OPINION | Albertans asked to have faith in province's pipeline play

Graham Thomson EDMONTON JOURNAL 3/4/2020

© Nati Harnik/The Associated Press Alberta Premier Jason Kenney 

announced this week his government will invest $1.5 billion and 

guarantee loans for four times that amount to help the

 Keystone XL oil pipeline get built.
When it comes to investing billions of public dollars in private companies, Alberta politicians like to talk about former premier Peter Lougheed.

Nobody likes to talk about former premier Don Getty.

This week, when Premier Jason Kenney defended his government spending $1.5 billion of public cash and $6 billion in loan guarantees to prop up the Keystone XL pipeline project, he pointed to Lougheed successfully investing in private companies in the 1970s.

LOUGHEED WAS A STATE CAPITALIST PROTECTIONIST
It's true that Lougheed invested in companies such as Syncrude. Heck, he even bought companies such as (the now defunct) Pacific Western Airlines. But he did it when his government was flush with money thanks to a healthy oil sector. It was all part of Lougheed's plan to use surplus cash to help diversify the province's economy — as well as funnel money into the newly created Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund.

Then came a recession, and Don Getty who tried to kick-start the economy and save jobs through loan guarantees and investments in private companies. But more than a few turned into money-losing disasters.  
SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=DON+GETTY+

This is not to say Kenney's $7.5-billion gamble on the Keystone project will end in a fiasco for Alberta taxpayers.

But this is a gamble. The price of oil has been hammered thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic driving down demand, and a production war between Saudi Arabia and Russia driving up supply.

Uncharted territory

As Kenney said on Thursday, Western Canadian Select — the price Alberta gets for its heavy oil — is so low, and getting lower by the day, that it could be trading at negative prices later this month. That means our producers would have to pay someone to take the oil off their hands.

As Kenney keeps telling us, we are in uncharted territory.

That's certainly true for Kenney personally.

He's a staunch free-market, free-enterprise conservative who in his own words is "always skeptical of market intervention."

Yet, here he is diving into the market to a potential depth of $7.5 billion. At a time when oil prices might be about to go underwater.

Kenney realizes how this looks — and he addressed the issue head-on in the legislature on Thursday:

"A lot of people may be wondering right now: 'Well, why is the government taking, quote, a bet, on this when prices are at $5 a barrel for Alberta oil?' It's a reasonable question. The answer is that we have to plan for the long-term. It would be a terrible mistake for leaders, at a time such as this, to focus only on the hour-by-hour crisis management. A responsible government must plan for the mid- to long-term, and that's exactly what this investment does."

NDP Leader Rachel Notley, never one to back down from an opportunity to criticize Kenney, is not on the attack this time. That's because she had been in the same boat when she was premier in 2018 and declared she'd be willing to buy the Trans Mountain pipeline to keep its expansion project alive.

NDP supports project

On Thursday, after listening to Kenney speak about the Keystone investment, Notley said bluntly yet tamely, "We support this project."

Oh, she's still pressing Kenney for more details on his estimate that the Keystone investment will mean $30 billion in extra revenue for the province. But as someone who once considered investing $2 billion in a pipeline project, Notley is not in a position to press particularly hard.

She, like the rest of us, will just have to trust that the government has done its homework and calculated the risk.

As NDP MLA David Shepherd declared during debate on Thursday, "We are relying on the good faith of government." He was talking about the health crisis but it's a quote for all seasons. "We must be honest with each other," he added.

But I have to admit that when it comes to government honesty, I can get a little skeptical.

On Monday, for example, when Kenney was asked why his government cut $128 million from the education budget, triggering mass layoffs among educational assistants, he replied: "The layoffs are the result of the advice of our public health officer to close the schools."

Hmm. Well, while Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta's Chief Medical Officer of Health, did recommend ending in-class education, I don't think she suggested laying anybody off.

This demonstrates that when it comes to being straight-forward with Alberta, Kenney can sometimes be as slippery as a government-funded oil pipeline.

Also on Monday, the Alberta government issued a misleading news release about its controversial and gaffe-prone "war room" with the headline: "The Canadian Energy Centre (CEC) is reducing its current operating budget by 90 per cent to reflect needs during the COVID-19 pandemic."

"If applied on an annual basis," said the release, the cut would reduce the centre's budget from $30 million down to $2.84 million. Critics of the war room cheered.

However, the cut is not designed to last a year. It is planned for just "three months or until regular operations can recommence." If funding returns to normal after three months, the war room's budget for the year will still be a hefty $23 million, not $3 million.

As Shepherd said, "we are relying on the good faith of government."

When it comes to the Keystone XL project, that faith comes with a price tag that could reach $7.5 billion.

Energy Industry in Canada Needs $20 Billion in Aid, Kenney Says

Kevin Orland BLOOMBERG 3/4/2020

© Thomson Reuters REUTERS/Blair Gable

The Canadian energy industry needs more than C$20 billion (C$14.1 billion) in aid from the federal government as the Covid-19 pandemic and Saudi-Russian oil price war ravage global crude prices, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said Thursday.

Canadian oil and gas producers need “an emergency injection of liquidity” as a backstop for their finances, Kenney said in an interview on BNN Bloomberg Television. Kenney said he has been in contact with the federal government about the issue over the past three weeks.

“Our energy producers are burning through cash. They cannot raise capital,” Kenney said. “This is a matter of the highest urgency.”

