Climate Change Adaptation, COVID Hospitalizations: In the May 16 News
The number of natural disasters hitting Canada has increased from about 30 a decade in the 1960s to over 100 a decade today.
Canada faces another summer with above-average risks from wildfires and flooding in large parts of the country.
The Liberals promise an adaptation strategy by the end of the year to make the country’s healthcare system, economy and built environment more resilient to extreme weather conditions.
Environment Secretary Steven Guilbeault will begin the second and final phase of development for this strategy later today.
In the first phase, five expert panels offered advice to the minister, and all said that much remains to be done before the end of this decade.
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Also these…
A new study offers a closer look at possible factors that may cause some hospitalized COVID-19 patients to be readmitted within a month of discharge.
Researchers say the readmission rate, at about nine percent, is similar to other diseases, but socioeconomic factors and gender seem to play a bigger role in predicting who will continue to lose weight after leaving the hospital.
A study published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal looked at more than 46,000 adults hospitalized for COVID-19 in Alberta and Ontario during the first part of the pandemic.
About 18 percent died in hospital between January 2020 and October 2021, which was higher than the norm for other respiratory infections.
Of those sent home, about nine percent returned to the hospital within 30 days of their departure, while two percent died.
co-author dr. Finlay McAlister of the University of Alberta says recurring patients tended to be male and older, with multiple comorbidities and previous hospital visits and admissions.
He says a scoring system used by hospitals to predict readmission is more accurate when it includes a patient’s gender and socioeconomic background.
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What we are seeing in the US…
LAGUNA WOODS, Calif. _ A man opened fire during a lunchtime reception at a Southern California church on Sunday, killing one person and injuring five senior citizens before being stopped and handcuffed by parishioners in what a sheriff’s officer called an “extraordinary act of heroism and Bravery.”
Four of the five wounded suffered serious gunshot wounds during the violence at Geneva Presbyterian Church in the town of Laguna Woods, Orange County Sheriff’s Department officials said.
The suspect in the shooting, an Asian man in his 60s, was in custody and deputies recovered two handguns at the scene, Undersheriff Jeff Hallock said. A motive for the shooting wasn’t immediately known, but investigators don’t believe the shooter lives in the community.
The majority of churchgoers at the time were of Taiwanese descent, said Carrie Braun, a sheriff’s spokeswoman.
Between 30 and 40 members of the Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church were gathered for lunch after a morning service in Geneva when gunfire erupted just before 1:30 p.m., officials said. When MPs arrived, parishioners had tied the shooter to the pig and taken him into custody.
“This group of churchgoers showed what we believe to be extraordinary heroism and courage when they stepped in to stop the suspect. They undoubtedly prevented further injuries and deaths,” Hallock said. “I think it’s safe to say that if people hadn’t intervened, it could have been a lot worse.”
The injured victims were four Asian men, ages 66, 75, 82 and 92, and an 86-year-old Asian woman, the sheriff’s department said. Authorities originally said only four of the five surviving victims were shot. Information about the killed person was not released immediately.
The shooting came a day after an 18-year-old man shot dead ten people at a convenience store in Buffalo, New York.
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What we are observing in the rest of the world…
Kyiv, Ukraine _ After its military bogged down in a grueling conflict in eastern Ukraine, Russia also lost diplomatic ground over the weekend as two more European nations drew closer to joining NATO.
Finland announced on Sunday it intends to join the alliance, saying Russia’s invasion of Ukraine nearly three months ago changed Europe’s security landscape. A few hours later, Sweden’s ruling party approved an application for membership that could lead to an application within days.
The moves would be a major blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has called post-Cold War NATO expansion in Eastern Europe a threat and cited it as the reason for the attack on Ukraine. NATO says it is purely a defense alliance.
At a meeting with the alliance’s top diplomats in Berlin, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the war “is not going as Moscow planned”.
“Ukraine can win this war,” he said, adding that NATO must continue to provide military support to Kyiv.
Meanwhile, Russia inflicted damage but failed to make significant territorial gains in eastern Ukraine, which is the focus of its war effort, as its forces failed to capture the capital, Kyiv.
Village after village, Russian and Ukrainian militants are fighting over Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland, the Donbass. Ukrainian soldiers have been fighting Moscow-backed separatists there for eight years.
On Sunday, a Ukrainian battalion reached the Russian border in the Kharkiv region and shot a victorious video there, addressed to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Video posted to Facebook by Ukraine’s Defense Ministry shows a dozen fighters surrounding a post covered in blue and yellow, the colors of Ukraine. One said the unit “went to the dividing line with the Russian Federation, the occupied country. Mr President, we have achieved it. We are here.”
Other fighters made victory signs and raised their fists.
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On this day in 1871…
British Columbia was authorized to become Canada’s sixth province.
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While entertaining…
TORONTO _ Canada’s biggest night of music welcomed its live audience with open arms as the Juno Awards were presented last night.
Napanee, Ontario’s pop-punk princess Avril Lavigne — who has enjoyed something of a renaissance with the release of her 2022 album Love Sux — performed a medley of her greatest hits before returning the TikTok fan award to Shawn Mendes.
Mendes also scooped a special international achievement award for his global influence on music.
Other Canadian stars had their moments, too, including Montreal singer-songwriter Charlotte Cardin, who emerged as the year’s biggest winner with four trophies total.
She picked up album of the year for “Phoenix” on the show after the project won pop album of the year at an industry event on Saturday, and also picked up artist of the year and single of the year for “Meaningless” on the pre chosen – television event.
Other winners included Hamilton Rock Act Arkells for Group of the Year and Haviah Mighty, who became the first woman to win Rap Album or EP of the Year for “Stock Exchange.”
Deborah Cox was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame by former Toronto Raptors player Chris Bosh, who told the crowd how her hit “Nobody’s Supposed to Be Here” made a lasting impression on him.
“Shang-Chi” star Simu Liu hosted the event at Toronto’s Budweiser Stage and opened the ceremony with a nod to his Marvel persona before presenting his own version of Molson’s famous “I am Canadian” promise and the Menge shared that he “grew up eating ketchup chips, roti, and Jamaican beef patties.”
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Did you see that?
The Prince of Wales is greeted by an embarrassed figure on his arrival in Canada tomorrow: his own ‘woolly double’.
Prince Charles will be presented with a life-size, hand-felted bust of his own face when he meets Canadian wool lovers in St. John’s, NL, on one of the first stops on his three-day cross-country tour with his wife, Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall.
But the CEO of the Campaign for Wool in Canada says that’s not even the “pièce de résistance” of the prince’s woolly welcome.
Matthew Rowe says the non-profit industry association will also present its royal patron with a wool sculpture of his mother, the Queen.
Manitoban artist Rosemarie Péloquin says she spent hundreds of hours on each of the busts, using a barbed needle to sculpt the fine details of the royals’ faces.
Péloquin says she feels she got to know the prince through the making of his wool double and looks forward to seeing his real life counterpart’s face when the two meet.
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This report from The Canadian Press was first published on May 16, 2022.
The Canadian Press
