Some shops reopen and WHO bows to calls for virus probe; In The News for May 19

In The News is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to kickstart your day. Here is what’s on the radar of our editors for the morning of May 19 …

—

COVID-19 in Canada ….

Businesses in some provinces spent the long weekend preparing to reopen ahead of an easing of restrictions aimed at curbing the COVID-19 pandemic, even as others said they’re not yet ready to throw open their doors.

Ontario has given the green light to certain retail stores to open their doors today as the province enters the first stage of its reopening plan.

The construction industry has also been given the go-ahead to resume operations, and some surgeries will be allowed to proceed.

Some stores, however, said they’re holding off on reopening their doors for now despite the provincial permission, citing health and financial concerns.

Peter Birkemoe, who owns The Beguiling comic book shop in Toronto, said the business has been doing well with online orders and, as of last week, curbside pickup. Safely reopening the store would take more resources to serve fewer customers, which would represent “a big step backwards,” he said.

While he misses interacting with customers face to face, Birkemoe said it’s not worth jeopardizing his health and that of his staff, or the work they’re currently doing.

—

In other Canadian news …

A team of military investigators arrived in British Columbia on Monday to begin searching for answers into Sunday’s deadly Snowbird crash, which the aerobatic team’s commander described as a confluence of “worst-case scenarios, and it became our absolute worst nightmare.”

The eight-member flight investigation team was deployed from Ottawa to Kamloops, where one of the Snowbirds’s famed Tutor jets went down shortly after takeoff. The Snowbirds had been in the midst of a cross-country tour aimed at boosting morale during the COVID-19 pandemic.

One Canadian Armed Forces member, Capt. Jennifer Casey, a public affairs officer from Halifax, was killed while another, Capt. Richard MacDougall, who was piloting the aircraft, sustained serious but non-life threatening injuries.

During a news conference at 15 Wing Moose Jaw in Saskatchewan, where the Snowbirds are based, team commander Lt.-Col. Mike French said the cross-country tour known as Operation Inspiration has been suspended while the team’s Tutor jets are subject to an “operational pause.”

French would not speculate on the cause of the crash, but insisted that safety is the Snowbirds’ “No. 1 priority.” He added that each aircraft is torn down and rebuilt about every two years and subject to regular maintenance and checks prior to every flight.

“Our priorities are always the safety of the public, the safety of our personnel and then the protection of our equipment and property,” he said, adding what happened Sunday was “the confluence of all those worst-case scenarios and it became our absolute worst nightmare.”

—

Also this …

Joe Biden’s campaign lobbed a spanner into Alberta’s post-pandemic economic recovery strategy Monday with a promise to rip up U.S. President Donald Trump’s approvals for the Keystone XL pipeline if the former vice-president succeeds in taking over the White House next year.

Campaign officials finally ended the presumptive Democrat nominee’s months of self-imposed silence on how he would handle the politically sensitive expansion project, an ambitious, 1,900-kilometre heavy-oil line that would move 830,000 barrels of Alberta bitumen each day over the Canada-U.S. border to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

It wouldn’t be the first time that Biden has stood in the way of the Calgary-based TC Energy expansion. As vice-president, he was a key member of Barack Obama’s administration, which slow-walked the project — championed by the former Conservative government — throughout Obama’s second term before finally blocking construction outright shortly after the Liberals were elected in 2015.

“Stopping Keystone was the right decision then and it’s still the right decision now. In fact, it’s even more important today,” policy director Stef Feldman said in a written statement, first reported by Politico.

Trump, meanwhile, has spent “every day of his presidency” ignoring the looming climate crisis, making matters worse by pulling the U.S. out of the Paris accord, weakening national fuel standards, and rolling back regulations for air and water pollution, Feldman continued.

—

COVID-19 in the U.S. …

President Donald Trump said that he is taking a malaria drug to protect against the coronavirus, despite warnings from his own government that it should only be administered for COVID-19 in a hospital or research setting due to potentially fatal side effects.

