Canadian Alistair Johnston and Belgium's Eden Hazard fight for the ball during a soccer game between Belgium's national team the Red Devils and Canada, in Group F of the FIFA 2022 World Cup in Al Rayyan, State of Qatar on Wednesday 23 November 2022. (Virginie Lefour/Belga Photo)
There has been an increase in the number of people in Waterloo region applying for assistance to help pay their heat and hydro bills.
That's according to Martha Wolf, manager in employment and income supports with the region. She said the Waterloo Region Energy Assistance Program (WREAP) helps pay for electricity, gas or oil and water along with other support.
"The number of requests overall indicates a dramatic increase during the second half of 2021," said Wolf. "Before the pandemic, we received 62 requests per month and now we are receiving 133 requests per month. This would line up with the ending of other provincial pandemic related benefits like CERB."
Wold said the majority of requests are for utility disconnects or arrears.
Factors that intake workers consider when people apply include:
During the coldest months of the year, anyone who can't afford to pay their electricity or natural gas bills, won't have their service cut off. Winter disconnection is banned in Ontario between November 15 and April 30th, but late payment fees are still tagged on.
"If you're in a situation where things are getting tight but you're not in an emergency situation yet, you should still look to try to create a payment plan with your utility company to avoid the disconnection," said Wolf.
"But then, should that situation change and there are no longer any funds with which you would be able to pay your utility bill, then you should absolutely be calling."
Last month, the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) announced a decrease in the cost of electricity for residential and small business customers, which meant drops in price for some.
Beijing residents on Saturday cheered the removal of COVID-19 testing booths while Shenzhen said it would no longer require commuters to present test results to travel, as an easing of China’s virus curbs gathered pace.
Although daily cases are near all-time highs, some cities are taking steps to loosen COVID testing requirements and quarantine rules as China looks to make its zero-COVID policy more targeted amid a sharp economic slowdown and public frustration that has boiled over into unrest.
The southern city of Shenzhen announced it would no longer require people to show a negative COVID test result to use public transport or enter parks, following similar moves by Chengdu and Tianjin.
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Many testing booths in Beijing have been shut, as the capital stops demanding negative test results as a condition to enter places such as supermarkets and prepares to do so for subways from Monday. Many other venues, including offices, still require testing.
A video showing workers in Beijing removing a testing booth by crane onto a truck went viral on Chinese social media on Friday.
“This should have been taken away earlier!,” said one commentator. “Banished to history,” said another.
Reuters could not immediately verify the authenticity of the footage. At some of the remaining booths, however, residents grumbled about hour-long queues for the tests due to the closures.
Three years after COVID emerged in central China, the nation has been a global outlier with a zero-tolerance approach of lockdowns and frequent testing. The authorities say the measures are needed to save lives and avoid overwhelming China’s healthcare system.
China began tweaking its approach last month, urging localities to become more targeted. Initial reactions, however, were marked with confusion and even tighter lockdowns as cities scrambled to keep a lid on rising cases.
Then a deadly apartment fire last month in the far western city of Urumqi sparked dozens of protests against COVID curbs in over 20 cities in a wave unprecedented in mainland China since President Xi Jinping took power in 2012.
Feds aim to curb foreign influence
Authorities detained several people who participated in the protests and police in cities such as Shanghai have been checking commuters’ phones for apps or virtual private network software that protesters used to communicate, according to protesters and social media posts.
On Saturday, police kept a heavy presence around Liangmaqiao junction in east Beijing, as authorities sought to put off any potential follow-up to last weekend’s unrest.
A similarly large police presence could be seen on streets close to Shanghai’s Wulumuqi Road, which is named after Urumqi and was the site of a vigil for the victims of the fire that turned into protests last weekend.
China is set to further announce a nationwide easing of testing requirements as well as allowing positive cases and close contacts to isolate at home under certain conditions, people familiar with the matter told Reuters this week.
Xi, during a meeting with European Union officials in Beijing on Thursday, blamed the mass protests on youth frustrated by years of the pandemic, but said the now-dominant Omicron variant of the virus paved the way for fewer restrictions, EU officials said.
Officials have only recently begun to downplay the dangers of Omicron, a significant change in messaging in a country where fear of COVID has run deep.
