from the population register” without warning. “It was a massacre. My feelings are indescribable,” he said.
Israel has come under heavy international criticism for civilian casualties in Gaza fighting. It says Hamas is responsible for endangering civilians by hiding and launching rockets from civilian areas.
Late Thursday, Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz ordered the mobilization of an additional 9,000 reservists.
The chief military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Hidai Zilberman, said troops were massing along the Gaza border for a possible ground operation.
He said tanks, armored vehicles and artillery were being prepared “for mobilization at any given moment.”
Hamas showed no signs of backing down. It launched several intense barrages of rockets throughout the day and fired its most powerful rocket, the Ayyash, nearly 200 kilometers (120 miles) into southern Israel.
The rocket landed in the open desert but briefly disrupted flight traffic at the southern Ramon airport.
Hamas also launched a drone that Israel said it quickly shot down.
Hamas military spokesman Abu Obeida said the group was not afraid of a ground invasion, saying any invasion would be a chance “to increase our catch” of dead or captive soldiers.
Gaza marks deadly Eid al-Fitr as tensions rise during holiday
The fighting cast a pall over the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, normally marked by family gatherings and festive meals. Instead, the streets of Gaza were mostly empty.
Hassan Abu Shaaban tried to lighten the mood by passing out candy to passers-by but acknowledged “there is no atmosphere” for celebrating.
“It is all airstrikes, destruction and devastation,” he said. “May God help everyone.”
The current eruption of violence began a month ago in Jerusalem, where heavy-handed Israeli police tactics during Ramadan and the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers ignited protests and clashes with police.
A focal point of clashes was Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, built on a hilltop compound that is revered by Jews and Muslims.
Israel regards Jerusalem in its entirety as its capital, while the Palestinians want east Jerusalem to be the capital of their future state.
The violent clashes between Arabs and Jews in Israel resulted in scenes not witnessed in more than two decades.
The confrontations erupted again late Thursday. Jewish and Arab mobs battled in the central city of Lod, the epicenter of the troubles, for a fourth consecutive night, despite a state of emergency and heavy police presence.
A Jewish man was shot and seriously wounded, and Israeli media said a second Jewish man was shot.
In the Tel Aviv neighborhood of Jaffa, an Israeli soldier was attacked by a group of Arabs and hospitalized in serious condition.
The fighting deepened a political crisis that has sent Israel careening through four inconclusive elections in just two years.
After March elections, Netanyahu failed to form a government coalition. Now his political rivals have three weeks to try to do so.
Those efforts have been greatly complicated by the fighting. His opponents include a broad range of parties that have little in common.
They would need the support of an Arab party, whose leader has said he cannot negotiate while Israel is fighting in Gaza.
Naftali Bennett, leader of a small right-wing party, was quoted as saying he did not believe an alternate coalition could be formed in the current atmosphere.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid, who is leading the coalition-building efforts, said the country was facing an “existential threat” and urged Bennett to join him to help rescue the country.
Greyhound Canada is permanently cutting all bus routes across the country, shutting down the intercity bus carrier’s operations in Canada after nearly a century of service.
The motor coach company said its remaining routes in Ontario and Quebec will cease permanently on Thursday.
Its American affiliate, Greyhound Lines, Inc., will continue to operate cross-border routes to Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver once the border reopens.
The decision comes a year after Greyhound Canada temporarily suspended all service due to a sharp decline in passengers and mounting travel restrictions amid the first wave of COVID-19.
The bus carrier has struggled for years with declining ridership, increasing competition and deregulation.
But the complete loss of so-called farebox revenue during the pandemic has forced the company to permanently cease operations, said Greyhound Canada senior vice-president Stuart Kendrick.
“It’s been a very tough decision and one we’ve taken with a heavy heart,” he told The Canadian Press in an interview. “It’s been a lifeline for many Canadians for more than 90 years. This will have a massive impact.”
The decision is a blow to rural and remote areas that rely on a patchwork of private intercity bus companies for transportation.
The service has long been part of a network linking smaller communities and big cities, offering an affordable and convenient mode of travel for everyone from essential workers and students to the elderly and backpackers.
Yet the rise in car ownership, ride sharing, discount airlines and urban migration has slowly eroded bus ridership, leading Greyhound Canada to gradually reduce the frequency of some services and cut other routes altogether.
“Private carriers are relying on the farebox revenue to maintain these rural routes,” Kendrick said. “When ridership declines, we have a decision to make. We either cut the frequency, exit the rural markets or look for some help.”
