Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - December 27, 2020, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A4 A 4 SUNDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2020 ? WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COMNEWS I COVID-19 PANDEMIC Under the new rules that came into effect on Boxing Day, restaurants in Ontario can only provide takeout, drive-through and delivery, including the sale of alcohol. Ontario has joined Manitoba and Quebec in closing non-essential retail stores for in-person shopping, while supermarkets and pharmacies must follow rules for distancing and limiting capacity. The new rules are having an effect on Boxing Day shopping, which is forcing bargain hunters in many parts of the country to look online for deals instead of lining up and crowding into stores in person. Other provinces have put limits on in-store capacity as officials urge Canadians to stay home and limit con- tacts as much as possible to limit the spread of COVID-19. Ontario's new measures remain in effect in southern Ontario until Jan. 23, but will lift for the less-affected northern regions on Jan. 9. In Quebec, a provincewide lockdown went into effect Friday, with busi- nesses deemed non-essential ordered to remain closed until at least Jan. 11. The province did not publish data on the number of new infections or deaths on Friday or Saturday. Government websites for Manitoba and Saskatchewan indicated those provinces would not provide updates on Saturday. Alberta reported an estimated 1,200 new cases on Dec. 24 and about 900 on Christmas Day, according to a modi- fied update provided by the province's chief medical officer of health. Dr. Deena Hinshaw said on Twitter that hospitalizations and intensive care numbers also increased slightly each day. New Brunswick reported two new cases on Saturday, and said both were related to travel. Officials also reported possible expo- sure sites on three recent Air Canada flights into New Brunswick. - The Canadian Press VARIANT ? FROM A1 WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Un- employment benefits for millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet were set to lapse at midnight Sat- urday unless U.S. President Donald Trump signed an end-of-year COVID relief and spending bill that had been considered a done deal before his sud- den objections. Trump's refusal to sign the bipar- tisan package as he demands larger COVID relief cheques and complains about "pork" spending could also force a federal government shutdown when money runs out at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday in the middle of a pandemic. "It's a chess game and we are pawns," said Lanetris Haines, a self-employed single mother of three in South Bend, Ind., who stands to lose her US$129 weekly jobless benefit unless Trump signs the package into law or succeeds in his improbable quest for changes. Washington has been reeling since Trump threw the package into limbo after it had already won sweeping ap- proval in both houses of Congress and after the White House assured Repub- lican leaders Trump would support it. Instead, he has assailed the bill's plan to provide US$600 COVID relief cheques to most Americans - insisting it should be US$2,000. House Republic- ans swiftly rejected that idea during a rare Christmas Eve session. But Trump has not been swayed. "I simply want to get our great people US$2000, rather than the measly US$600 that is now in the bill," Trump tweeted Saturday from Palm Beach, Florida, where he is spending the holi- day. "Also, stop the billions of dollars in 'pork.'" President-elect Joe Biden called on Trump to sign the bill immediately as two federal programs providing un- employment aid were set to expire Sat- urday. "It is the day after Christmas, and millions of families don't know if they'll be able to make ends meet because of President Donald Trump's refusal to sign an economic relief bill approved by Congress with an overwhelming and bipartisan majority," Biden said in a statement. He accused Trump of an "abdication of responsibility" that has "devastating consequences." "I've been talking to people who are scared they're going to be kicked out from their homes, during the Christ- mas holidays, and still might be if we don't sign this bill,'' said Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat. Lauren Bauer, a fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, has calculated that 11 million people would lose aid from the programs immedi- ately without additional relief; millions more would exhaust other unemploy- ment benefits within weeks. Andrew Stettner, an unemployment insurance expert and senior fellow at the Century Foundation think-tank, said the number may be closer to 14 million because joblessness has spiked since Thanksgiving. "All these folks and their families will suffer if Trump doesn't sign the damn bill,'' Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, tweeted