READ MORE: Chinese workers appear to hop fences to escape COVID-19 outbreak at iPhone factory
On Friday, some Beijing neighbourhoods posted guidelines on social media on how positive cases can quarantine at home, a landmark move that marks a break from official guidance to send such people to central quarantine.
Still, the relief has also been accompanied by concerns, especially from people who feel more exposed to the disease.
Many analysts say they still do not anticipate a significant reopening until at least after March, as China must first achieve results in a just-launched vaccination drive targeting the elderly.
Estimates for how many deaths China could see if it pivots to a full reopening have ranged from 1.3 million to over 2 million, though some researchers said the death toll could be reduced sharply if there was a focus on vaccination.
China protests: Shanghai residents clash with COVID workers, riot police called in Guangzhou
“None of this should be interpreted as a fundamental shift away from the zero-COVID policy but rather an effort to make it more streamlined and less costly. The goal is still to get cases back close to zero,” Capital Economics said in a note, referring to the recent fine-tuning of policy.
“The alternative of letting the virus spread widely before more of the elderly are vaccinated and healthcare capacity has been ramped up would result in a higher death rate than in many Asian countries that reopened earlier, undermining China’s zero-COVID success,” they said.
China reported 32,827 daily local COVID-19 infections on Saturday, down from 34,772 a day earlier. As of Friday, China had reported 5,233 COVID-related deaths and 331,952 cases with symptoms.
(Reporting by Brenda Goh; Additional reporting by Liz Lee and Martin Pollard in Beijing, and Engen Tham in Shanghai; Editing by William)
Martin Rees Polity (2022)
For all our technology, says astronomer and former Royal Society president Martin Rees, “we are no wiser than Aristotle”. His thoughtful, enjoyable book on science and civilization ranges from the deficiencies of formal science education to the mega-challenges of climate change and pandemics, including his public wager in 2017 that human “bioterror or bioerror” would trigger one million casualties before 2021. Unlike seasoned global public-health experts, however, Rees did not predict a zoonotic spillover.
Paul Smith Thames & Hudson (2022)
Dendrites, the branched extensions of nerve cells, are named after the Greek dendron, or ‘tree’. “We think with trees”, says the foreword to this engaging, enchantingly illustrated global study by plant ecologist and conservationist Paul Smith, organized by life cycle into sections from ‘Seeds’ to ‘Fruits’, including art and architecture. Covering around one-third of the planet’s land surface, trees can grow to more than 100 metres tall and weigh more than 1,000 tonnes. Almost 60,000 species are known, some 30% of which are threatened with extinction.
Created by Greta Thunberg Allen Lane (2022)
In 2021, activist Greta Thunberg accused world leaders of “blah, blah, blah” on climate change. Sweden, her home country, claims a 30% drop in carbon dioxide emissions since 1990 — but she calculates an increase by including international aviation and shipping, and biogenic emissions, noting: “Our so-called leaders still think they can bargain with physics and negotiate with the laws of nature.” Her rousing response collects accessible contributions and practical solutions from more than 100 scientists, economists, historians and philosophers.
Henry Petroski Yale Univ. Press (2022)
“I am an engineer,” writes Henry Petroski, “and I see forces everywhere and feel them in everything I touch.” His diverse and entertaining analysis of force since ancient times ranges from getting dressed, writing with a pencil and shopping to the design of face masks, buildings and spacecraft. London’s Millennium Bridge exemplifies the interaction of forces. When opened in 2000, it swayed excessively from side to side, because engineers had not taken into account that walkers push sideways to keep their balance, as well as up and down.
George F. DeMartino Univ. Chicago Press (2022)
With its reductive view of human nature, economics was called “the dismal science” in the nineteenth century. Economist George DeMartino prefers “tragic science”, because so many adherents have been willing to ignore harm in pursuit of growth. “Their calling validated the imposition of whatever harms were necessary … to get the job done,” he concludes. Such hubris has been tempered by global financial disasters and climate change, but the profession still requires major reform, he trenchantly argues.
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Manitoba has seen a sharp increase in HIV rates over the past four years — and the doctors who have been tracking the data say the situation is likely to get worse.