Citing declining ridership, deregulation and subsidized competition, Greyhound Canada suspended all operations in Western Canada in 2018.
Yet despite the ongoing challenges with its remaining routes, nothing could have prepared the company for the dramatic 95 per cent drop in passengers at the outset of the pandemic, Kendrick said.
Multiple coach bus companies teamed up and approached the federal and provincial governments for financial aid amid mounting COVID-19 restrictions. But Kendrick said they were referred to existing pandemic supports _ what he called “negligible” for the beleaguered passenger transportation industry _ prompting Greyhound Canada to temporarily suspend all service last May.
“There’s really been a lack of support,” Kendrick said. “We don’t get subsidies.”
Intercity bus carriers are also competing with publicly funded train and transit systems, he said, putting private companies at a disadvantage.
The Ontario government has also promised to deregulate the intercommunity bus industry starting in July, a move that would end Greyhound Canada’s control of certain routes.
“We have had exclusive private bus service on certain corridors,” he said, noting that it provided passengers with safe, frequent and affordable service.
“Greyhound Canada’s tough decision today is going to have a massive impact on customers, especially those riding in the rural network.”
About 260 employees were laid off after Greyhound Canada temporarily ended its passenger service last May. An additional 45 employees will be laid off as a result of the permanent closure, Kendrick said.
The Amalgamated Transit Union lamented the impact of the shutdown on workers and said it will leave thousands of people without transportation options.
“This is devastating news for the thousands of Canadians, especially those from Indigenous and First Nations communities, who have relied on Greyhound for transportation,” said the union’s international president, John Costa, in a statement.
Greyhound plans to sell the bus stations it owns, Kendrick said. As for its leased properties, some of the agreements have expired or have an “out clause,” while it will honour the terms of leases it’s obliged to continue paying, Kendrick said.
The company said tickets for travel after Thursday will be refunded. Customers with a valid travel voucher can also request a refund.
All Ontario and Quebec routes that were temporarily suspended in May 2020 will permanently end as of midnight on Thursday. The routes are:
– Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal
– Toronto-London-Windsor
– Sudbury-Ottawa/Toronto
– Toronto-Kitchener/Guelph/Cambridge
– Toronto-Niagara Falls
– Ottawa-Kingston
Riders across Canada said they were disappointed by Greyhound’s closure, such as 68-year-old Robyn Brown, who used to take the Greyhound bus to travel to Toronto when she lived in Niagara Falls, Ont.
Now living in Vancouver, Brown has also used Greyhound bus routes to visit friends from smaller towns in British Columbia that aren’t serviced by other forms of public transit.
Before the pandemic, she and her husband planned to take a Greyhound from Vancouver to Winnipeg to save on travel fare.
“I’m really sad to see that it’s going, I really am,” she said, adding that she would now fly to Winnipeg or Toronto if she wanted to travel between provinces.
Lisa Baril in Calgary said she has childhood memories of taking a Greyhound bus to visit her grandparents in Kelwood, Man.
As an adult, Baril said she would pick up her grandmother from the Greyhound station in Calgary whenever she’d visit.
“She would say (Greyhound’s closure) is a shame,” said Baril about her late grandmother. “She would probably get frustrated and say `well how am I going to see you guys now?”’Michael Clark, 35, from Waterloo, Ont., said that in college, he used to take the Greyhound bus almost every month to visit his parents in Kingston, Ont., from Ottawa.
“When I moved back to Kingston, I would take day trips into Toronto on weekends by catching the earliest and latest buses in and out,” he said, adding that he found the train too expensive and the Greyhound bus was an easy direct route for him.
He said the closure is “such a horrible loss” for smaller towns in Ontario, where the only way to travel outside the community is by car.
The pandemic has had a debilitating impact on Canada’s struggling intercity bus industry.
Coach bus companies have reduced service frequency or cut routes due to the precipitous drop in ridership, threatening to erode the country’s transportation network.
In January, senators from the Maritimes sent a letter to federal Transport Minister Omar Alghabra urging Ottawa to provide financial assistance to Maritime Bus.
The Charlottetown-based company had warned that without funding, it would have to cut routes.
The senators said that with Via Rail service suspended and airlines slashing flights to the region, the bus was needed for essential travel, such as transporting blood products or patients to health appointments across the region.
