BoC rate announcement today, access needed for COVID pill: In The News for April 13

Economists expect another rate increase today, with many predicting the Bank of Canada will raise its policy interest rate by half a percentage point to one per cent.

The Bank of Canada makes changes to its key interest rate in an effort to control inflation with a target of two per cent.

According to Statistics Canada, the annual pace of inflation rose to 5.7 per cent in February, up from 5.1 per cent in January.

Inflation figures for March are expected to be released next week.

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Also this …

A pill to treat COVID-19 appears to be the country’s best hope, outside of vaccines and strong public health measures, to keep hospitals from being overrun with cases of the virus now and in the future, doctors say.

But with infections surging across the country, experts say the patchwork distribution system for Paxlovid in various parts of Canada may inhibit those who most need the drug from getting it in time.

Paxlovid, an antiviral, has shown a 90 per cent reduction in hospitalizations among unvaccinated patients with the Delta variant who received the drug within five days of symptom onset.

Those who might need the drug the most would do well to learn ahead of time how they might access it, the country’s chief public health officer said this week.

“My message to all Canadians who may be at high risk, such as the immunocompromised: figure out in your community, right now, how you can get access to that medication should you need it because it is a bit different across different areas of Canada,” Dr. Theresa Tam said on Tuesday.

The federal government has distributed about 150,000 courses of Paxlovid to the provinces and territories, Tam said. Most of the provinces have a centralized distribution system for the drug, often through hospitals and assessment centres, and eligibility varies across the country.

“I think all of us would like to see Paxlovid being mobilized more widely,” Tam said, adding that Health Canada is working with various jurisdictions on the issue.

“We will be using these kinds of medications in a more significant way as we have more access to antivirals in the future, which is great news. We just need to know how to get it out to people fast.”

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What we are watching in the U.S. …

NEW YORK _ Police hunted late into the night for the gunman who opened fire Tuesday on a subway train in Brooklyn, an attack that left 10 people wounded by gunfire and once again interrupted New York City’s long journey to post-pandemic normalcy.

The search focused partly on a man who police say rented a van possibly connected to the violence.

Investigators stressed they weren’t sure whether the man, Frank R. James, was responsible for the shooting. But authorities were examining social media videos in which the 62-year-old decried the United States as a racist place awash in violence and sometimes railed against the city’s mayor, Eric Adams.

“This nation was born in violence, it’s kept alive by violence or the threat thereof and it’s going to die a violent death. There’s nothing going to stop that,” James said in one video.

The gunman sent off smoke grenades in a crowded subway car and then fired at least 33 shots with a 9 mm handgun, police said. Five gunshot victims were in critical condition but expected to survive. At least a dozen people who escaped gunshot wounds were treated for smoke inhalation and other injuries.

The shooter fled in the chaos, leaving behind the gun, extended magazines, a hatchet, detonated and undetonated smoke grenades, a black garbage can, a rolling cart, gasoline and the key to a U-Haul van.

That key led investigators to James, who has addresses in Philadelphia and Wisconsin, said Chief of Detectives James Essig. The van was later found, unoccupied, near a subway station where investigators determined the gunman had entered the train system, Essig said.

Rambling, profanity-filled YouTube videos apparently posted by James, who is Black, are replete with violent language and bigoted comments, some against other Black people. Several videos mention New York’s subways.

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What we are watching in the rest of the world …

KYIV, Ukraine _ Russia vowed to continue its bloody offensive in Ukraine as the war neared its seventh week Wednesday, as President Vladimir Putin insisted the campaign was going as planned despite a major withdrawal and significant losses.

Thwarted in their push toward the capital, Kyiv, Russian troops focused on the eastern region of Donbas, where Ukraine said it was investigating a claim that a poisonous substance had been dropped on its troops. It was not clear what the substance might be, but Western officials warned that any use of chemical weapons by Russia would be a serious escalation of the already devastating war.

