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Month: January 2022

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Rise in COVID-19 cases in First Nations communities a concern

Jan 12, 2022 , , , , by shlf

In the last few weeks, Indigenous communities have been facing an alarming rise in the number of new and active COVID-19 cases. In the last month alone, Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) was made aware of over 200 new cases in First Nations communities. In the same timeframe, the number of active cases went from 23 to 129 cases. Last week, 68 new cases were reported. This surpasses the previous high of 57 new cases reported during the week of April 19-25. This recent increase in cases has been linked to private gatherings, as well as exposure to positive cases from outside of communities.

As of October 1, ISC is reporting First Nation COVID-19 stats as: 689 confirmed positive cases of COVID-19, 58 hospitalizations, 111 active cases, 566 recovered cases and 12 deaths.

There are a total of 21 confirmed positive cases in Nunavik, Quebec, and all but 3 have recovered. “Since the beginning of the pandemic, everyone has come together, made sacrifices, and done their part to help limit the spread of the virus. After many months of staying home, some may be experiencing pandemic fatigue. This can result in less vigilance when it comes to important practices, like limiting non-essential trips or maintaining physical distancing from those outside our social bubble. While these changes are hard, we must continue to be careful and listen to the advice of our public health experts. We cannot stop until we are all safe. We must remain vigilant. The threat of this virus is not yet behind us,” the release from Indigenous Services Canada said. They recommend everyone familiarize themselves with the recommended public health guidelines outlined by their province or territory of residence, and/or by their community Leadership.

“It is important to underscore that COVID 19 can take up to 14 days after exposure to the virus for symptoms to appear. During this time, the virus can easily spread to others. This means that decisions made today affect families, friends and communities for weeks to come,” the release said. Because of these growing numbers, preventative measures that help stop the spread are of upmost importance. First, limit your physical contact with others. A good rule of thumb is to limit your social circle to your household members and any essential supports, like childcare help. Every person that we come into contact with increases the chances of transmission. All efforts to reduce encounters with others make a difference. Remember to not to let your guard down when in public, even if you see someone you know. “Additionally, it’s critical to consistently wear a mask or face covering properly when in public or around those at risk, especially when it is hard to maintain a physical distance. Without knowing, anyone can spread COVID-19 by coughing or sneezing, talking, hugging, or even singing. When you wear a mask that covers your mouth and nose, you’re helping to protect yourself and those around you.” As the weather gets colder, we are going to begin facing colds and the seasonal flu. It can be difficult to distinguish between the symptoms of a cold, influenza, and COVID-19. However, the preventative measures taken to prevent the spread of COVID-19 are also effective at limiting the spread of influenza. The annual flu vaccine is the most effective way to prevent the flu and flu-related complications. The trend in new cases of COVID-19 we are seeing in Indigenous communities is similar to the one seen in the general population and everyone is urged to help change the trend by making wise decisions, and following recommended public health measures.

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‘We can’t take chances,’ celebrate the holidays only with other members of your household, Doug Ford urges

Jan 11, 2022 , , , , by shlf

Ho-ho-hold off on inviting guests for Christmas.

That’s the advice from the provincial government as cases continue to rise at near-record levels and deaths mount, with 35 more fatalities reported Wednesday.

“We can’t take chances,” Premier Doug Ford told his daily briefing. “We have to bend the curve and stop the spread.”

He said public health experts are urging people to celebrate only with members of their own households, especially in the lockdown zones of Toronto and Peel.

People who live alone can pair exclusively with one other household and students returning from college and university should quarantine in their dorms or apartments and limit close contacts for 10 to 14 days before travelling home.

While pandemic guidelines allow people who live in green, yellow and orange zones in Ontario’s five-stage, colour-coded framework for pandemic restrictions to have up to 10 people indoors, Ford still urged caution.

“This year isn’t like any other.”

The New Democrats said Ontario ended up in a dicey situation so close to the holiday season because Ford waited too long to impose meaningful public health restrictions and the virus got out of control.

“It never should have come to this,” Deputy NDP Leader John Vanthof said in a statement.