Trump told reporters he has been taking the drug, hydroxychloroquine, and a zinc supplement daily “for about a week and a half now.” Trump spent weeks pushing the drug as a potential cure or prophylaxis for COVID-19 against the cautionary advice of many of his administration’s top medical professionals. The drug has the potential to cause significant side effects in some patients and has not been shown to combat the new coronavirus.

Trump said his doctor did not recommend the drug to him, but he requested it from the White House physician.

“I started taking it, because I think it’s good,” Trump said. “I’ve heard a lot of good stories.”

The White House physician, Dr. Sean Conley, said in a statement released through the White House press office that, after “numerous discussions” with Trump about the evidence for and against using hydroxychloroquine, “we concluded the potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks.”

—

COVID-19 around the world …

The World Health Organization bowed to calls from most of its member states to launch an independent probe into how it managed the international response to the coronavirus, which has been clouded by finger-pointing between the U.S. and China over a pandemic that has killed over 300,000 people and levelled the global economy.

The “comprehensive evaluation,” sought by a coalition of African, European and other countries, is intended to review “lessons learned” from WHO’s co-ordination of the global response to COVID-19, but would stop short of looking into contentious issues such as the origins of the new coronavirus. U.S. President Donald Trump has claimed he has proof suggesting the coronavirus originated in a lab in China while the scientific community has insisted all evidence to date shows the virus likely jumped into humans from animals.

In Washington, Trump on Monday faulted WHO for having done “a very sad job” lately and said he was considering whether to cut the annual U.S. funding from $450 million a year to $40 million.

“They gave us a lot of bad advice, terrible advice,” he said. “They were wrong so much, always on the side of China.”

WHO’s normally bureaucratic annual assembly this week has been overshadowed by mutual recriminations and political sniping between the U.S. and China. Trump has repeatedly attacked WHO, claiming that it helped China conceal the extent of the coronavirus pandemic in its early stages. Several Republican lawmakers have called on WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to resign.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Monday it was time to be frank about why COVID-19 has “spun out of control.”

—

Also this…

The coronavirus outbreak disrupted what had been big plans to mark the 40th anniversary of the eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington state.

The peak in the Cascade Mountain Range blew its top on May 18, 1980, killing 57 people, blasting more than 1,300 feet (396 metres) off the top of the mountain and raining volcanic ash around for hundreds of miles.

But there will be no public observances at the volcano on Monday. Oregon Public Broadcasting reports the main highway into the national volcanic monument is closed due to COVID-19 and the multiple visitor centres and museums that had planned remembrances are also shuttered.

“We’ve been thrown for quite a loop here,” said Washington State Parks interpretive specialist Alysa Adams. “Please stay tuned for next year because I think we’re going to take all of this energy and passion and turn it into something productive for the 41st anniversary.”

Several agencies are presenting talks and experiences online.

The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, Pacific Northwest Seismic Network and Washington State Parks scheduled separate 40th-anniversary live stream presentations Monday night.

The eruption produced huge, black and grey clouds of ash that rose more than 80,000 (24,384 metres) feet and eventually poured tiny granules of debris in cities and towns throughout the Northwest. The peak, which had experienced many smaller eruptions on the weeks preceding the big event. Within minutes of a 5.1 earthquake that hit at 8:32 a.m. on May 18, 1980, the volcano’s north flank collapsed, triggering the largest landslide in recorded history. The explosion scorched and flattened about 230 square miles (450 square kilometres) of dense forest.

—

ICYMI (In case you missed it)

As British Columbia begins to reopen and reduce social distancing guidelines, life hasn’t changed much for Spencer Wilson.

Wilson is one of the roughly 54 lighthouse keepers working across B.C.’s 27 manned lighthouses, stretching from the southern tip of Vancouver Island up to near the Alaska border.

Living conditions vary for each lighthouse, but keepers work in pairs to ensure an entire day is covered.

“It stops us from having any ‘Shining’ moments,” said Barry Tchir, the regional vice-president of the union representing lighthouse keepers.

Wilson, 48, has been working as a lighthouse keeper since October.

“It takes a certain type of personality to do it,” Wilson said from his station at Boat Bluff, a remote lighthouse on B.C.’s north coast that has been operating since 1906.

—

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 19, 2020

The Canadian Press