In January, the New Brunswick government stepped in to provide $720,000 to the private regional bus operator to maintain service to Edmundston and Campbellton in the province’s north.
The Ford government has extended the provincial stay-at-home order and all public health measures for another two more weeks.
The order, which was set to expire on May 20, will end on June 2. Premier Doug Ford said his goal is to have the most normal July and August and the extension is necessary to make this happen.
“We need to do everything in our power to protect this summer for all Ontarians,” said Ford. “These are precious weeks we won’t put to waste.”
The province will be making those aged 12-17 eligible to book their COVID-19 vaccine on May 31. There will be special dedicated youth and family vaccine clinics during the weeks of June 14 and 21.
Virtual learning will also continue for the time being.
COVID-19 cases have been slowly decreasing amid the stay-at-home order and increased vaccinations since the surge of the third wave. The seven-day average currently sits at 2,731 cases.
“We are progressing, we are getting there, but we are not quite there yet,” said Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Williams.
Toronto Mayor John Tory welcomed the announcement, saying it gives people and businesses clear expectations for the next few weeks.
“I hope over the coming weeks we have a clear and simple reopening plan from the province so every resident and every business across our city can plan, as much as possible, for June, July and August,” said Tory.
Many have been calling for the reopening of outdoor recreation activities amid the nicer weather, but the provincial government will keep them closed until at least June 2.
When asked why they aren’t opening outdoor recreation activities, Dr. Williams said it’s less about the activity itself. “When you open up a lot of facilities, it’s not sometimes the activity, it’s the congregate activity before and after.”
“They pick up another buddy, two or three go out, go golfing, there’s nothing wrong with golfing,” Ford said. “The problem is, then after golf they go back, they have some pops. That’s the problem.”
“We just can’t risk it … Just a couple more weeks and we will do everything we can to get things back to normal,” he added.
Mississauga mayor Bonnie Crombie said she’s hopeful the extension of the order will help avoid a “fourth wave of the pandemic,” she expressed disappointment that the restrictions on outdoor recreation were not amended.
“The science is abundantly clear that these activities are safe if proper precautions are taken,” said Crombie. “I will continue advocating for these restrictions to be lifted.”
Opposition Leader Andrea Horwath expressed disappointment with that decision.
“I think it’s very clearly what leading public health and other science advisers are saying,” she said. “I think there’s a lot of room to give Ontarians a break.”
Ford has been visibly absent from the public since coming out of self-isolation after a COVID-19 exposure.
The premier said of the over 88,000 travellers who have landed in Ontario, one-third have been able to bypass the three-day hotel quarantine. They have also seen private jets landing at smaller airports and avoiding the quarantine.
“There are two sets of rules right now, one for those who can afford a private jet and those of us who can’t,” said Ford. “People are exploiting well-known loopholes that have been left in place.”
The premier has issued another letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, arguing additional measures — such as quarantine requirements for travellers coming into Canada by land — are needing to curb the spread of more contagious COVID-19 variants.
Trudeau said Thursday he was “frustrated” and “disappointed” with the Ontario premier.
Green party Leader Mike Schreiner also slammed Ford for being pre-occupied with attacking the federal government on border issues, saying he should in stead be doing more to prevent the predominate source of outbreaks – workplaces.
“The premier is using the border to deflect from his own failures to … avoid, or at least mitigate, the third wave,” he said.
Preliminary results of an ongoing study in the United Kingdom suggest alternating the Oxford-AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines causes more frequent mild to moderate symptoms, but there are no other safety concerns from mixing those vaccines.
However, researchers at the University of Oxford have not yet determined how a combination of shots would affect the immune system’s response compared with sticking with the same COVID-19 vaccine for both the prime and booster shots.
They say in a peer-reviewed letter published in The Lancet on Wednesday that an increase in short-term adverse reactions occurred after the Pfizer vaccine was followed four weeks later by AstraZeneca, or vice versa, as part of the study that began earlier this year.
Chief investigator Matthew Snape, associate professor in pediatrics and vaccinology at Oxford, said initial data are being released to inform people about symptoms as several countries consider mixing vaccines.
“The results from this study suggest that mixed dose schedules could result in an increase in work absences the day after immunization, and this is important to consider when planning immunization of health-care workers,” Snape said in a EurekAlert! statement issued by the service, which provides science-related releases.
Researchers also noted that while the study participants were aged 50 and over, it’s possible that adverse reactions may be more prevalent in younger people, though they did not provide any details.