Under fire for the closures of non-essential businesses to customers in Toronto and Peel, Ford asked Ontarians to order from them online or by phone and do curbside pickup instead of shopping on major websites like Amazon.com.

“Shop local and shop early.”

Ontario reported 1,373 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, just below the seven-day average of 1,389 that peaked at 1,443 on Nov. 16.

There were 445 new infections in Toronto, 415 in Peel and 136 in York Region, which is hoping to stay out of lockdown on Friday when the province decides where public health measures need to be strengthened.

Nine of the last 35 deaths were in nursing homes, where 59 more residents and 16 staff have tested positive for the highly contagious virus.

While the number of people in hospital for COVID-19 fell to 523 and those in intensive care remained steady at 159, another 15 critically ill ICU patients required intubation to be placed on ventilators to breathe, raising that number to 106.

Schools had 162 new cases in students and staff, with 688 or 14 per cent of Ontario’s 4,828 schools reporting infections. Four schools were closed because of outbreaks.

Rob Ferguson is a Toronto-based reporter covering Ontario politics for the Star. Follow him on Twitter:

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DID YOU KNOW First World War hero, Saskatchewan Roughriders legend Piffles Taylor was born in Collingwood area?

Jan 10, 2022 , , , , by shlf

Neil (Piffles) Taylor led an extraordinary life.

He was a prisoner during the First World War, played quarterback with a glass eye and had the former home of the Saskatchewan Roughriders named in his honour.

And while he spent most of his life in Western Canada, his roots can be traced back to south Georgian Bay.

Taylor was born on a Singhampton farm in 1895 to Samuel and Mary Taylor. He lived on the farm for several years before his family moved to Yellow Grass, Sask., and eventually Regina.

According to his grandson Jack Milliken, after studying in the Canadian officer training course at the University of Toronto in 1915, Taylor joined the forces in early 1916 and arrived in London later that year. 

He joined the Royal Flying Corps and was sent to France in August 1917.

On Sept. 19, 1917, Taylor was shot down and captured, as he described in a letter to his brother Sam dated three days later. 

“I can write only a short note as I have been wounded in the right shoulder and the right cheek,” he wrote. “Mumford, my observer, got bullets in the leg and in the arm and could not fight. I did my best till the last and had to land when my eyes filled with blood, which I did without crashing. Write my C.O. (commanding officer) and tell him I was sorry to let him down.”

He sustained many injuries, including the loss of his eye.

In his letters, he spoke of how he was treated well by the enemy, but a letter to his mother in December 1918 told a different story.

“I suppose you would like to know how the Germans have treated the prisoners of war,” he wrote. “I have always tried to make my letters cheerful in order to prevent you from worrying, and for my own part, I have no wish to complain now, but when you receive these letters, speaking of the kindness of the enemy etc., it makes one fairly boil. Now that the war is over, the question naturally arises: has it been worthwhile? The sorrows, the sacrifices and the suffering? I know that no one seriously doubts it, but if anyone does, they should ask any prisoner of war.”

After returning to Saskatchewan, Taylor got involved in rugby and what became the Canadian Football League (CFL). He played quarterback with a glass eye and, after his playing days, he coached the Regina Boat Club Seniors in 1922.

In 1926, he started on the executive of the Regina Roughriders, and eventually became president.

The Roughriders’ former home was named Taylor Field in his honour and, up until 2004, the winner of the CFL’s West Division received the Piffles Taylor Trophy. In 2006, the street in front of Taylor Field was named Piffle Taylor Way. He was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1963.

He died in 1947.

How did he get the nickname Piffles?

“My cousin Sam was the authority on where the name came from, and I believe he said it meant somebody who was full of it, back in the day, and he picked it up at university and it stuck to him,” said Milliken, who lives in Wasaga Beach.

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Why QR codes are having a moment: How the pandemic created a surge of interest in a 25-year-old technology

Jan 10, 2022 , , , , by shlf

It may not be the first thing that leaps to mind, but among many other things, the year 2020 has been the year of the QR code.

