The country where the coronavirus outbreak emerged two years ago launched a locked-down Winter Olympics today. Chinese pride was flexed even as some Western governments, including Canada and the U-S, mounted a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Games over the way China treats millions of its own people. And while some are staying away from the second pandemic Olympics in six months, many other world leaders plan to attend the opening ceremony including Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Voting is underway in the B-C Liberal leadership contest as the party faces a court challenge. Online and telephone voting began yesterday for the next party leader to replace Andrew Wilkinson, who announced his resignation following the Liberals’ defeat in the October 2020 election. Vikram Bajwa, a longtime party member, has petitioned the B-C Supreme Court to delay the scheduled release of the vote result while the party provides details of its audit of new memberships signed up during the campaign. His petition also asks that the party be ordered to reveal whether any co-ordinated voter fraud took place in the race.
A small group of anti-vaccine protesters set up outside of a New Westminster vaccine clinic yesterday a small crowd showed up in front of the immunization clinic at the Anvil Centre on Columbia Street, around noon. They were yelling at staff , encouraging passersby to honk, and spreading misinformation about the vaccine. Fraser Health says clinic operations were not impacted by the demonstrators and confirmed police were aware and on-site.
B-C officials say there are two more health-care facility COVID-19 outbreaks, bringing the total in the province to 56 facilities. Dr. Bonnie Henry changed visitor guidelines to care homes this week. She says “one-size-fits-all” restrictions are no longer needed because these facilities are not seeing severe illness because of high levels of vaccination and booster doses among residents and staff. The province reported 13 new deaths related to COVID-19 for a total of two-thousand-656 fatalities. Officials say there are 25-thousand-554 active cases, of which 985 are in hospital and 145 in intensive care.
There’s been a fatal shooting in Delta. Police say the victim was found badly hurt in a home on 92 Avenue near Scott Road early this morning just after 2 a.m. Despite efforts from emergency responders, the man couldn’t be saved. Investigators say it looks like a targeted attack, noting both the victim and the address they were found at are known to police.
Big rig horns are blaring through the streets around Parliament Hill for an eighth straight day, and there’s no end in sight for weary Ottawa residents. The ongoing anti-vaccine mandate protest by truckers and their supporters has prompted Ottawa police to deploy what they call a “surge” of about 150 extra officers to areas of the city. The R-C-M-P has also approved Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson’s request for Mounties to support city police. Protest organizers have said they’re not going anywhere until the federal government announces an end to all COVID-19 vaccine mandates
and other pandemic restrictions.
A new tool aims to help create and advance anti-racism policies and initiatives in Surrey and beyond by charting racist incidents out on a map. The Surrey Local Immigration Partnership is asking anyone who’s been a victim or witness to racist incidents to report it anonymously through RAMP, a Racism Mapping Project. The data map was created, to report incidents across the City of Surrey in order to chart the types of hate events that have occurred and the people they have been directed at.
Three years after being lost, a cat named Ralph will be reunited with his owner. The orange cat with a white chin managed to escape while a friend was pet-sitting for a weekend in March 2018. Former Kamloops resident Crystal Maclean, who now lives in Ontario, says she’s elated at the prospect of the reunion with what she calls “the best cat ever.” The S-P-C-A says Ralph was scheduled to board a flight from Kelowna to Toronto yesterday.
British Columbia health officials announced today that there have been 1,799 new COVID-19 cases reported over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of recorded cases in the province to 330,942. In a written statement, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix said that there are 25,479 active cases of COVID-19 in the province. Of the active cases, 946 (-39) COVID-positive people are currently hospitalized, and 139 (-6) are in intensive care. The remaining people are recovering at home in self-isolation.
New cases and total active cases are broken down by health region as follows:
- Fraser Health: 551 new cases, 9,987 total active cases
- Vancouver Coastal Health: 294 new cases, 4,828 total active cases
- Interior Health: 531 new cases, 7,976 total active cases
- Northern Health: 191 new cases, 1,155 total active cases
- Island Health: 232 new cases, 1,516 total active cases
- Outside of Canada: No new cases, 17 total active cases
There have been 19 new COVID-19-related deaths in British Columbia, for a total of 2,675 deaths in the province.
Voting is underway in the B-C Liberal leadership contest as the party faces a court challenge. Online and telephone voting began yesterday for the next party leader to replace Andrew Wilkinson, who announced his resignation following the Liberals’ defeat in the October 2020 election. Vikram Bajwa, a longtime party member, has petitioned the B-C Supreme Court to delay the scheduled release of the vote result while the party provides details of its audit of new memberships signed up during the campaign. His petition also asks that the party be ordered to reveal whether any co-ordinated voter fraud took place in the race.
January was a dismal month for job seekers as Statistics Canada says 200-thousand positions disappeared across the country, pushing the national jobless rate to 6.5 per cent, compared with six per cent in December. It’s the second January in a row where cuts have claimed more than 200-thousand jobs, and last month’s losses — mainly in Ontario and Quebec — are blamed on tighter rules to slow the spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19. In B-C, the number of people looking for work actually fell in January, dipping the provincial jobless rate by three basis points to 5.1 per cent, tying with Manitoba for lowest rate in the country. StatsCan says Kelowna saw a big jump in those looking for work as the rate in that city climbed to 7.2 per cent from 5.7 in December, but it fell two full percentage points to 5.4 in Abbotsford-Mission and was also down in Prince George, Vancouver and Victoria.
Police in Victoria are bracing for another weekend protest by truckers and other opponents of vaccine mandates and measures to control the spread of COVID-19. Police say they have set up several closed circuit T-V cameras in Victoria’s downtown core to monitor public spaces and any traffic disruptions during tomorrow’s demonstration. Supporters of the so-called “Freedom Convoy” say they will head south from Campbell River before 7 a.m., gathering participants on the way and, once in Victoria, intend to circle the city several times before parking and rallying at the legislature. A similar protest is headed for Vancouver from Langley tomorrow, mirroring demonstrations that choked streets in Victoria and Vancouver last weekend in support of the Ottawa-bound convoy opposed to a vaccine mandate for cross-border truckers.
Police in Delta say one man has been killed in an early morning shooting. It happened at around 2 a.m. in a home in Delta’s northeast corner and a statement from police says the victim died before he could be taken to hospital. Investigators say the man and the home are known to them and the shooting was likely targeted. No arrests have been made but police do not believe there is any threat to the public.