The Manitoba HIV Program unveiled its 2018-2021 report findings Thursday — World AIDS Day and Indigenous Awareness Week — by highlighting an overrepresentation of Indigenous people living with HIV, and more women being diagnosed.
"This is the best data we've ever put together. I think it tells us a lot about a population at risk," Manitoba HIV Program director Dr. Ken Kasper said during a media briefing Wednesday at Winnipeg's Nine Circles Community Health Centre.
The number of people newly diagnosed with HIV and living in the province increased from 111 in 2018 to 169 in 2021, an increase of 52 per cent.
Kasper and his team are still collecting data for 2022, but he expects those numbers to go way up. He estimates Manitoba will see more than 200 new diagnoses of HIV this year.
"The goal in Canada in 2023 was to have 500 new people diagnosed," he said. "The way things are going in Manitoba in 2022, we'll have over 200 of those 500 cases. And clearly, they are not going to meet their targets."
The rate of new HIV transmissions in 2020 was 4.0 per 100,000 people, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada. Manitoba sits three times above the national average, coming it at 12.2 per 100,000 people.
Kasper estimates that rate will be even higher in 2022, potentially four to five times higher than the rest of the country.
The "burden of HIV," according to Kasper, is in the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, with more than 65 per cent of people diagnosed with the virus in Manitoba last year.
The number of new HIV diagnoses in the Prairie Mountain Health Regional Health Authority dropped the past few years, but Kasper expects that number will rise in 2022.
The growing proportion of females acquiring HIV is also troublesome, with half of the new diagnoses being female.
This is way up compared to the national average in 2020, which saw one in three females make up the total number of new HIV diagnoses.
The average age of a female contracting HIV also dropped from 39 in 2018 to 32 in 2021, according to the report.
It also dropped for males, albeit slightly from 38.5 years old to 36.5 years old.
And for the first time, the program's report examined sexual orientation, with six in 10 self-identifying as heterosexual, and two in 10 identifying as gay, bisexual or men who have sex with men.
Kasper identified heterosexual sex as one of two major risk factors the program's patients are self-reporting, with injection use the other major risk.
Dr. Lauren MacKenzie, associate director of the Manitoba HIV Program, pointed to social determinants such as homelessness, substance abuse and mental health conditions, as key factors in the acquisition of HIV.
The report found nearly 50 per cent of females and 25 per cent of males experienced homelessness. Nearly two-thirds of females and more than one-third of males self-reported injection drug use.
HIV acquisition is even more of an alarming issue among Indigenous people, with 73.4 per cent of people referred to the Manitoba HIV Program in 2021 self-identifying as Indigenous.
That number rose sharply from just over 50 per cent in 2018.
"We can't lead this effort to identify solutions on our own and we really need the input of our Indigenous partners to guide us to help find these solutions," MacKenzie said.
The program plans to break down Indigenous numbers into Métis, Inuit and First Nations in the future.
MacKenzie also highlighted the challenge of ensuring people who are diagnosed stay associated with the program and seek treatment.
Of the 517 people diagnosed with HIV and referred to the program from 2018 to 2021, 501 of them were linked to HIV care. However, by the end of the reporting period, 93 people were either linked to or did not remain engaged in treatment. This accounts for nearly 20 per cent of all people diagnosed with HIV in the province in that span.
Dr. Marcia Anderson, executive director of Indigenous Academic Affairs for the Indigenous Institute of Health and
Healing, says the current state of Indigenous health, including HIV diagnosis, is rooted in previous government policies such as forced assimilation of Indigenous peoples.
"The system is producing the results that it was designed to produce and that is not any less true in the data that we are seeing today," Anderson said.
Strengthening Indigenous leadership on the issues and supporting a provincial Indigenous-led HIV strategy is key, according to the Manitoba HIV Program.
Anderson believes First Nation leadership is prepared to act.
"First Nations leadership and broader Indigenous leadership will work with the HIV program," she said. "[They] will work with all levels of government on these calls to action," she said.
The program also issued two broad calls to action: maximizing treatment as prevention and supporting primary care capacity.
WASHINGTON - Women are far more likely than men to get autoimmune diseases, when an out-of-whack immune system attacks their own bodies -...