QR codes aren’t new. In fact, they’ve been around for more than 25 years. But this year, they seem to be everywhere: on restaurant patio tables to access online menus, on doors to help with contact tracing, and in businesses for contactless payment. You’ll find them in your Toronto Star as well: codes you can scan to access exclusive online data.

Here’s how QR codes work, and why the COVID-19 pandemic set the stage for widespread use of this technology.

A QR code, or “quick response code,” is the next generation of the barcode. It encodes information horizontally and vertically, instead of just horizontally, making it capable of containing a lot more information.

It can also be read quickly, hence the name, and set off certain actions, such as redirecting the user to a website. This makes a QR code much more versatile than a regular barcode.

Richard Hyatt, co-founder and CEO of Toronto-based startup Candr, said its QR codes come in varying complexities. Many include redundancies, meaning the same information is encoded into the image more than once, so that if the QR code is partially damaged, it can still be scanned.

“Because you can put more data into that QR code, you can do some fancy things,” Hyatt said.

The QR code was invented in 1994 by Japanese engineer Hara Masahiro to track vehicles during the manufacturing process. (The term “QR Code” is trademarked by the company Denso Wave.) Instead of a simple barcode, the QR code was designed to hold a lot more information to streamline the process of scanning and tracking items.

Masahiro has said that the black-and-white pattern was inspired by the board game Go, which uses black-and-white playing pieces on a grid-marked board.

Since its invention, uses for the QR code have expanded into marketing and shopping. While smartphone users initially needed a third-party app to scan the codes, many Android and iPhone smartphones can now scan the codes via built-in camera apps.

QR codes have had a few resurgences over the years — remember Snapcodes, the personalized codes made by Snapchat to make adding friends easier? Snapchat’s CEO was inspired by seeing WeChat users in China scanning QR codes, according to a 2017 article in Wired.

If your smartphone has the capability, simply open the camera app and hold your phone up to the QR code. The app should prompt you to open whatever link the QR code is directing you to, whether it’s a restaurant menu or a contact tracing form.

If your smartphone’s camera app doesn’t have this capability, there are many third-party QR scanning apps that can be downloaded to perform the function.

Because of their versatility, QR codes are useful for a number of functions related to slowing the spread of COVID-19, said Konesh Thurairasah, co-founder and COO of Safe Check-IN, a tool to help businesses comply with contact tracing, among other things.

Not only can they direct a client to a menu or a contact tracing form, they can help business owners track how many people are in their store to avoid breaking pandemic restrictions.

When Thurairasah and his co-founder decided to make a contactless option for contact tracing and more, QR codes immediately popped into their heads, because of their versatility and also their cost-effectiveness, he said.

Since launching their Milton, Ont.-based startup around three months ago, interest has grown. Sign-ups doubled last month over the previous month and users are showing interest in an increasing array of features, Thurairasah said.

Kevin Derbyshire, co-founder and president of Toronto-based startup Candr, said its digital service was being developed to help companies connect with customers before COVID-19 using QR codes. Then, in the early days of the pandemic, a friend in the restaurant industry mentioned that they were collecting contact tracing details using pen and paper.

Derbyshire and Hyatt thought there must be a better way — and immediately thought of using Candr’s QR codes to improve the contact tracing process.

First, it’s more hygienic — there’s no shared pen or paper. Second, it’s more secure — nobody can access other people’s contact information such as by taking a photo of the sign-up sheet. And third, they could add new functionalities — for example, clients can take a COVID-19 symptom questionnaire, view a restaurant’s menu, and browse promotions, all through one QR code.

The process also eliminates errors caused by misheard names or messy handwriting.

Since the service launched in May, Derbyshire said they have had a “dramatic rise” in sign-ups, in Canada and outside the country. Many clients are restaurants, he said.

“It’s taken off,” said Derbyshire. “What used to be something that I would consider an inventory management tool on floors in large warehouses in the ’90s (is now) on tables of fine dining.”