Results on whether immune response to mixed doses would be affected are expected to be released by the Oxford team in the coming months.
Snape said they’ve adapted the ongoing study to assess if early and regular use of acetaminophen in Tylenol, for example, reduced the frequency of fever and mild to moderate pain.
The study recruited 830 people to evaluate four combinations of vaccination: a first dose of AstraZeneca followed by either a booster shot of the Pfizer vaccine or another dose of AstraZeneca, or the Pfizer vaccine followed by a second shot of either AstraZeneca or Pfizer.
Research was expanded last month for a new study with 1,050 volunteers who received either the AstraZeneca or Pfizer vaccine before randomly getting either the same vaccine for their second dose or the Moderna or Novavax vaccine.
Horacio Bach, an infectious diseases expert at the University of British Columbia, said the small size of the initial study does not make it possible to know whether some people would get severe reactions from mixing the AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines.
AstraZeneca, for example, was tested in about 32,000 people but rare blood clots were not detected until millions of people received the vaccine, which a national vaccine panel in Canada has suggested should be sidelined in favour of the “preferred” Pfizer or Moderna vaccines.
Bach said it’s possible that knowing about an increase in adverse reactions from mixing vaccines could deter some people from getting a second dose, though symptoms following vaccination from even the seasonal flu shot vary widely.
Three Canadians — in Alberta, New Brunswick and Quebec — have died from a rare blood clot associated with AstraZeneca.
On Wednesday, even as the federal government announced it’s expecting to receive hundreds of thousands of doses of the vaccine, Nova Scotia and Manitoba said they would limit its use to second doses after similar restrictions on Tuesday in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Quebec. Some of the provinces have used up their AstraZeneca supply.
B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix said Wednesday the province is expecting to use some of its forthcoming supply of AstraZeneca for second doses and more doses had been distributed to pharmacies in the Island and Interior health regions.
Elections commissioner Yves Cote says his office investigated some 400 complaints about false statements allegedly made during the 2019 federal election campaign.
He says all but two or three have been resolved and none have been prosecuted.
While 400 may seem like a large number, Cote says the complaints were clustered around roughly a half-dozen allegedly false statements — with many of them using identical language, suggesting an organized campaign.
To the best of his recollection, Cote says the complaints all involved misinformation targeting white males.
Cote offered those details Wednesday during testimony before a Senate committee that is conducting a pre-study of the federal government’s budget implementation bill.
The massive omnibus bill includes an amendment to the Canada Elections Act to bring it into compliance with a recent Ontario Superior Court ruling that struck down a provision intended to curb misinformation during elections.
The provision was added to the election law in 2018 as part of the Liberal government’s broader reform of election rules.
It made it an offence for any person or entity to make a false statement about the citizenship, place of birth, education, professional qualifications, criminal record or membership in a group of any candidate, would-be candidate, party leader or public figure associated with a party.
Largely because the provision did not specify that a person must “knowingly” make a false statement, it was struck down by the Ontario court as a violation of freedom of speech.
The amendment now being proposed adds the word “knowingly” to the provision.
Cote told the Senate’s legal and constitutional affairs committee that he always interpreted the provision as applying only to knowingly peddled misinformation and instructed his office to investigate only those complaints that met that standard.
That led some senators to question the value of the provision since it resulted in no prosecutions.
But Sen. Paula Simons, a former journalist who now sits in the Independent Senators Group, questioned the potential chilling effect on individuals who might constrain their opinions during an election for fear of being prosecuted.
Joanna Barron, executive director of the Canadian Constitution Foundation which launched the court challenge, said she believes the provision, even with the proposed amendment, remains a threat to free speech.
“Canadians should not have to fear prosecution for communicating information that the state deems to be false or for sharing ideas that politicians deem unworthy of dissemination,” she told the committee.
Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc argued that the amended version strikes a fine balance between free speech and disinformation that can be used to manipulate election outcomes. He suggested that the victims of misinformation are most frequently women and racialized individuals.
However, Cote said the complaints received about the 2019 campaign involved false statements allegedly made about men, none of whom, to the best of his recollection, were racialized.
Both Cote and chief electoral officer Stephane Perrault told the committee that they support the amendment.
A woman in her 30s has been injured in a multi-vehicle collision involving a TTC streetcar in The Beaches.