Russia invaded on Feb. 24 with the goal, according to Western officials, of taking Kyiv, toppling the government and installing a Moscow-friendly regime. In the six weeks since, the ground advance stalled and Russian forces lost potentially thousands of fighters and were accused of killing civilians and other atrocities.

Putin said Tuesday that Moscow “had no other choice” and that the invasion aimed to protect people in parts of eastern Ukraine and to “ensure Russia’s own security.” He vowed it would “continue until its full completion and the fulfilment of the tasks that have been set.”

Meanwhile Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was expected to receive the presidents of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia _ his staunch European allies.

For now, Putin’s forces are gearing up for a major offensive in the Donbas, where Russian-allied separatists and Ukrainian forces have been fighting since 2014, and where Russia has recognized the separatists’ claims of independence. Military strategists say Moscow believes local support, logistics and the terrain in the region favour its larger, better-armed military, potentially allowing Russia to finally turn the tide in its favour.

In Mariupol, a strategic port city in the Donbas, a Ukrainian regiment defending a steel mill alleged that a drone dropped a poisonous substance on the city. The assertion by the Azov Regiment, a far-right group now part of the Ukrainian military, could not be independently verified. The regiment indicated there were no serious injuries.

The claims came after a Russia-allied separatist official appeared to urge the use of chemical weapons, telling Russian state TV on Monday that separatist forces should seize the plant by first blocking all the exits. “And then we’ll use chemical troops to smoke them out of there,” the official, Eduard Basurin, said. He denied Tuesday that separatist forces had used chemical weapons in Mariupol.

Zelenskyy said that while experts try to determine what the substance might be, “The world must react now.”

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On this day in 2003 …

Scientists in Canada announced they had identified the genetic code of the virus suspected of causing SARS — Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome — a first step toward a diagnostic test and possible vaccine.

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In entertainment …

LOS ANGELES _ Gilbert Gottfried, the actor and legendary standup comic known for his raw, scorched voice and crude jokes, has died. He was 67.

Gottfried died from a rare genetic muscle disease that can trigger a dangerously abnormal heartbeat, his publicist and longtime friend Glenn Schwartz said in a statement.

“In addition to being the most iconic voice in comedy, Gilbert was a wonderful husband, brother, friend and father to his two young children. Although today is a sad day for all of us, please keep laughing as loud as possible in Gilbert’s honour,” his family said in a statement posted on Twitter.

Gottfried was a fiercely independent and intentionally bizarre comedian’s comedian, as likely to clear a room with anti-comedy as he was to kill it with his jokes.

“The first comedian I saw who would go on and all the other comics would go in the room to watch,” standup comic Colin Quinn said on Twitter.

He first came to national attention with frequent appearances on MTV in its early days and with a brief stint in the cast of “Saturday Night Live” in the 1980s.

Gottfried also did frequent voice work for children’s television and movies, most famously playing the parrot Iago in Disney’s “Aladdin.” To a younger generation he’s known as the voice of Digit the bird on PBS Kids’ “Cyberchase.”

Gottfried is survived by his wife Dara, sister Karen, 14-year-old daughter Lily and 12-year-old son Max.

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Did you see this?

VANCOUVER _ A new report from Statistics Canada says one in three shelters for people fleeing abuse reported they were greatly affected in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The report used data from 557 Canadian shelters taken on April 14, 2021, which aimed to represent a typical day of operation.

Accommodation capacity was the greatest pandemic-related challenge with 61 per cent of the facilities reporting reducing their number of beds to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19.

The report, released Tuesday, found 93 per cent of residents were staying in facilities for reasons related to abuse and 84 per cent of them were fleeing intimate partner violence.

There was a 49 per cent increase in the number of crisis calls when compared with before the pandemic, and several shelters reported expanding services to connect with victims digitally including by text message.

The report says shelter admissions dropped by 31 per cent when compared to 2017-18, but it noted several barriers at the start of the pandemic for those escaping violence, including fears about contracting the virus.

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 13, 2022.

The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

BoC rate announcement today, access needed for COVID pill: In The News for April 13

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