You’ll find QR codes taped to the tables at your favourite restaurants — a contactless way to read the menu. QR codes are also being used at banks and other institutions to create a digital lineup.

Recently, Toronto company Scarboro Music put QR codes up on its display window so customers could virtually shop while the store is closed due to the current COVID-19 lockdown.

Pre-COVID-19, QR codes were used as an electronic ticket for concerts and shows (remember those?). The QR code in that confirmation email was proof of payment.

Companies are using them more often now for contactless payment, even digital payment giant PayPal. In November, Calgary-based payment company Helcim launched QR codes for restaurants and other small businesses.

Helcim founder and CEO Nick Beique said the QR codes help restaurants facilitate menus and online orders. Other businesses such as fitness studios are using them for easy registration, and the Toronto Star, noticing a resurgence in interest from marketers, recently added the procurement of QR codes for advertisers as a new service.

Beique thinks the increased use of QR codes to access menus in 2020 helped familiarize people in North America with the technology that other countries adopted years ago, and it’s leading to more creative uses.

“I think that the people removing the physical menus and (using) QR codes is really what has taught an entire population how to use them,” he said.

Thurairasah said some Safe Check-IN clients use QR codes to schedule and check-in visitors at care homes or hotels.

He predicts QR code usage will continue to rise in 2021 as businesses look for easier ways to comply with pandemic restrictions.

Hyatt agreed.

“The QR code’s here to stay.”

Rosa Saba is a Calgary-based business reporter for the Star. Follow her on Twitter:

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‘Our numbers have tripled’: How many flu shot doses have been distributed throughout Simcoe-Muskoka this fall?

Jan 3, 2022 , , , , by shlf

Dr. Steven Poirier is getting tired of turning away his patients.

The Barrie family physician says his office has only been able to secure about 300 regular and 60 high-dosage shots of the influenza vaccine this year, not nearly enough to help his patient list — which includes about 800 seniors.

A high-dosage version of the vaccine is generally recommended for people over the age of 65, who are at greater risk of developing severe complications from the flu, he said.

“We’re getting a minimum amount and have to offer them on a first come, first serve basis to those who qualify,” said Poirier, who also spoke on behalf of the Ontario Medical Association.

“That’s not nearly enough, especially when the message across the province is to push the flu vaccine as much as you can. That message has resonated with our population because they’ve been calling and coming into the office, asking for the shot. Even those who have not gotten it in the past are coming out of the woodwork.”

He said his office has been told it can’t order more doses of either version for the foreseeable future.

The Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit says about 240,000 doses of the vaccine — including 30,000 high-dose shots — have been distributed throughout its jurisdiction this fall. That’s more than triple the normal amount.

These doses are typically doled out to pharmacies, family practices and vaccination clinics.

“Our numbers have tripled,” health unit immunization program manager Deanna Thompson said. “Locally, we’ve received over our allocation that we normally get and we’ve almost exhausted it. We’ve asked for more every week. The (Ontario government) is aware of the local shortage; we’re getting trickles of doses. But we’ve worked really hard with local family health teams that are running larger community clinics to ensure they have enough of the vaccine to be running mass immunization.”

The increased demand may be due to a campaign by the province and local health units, which urges residents to get the flu shot to lower their risk of illness during the COVID-19 pandemic. While Ontario did order more doses than normal during spring procurement, it may not have anticipated such high interest, she said.

“More people want the vaccine this year than any other,” Thompson said. “Is it related to the COVID pandemic? Probably.”

Poirier has run a practice in Barrie for the last five years; this is its most difficult period.

“(We’re) trying to navigate a pandemic and care for patients who should be getting care but are afraid to because of the pandemic,” he said. “Now, with influenza and cold season upon us, it’s very difficult to decide if it’s COVID, the flu, a cold or bacterial pneumonia. It’s really starting to take its toll.”

If you still need a shot in the arm, call a pharmacy — most have easier access than family doctors to the vaccine and can squeeze you in within a week or two. Once the appointment is booked, “be patient,” Thompson said.

“This is the normal time you would get vaccinated.”

For more information on local flu shot clinics, visit .