Police were called to Queen Street East at Maclean Avenue just after 9 p.m. Wednesday to a crash between three vehicles, a Mercedes-Benz, Jeep Wrangler and Lamborghini, and a streetcar.
One patient was taken to hospital with injuries. The severity of their injuries and whether anyone else suffered injuries is unknown.
Police are on the scene investigating what caused the collision.
Queen is closed between Glen Manor Drive and Balsam Avenue.
The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) has announced they will be using a quadmester schedule for secondary schools for the 2021-2022 school year.
The quadmester model, where students take two courses at a time, was also used for the 2020-2021 school year as students spent multiple months online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
TDSB sent a letter home to parents this week, saying the decision was made to use the quadmester approach as it meets anticipated health measures and student needs.
The quadmesters would be from Sept. to mid-Nov., mid-Nov. to Jan., Feb. to mid-April and mid-April to June with two course in each timeframe.
The model will also allow a “common entry” point for those who may be transferring between schools.
It was also previously announced that parents will be able to choose between in-school learning and virtual learning for their children.
The deadline to make a decision is expected to be June 1, but the board reassured parents that if anyone misses the deadline, there will be place saved for them at their home school.
If a students has opted to go back to the in-class learning, there will be an option to switch to virtual learning halfway through the year in Feb. 2022.
Secondary schools with Intensive Support Programs (ISPs) for special needs students will continue to use the semester model.
The TDSB says they are also reaching out to students to receive feedback on the quadmester model. “Hearing directly from students is integral and we have reached out to the Student Senate for insight that will help inform our work,” read the TDSB letter to parents.
The province announced earlier this month that it will be increase funding to school boards by $561 million next year to help address continued pandemic-related costs.
Toronto schools are currently closed for in-person learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic and have been since April 7. They were previously closed from the Christmas break until Feb. 17 during the second wave of the pandemic.
Ontario health officials have announced they will be no longer administering the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine as a first dose option, due to increased concerns of the vaccine’s link to blood clots.
Over the last few days, there have been increased rates of vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT) from 0.9 per 100,000 doses to 1.7 per 100,000 doses. That means about 1 in 60,000 people could be affected by the rare, but at times deadly, side effect.
As of May 8, Ontario has seen eight cases of VITT. There have been approximately 850,000 AstraZeneca doses administered in the province.
Health officials are currently reviewing the use of the vaccine for second doses and will provide guidance to those waiting for second doses of AstraZeneca in the next few weeks.
The vaccine is currently only available at pharmacies for adults aged 40 and over.
Health officials say their decision was also influenced by the high and reliable supply of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Williams says they have been reviewing data out of the U.K. that shows the risk of blood clots is much lower when AstraZeneca is used as second dose.
Mixing doses of the COVID-19 vaccine is also being studied.
“We maintain that those who received their first dose with the AstraZeneca vaccine did absolutely the right thing to prevent illness and to protect their families, loved ones and communities,” he said.
Health policy expert for McMaster University Dr. Firas Khalid said he was not surprised by the province’s announcement and believes they are just trying to “err on the side of caution.”
“Right now with an abundance of the other types of vaccines, I think it makes sense why [Ontario] has decided right now to pause the vaccine,” said Dr. Khalid.
He said it’s important for those who have taken the first does of AstraZeneca to contact their health care provider to receive guidance on the best way forward for them.
Dr. Khalid said he believes this could be the end of the distribution of AstraZeneca.
“I don’t suspect that they will resume the rollout of them. I think if we continue getting the supply of Pfizer and Madonna, as expected. I think that it will be the end of AstraZeneca for the time being,” said Dr. Khalid.
He added his concerns is there will be a spillover effect of vaccine hesitancy towards the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Dr. Khalid said one of the factors that contributes to vaccine hesitancy is misinformation or lack of answers to their questions so the government should be focused on communicating to the public that the vaccines currently available in Canada are all safe.
“So our job, whether it’s a health policy experts, or whether it’s the government is to really supply the best available evidence to people, and let individuals make their best informed decision. At the end of the day, the choice of what vaccine you want to take is upon the person themselves.”
Of the more than two million people vaccinated with AstraZeneca in Canada, 12 have been were diagnosed with vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT), and three of them died.
Alberta became the first province to pause administering AstraZeneca as a first dose vaccine because there weren’t any confirmed new shipments of the vaccine.
Fewer than 200,000 doses remain of the 2.3 million already shipped, and only 1.65 million more are expected before the end of June.