Wednesday. How and when people are affected by the lapse depends on the state they live in, the program they are relying on and when they applied for benefits. In some states, people on regular unemploy- ment insurance could continue to re- ceive payments under a program that extends benefits when the jobless rate surpasses a certain threshold, Stettner said. About 9.5 million people, however, rely on the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program that expires alto- gether Saturday. That program made unemployment insurance available to freelancers, gig workers and others who are normally not eligible. After re- ceiving their last cheques, those recipi- ents will not be able to file for more aid after Saturday, Stettner said. While payments could be received retroactively, any gap means more hardship and uncertainty for Amer- icans who have already grappled with bureaucratic delays, often de- pleting much of their savings to stay afloat while waiting for payments to kick in. They are people like Earl McCarthy, a father of four who lives in South Fulton, Ga., and has been relying on unemploy- ment since losing his job as a sales rep- resentative for a luxury senior living community. He said he will be left with no income by the second week of Janu- ary if Trump fails to sign the bill. McCarthy said he already burned through much of his savings as he wait- ed five months to begin receiving his unemployment benefits. After leaving weekly messages with the unemploy- ment agency, McCarthy reached out to the South Fulton mayor's office, then to his state legislative representative to ask for help. He finally started getting payments in November. "The entire experience was horrify- ing," said McCarthy, who is receiving about US$350 a week in unemploy- ment insurance. "For me, I shudder to think if I had not saved anything or had an emer- gency fund through those five months, where would we have been?" he said. "It's going to be difficult if the presi- dent doesn't sign this bill." The bill awaiting Trump's signature would also activate a weekly US$300 federal supplement to unemployment payments. Trump, meanwhile, has been spend- ing his final days in office golfing and angrily tweeting as he refuses to ac- cept his loss to Biden in the Nov. 3 elec- tion. On Saturday, he again lashed out at members of his own party for fail- ing to join his quest to try to overturn the results of the election with baseless claims of mass voter fraud that have been repeatedly rejected by the courts. "If a Democrat Presidential Candi- date had an Election Rigged & Stolen, with proof of such acts at a level never seen before, the Democrat Senators would consider it an act of war, and fight to the death," he railed. He said Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mc- Connell and his Republicans "just want to let it pass. NO FIGHT!" Trump also lashed out at the Supreme Court, the Justice Department and the FBI as he seemed to encourage his sup- porters to gather in Washington on Jan. 6, the day Congress tallies the electoral college vote - even though a similar event last month devolved into violence, with multiple people being stabbed in the capital's streets. In addition to freezing unemployment benefits, Trump's lack of action on the bill would lead to the expiration of evic- tion protections and put on hold a new round of subsidies for hard-hit busi- nesses, restaurants and theatres, along with money to help schools and vaccine distribution. The relief is also attached to a US$1.4- trillion government funding bill to keep the federal government operating. - The Associated Press Benefits for millions in limbo as Trump rages ALEXANDRA OLSON AND JILL COLVIN U.S.President Donald Trump is lashing out at Republicans and the U.S. Supreme Court. W ARSAW, Poland - Hungarian doctors and health-care work-ers began getting vaccinated Saturday with one of the continent's first shipments of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, upsetting the European Union's plans for a co-ordin- ated rollout of the first shots across the 27-nation bloc today. The first shipments of the vaccine arrived at hospitals across the EU in super-cold containers late Friday and early Saturday after being sent from a manufacturing centre in Belgium be- fore Christmas. It was not immediately clear why Hungarian authorities began their vac- cinations a day early. Authorities in Slo- vakia also announced that they planned to begin administering their first doses on Saturday evening. European Commission President Ur- sula von der Leyen released a video celebrating the vaccine rollout, calling it "a touching moment of unity." "Today, we start turning the page on a difficult year. The COVID-19 vaccine has been delivered to all EU countries. Vaccination will begin tomorrow across the EU," she said. The rollout marks a moment of hope for a region that includes some of the world's earliest and worst-hit virus hot spots - Italy and Spain - and others such as the Czech Republic, which were spared early on only to see their health-care systems near their breaking point in the fall. Altogether, the EU's 27 nations have seen at least 16 million coronavirus in- fections and more than 336,000 deaths. The vaccine rollout will help the bloc project a sense of unity in a complex lifesaving mission after it faced a year of difficulties in negotiating a post- Brexit trade deal with Britain. It also brings a sigh of relief for EU politicians who were frustrated after Britain, Canada and the United States began their vaccination programs earlier this month. "It's here, the good news at Christ- mas," German Health Minister Jens Spahn said at a news conference Satur- day. "This vaccine is the decisive key to end this pandemic." "It is the key to getting our lives back," Spahn said. The first shipments, however, are limited to just under 10,000 doses in most countries, with the mass vaccina- tion programs expected to begin only in January. Each country is deciding on its own who will get the first shots - but they are all putting the most vulnerable first. In Hungary, the first shipment of 9,750 doses - enough to vaccinate 4,875 people, since two doses are needed per person - arrived by truck early Satur- day and were taken to the South Pest Central Hospital in Budapest. The gov- ernment said four other hospitals, two in Budapest and two others in the east- ern cities of Debrecen and Ny�regy- h�za, would also receive vaccines from the initial shipment. French authorities said they will pri- oritize the elderly, based on the virus's deadly impact on older people in previ- ous virus surges in France. The French medical safety agency will monitor for any potential problems. Germany, where the pandemic has cost more than 30,000 lives, will begin with those over 80 and people who take care of vulnerable groups. Spanish authorities said the first batch of the vaccine to reach the coun- try had arrived in the central city of Guadalajara - where the first shots will be administered on Sunday mor- ning at a nursing home. In Italy, which has Europe's worst virus death toll at more than 71,000 people, a nurse in Rome at Spallanzani Hospital, the main infectious diseases facility in the capital, will be the first in the country to receive the vaccine, fol- lowed by other health personnel. In Poland, the first two people to be vaccinated today will be a nurse and a doctor at the Interior Ministry hos- pital in Warsaw, the main coronavirus hospital in the capital, followed by medical personnel in dozens of other hospitals. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called it the patriotic duty of Poles to get vaccinated - a message directed at a society where there is a high degree of vaccine hesitancy born from a general distrust of authorities. In Bulgaria, where vaccine hesitancy also runs high, the first person to get the shot will be Health Minister Kosta- din Angelov, who has promised an ag- gressive campaign to promote the bene- fits of the shots. In Croatia, where the first batch of 9,750 vaccines arrived early on Sat- urday, a care home resident in Zag- reb, the capital, will be the first to receive the vaccine this morning, ac- cording to state HRT TV. Authorities also planned to involve celebrities and other public figures in a pro-vaccina- tion campaign. "We have been waiting for this for a year now," Romanian Prime Minister Florin Catu said on Saturday after the first batch of the vaccine arrived at a military-run storage facility there. The vaccinations begin as the first cases of a new variant of the virus that has been spreading in the U.K. have now been detected in France and Spain. The new variant, which British author- ities said is much more easily transmit- ted, has caused European countries, the United States and China to put new restrictions on travel for people from Britain. A French man living in England ar- rived in France on Dec. 19 and tested positive for the new variant Friday, the French public health agency said. He has no symptoms and is isolat- ing in his home in the central city of Tours. Meanwhile, health authorities in the Madrid region said they had confirmed the U.K. variant in four people, all of whom are in good health. Regional health chief Enrique Ruiz Escudero said the new strain had arrived when an infected person flew into Madrid's airport. German pharmaceutical company BioNTech is confident that its corona- virus vaccine works against the new U.K. variant, but further studies are needed to be completely certain. - The Associated Press Hungary gives first shots a day before rollout EU hospitals get first shipments of vaccine VANESSA GERA SZILARD KOSZTICSAK / MTI AP The first shipment of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine arrives at the Southern Pest Central Hospital in Budapest. Health-care workers in Hungary began getting vaccinated Saturday. A_04_Dec-27-20_FP_01.indd A4 2020-12-26 9:49 PM ;