Western Canadian Select, a benchmark of heavy crude, has fallen 77% so far this year, despite a remarkable 66% jump on Thursday amid talk that major oil-producing countries would soon slash production. WCS traded at $8.79 a barrel.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

New study from UBC researcher outlines pathway toward blocking COVID-19 virus

 

© Paul Joseph/UBC 

'There is hope for this horrible pandemic,' 

says Austrian biomedical researcher Josef Penniger 

who is also a professor in the University of British 

Columbia's faculty of medicine.

The University of British Columbia announced Thursday that an international team led by Dr. Josef Penninger has found a potential drug that helps block infection from the virus that causes COVID-19.

Penninger, a biomedical researcher from Austria, is a professor in UBC's faculty of medicine and director of the Life Sciences Institute there.

His study published April 2 in the peer-reviewed journal Cell focuses on a protein on the surface of human cells which is a key receptor for the spikes of glycoprotein characteristic in the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

The study provides direct evidence that a protein called APN01 (human recombinant soluble angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 – hrsACE2) — is useful as an "antiviral therapy" for the novel coronavirus, say its authors, because the virus binds to it rather than a cell wall.

Penninger has been working for decades to shine a light on cellular doorways, or receptors, that allow viruses entry into human organs. He's now turned to the virus that causes COVID-19.

"This virus hits the good guy and gets rid of the good guy, and that's why this virus is really dangerous because we lose protection of multiple tissues," said Penniger in a telephone call from Austria where he is stuck because of the global lockdown to stop the disease's spread,

There are now more than one million cases of COVID-19 worldwide and tens of thousands are dead. As the virus spreads so does the intense search for treatments, as there are no tested antiviral therapies yet.

Penninger has split his life between Vancouver and Vienna since 2018 and his Schwarzenegger accent sounds raspy after months of working 19-hours a day.

He and colleagues at the University of Toronto and the Institute of Molecular Biology in Vienna conducted earlier work on the same receptor using the SARS virus which is also a coronavirus.

"This virus is a brother or sister of the SARS virus," said Penninger.
Human drug trials begin soon

APN01 is scheduled to begin clinical trials in Europe, according to the UBC news release.

Penninger said he twigged that his drug might be able to help back in January when a Chinese scientist published the genetic sequence of the novel coronavirus and he saw the similarity to SARS.

So far, his team's latest research related to COVID-19 has been conducted on cells and engineered human tissue in a laboratory setting.

Infectious disease experts say the research is preliminary, promising and needs human trials before it is anywhere near becoming a drug treatment.
'Promising' say experts

Infectious disease physician and researcher at the University of Toronto, Isaac Bogoch, said the drug is interesting, but it will take time before it's available even if it pans out in upcoming human trials.

"This is seen as one of the crucial pathways for COVID-19. This is clearly a big step in the right direction," said Bogoch.

Arthur Caplan, founding head of the Division of Medical Ethics at New York University's School of Medicine in New York City, said in an email the leap from a laboratory to the real worlds is huge.

"Very interesting. But, still a long way from proof of clinical safety or efficacy. Many things fail that look promising in a dish.

"Organized, controlled human testing is still very much needed before giving this to anyone"

The former head of the Centre For Immunization and Respiratory Infectious Diseases with the Public Health Agency of Canada agrees.

"It looks like a promising drug; however, the real test will be what happens in humans ... whether the dose that might inhibit the virus is achievable in humans and not too toxic to them," said Dr. John Spika in an email.

The research was supported, in part, by federal emergency funding aimed at accelerating testing and development of potential cures or treatments to help deal with the outbreak, said UBC.

---30---

Former Obama security adviser calls on Canada to show global COVID-19 leadership

© Provided by The Canadian Press Gayle Smith 

OTTAWA — A former top Obama adviser says Canada's disciplined, science-based approach to the COVID-19 crisis should spur it to pursue greater international leadership on global health issues in the fight against the novel coronavirus.

"When I look at Canada, it looks to me there is a disciplined response up there with clear information coming through. I hope you all do very well because I like Canada, and we live next door to each other, and it matters to both of us that we succeed," Gayle Smith told The Canadian Press in an interview Friday.

"Canada has a lot of advantages here. It's good, strong reputation on global health, on the fight against AIDS, for vaccines. So, it's been a real player in that. Canada has got a great reputation and that kind of credibility helps in terms of global leadership."

Smith lamented the Trump administration's decision in 2018 to disband a special office in the National Security Council to monitor global health threats.

"The idea was to leave a directorate behind that could serve as that mechanism to ensure prevention, ensure preparedness and if it was necessary to quickly respond," said Smith, who previously served as head of the U.S. Agency for International Development and as special assistant to former president Barack Obama on his security council.

"I'm deeply sorry. I'm frustrated that that capability no longer exists. It was something we wanted to leave behind," said Smith, now the president of the advocacy group the ONE Campaign.

"It can be rebuilt, and I certainly hope it will be."

Smith said she thinks disbanding the office has led to an "ad hoc" response to the COVID-19 outbreak by the U.S. government.

Smith's comments echoed the view of the directorate's first head, Beth Cameron, in an opinion column in The Washington Post last month. Cameron wrote that the directorate's demise has led to the Trump administration's "sluggish" response to the pandemic.

When Trump was asked about the decision last month, he told a reporter it was a "nasty" question and said he didn't know "anything about it."

Smith was speaking Friday, when the Minnesota-based 3M said the Trump administration is trying to prevent it from exporting its N95 respirator masks as governments around the world struggle to buy important medical equipment.

Canada and the U.S. must ensure their supply chains are not interrupted as they fight the pandemic together, Smith said.

"We have an interest in Canada succeeding; you've got an interest in our succeeding," she said.

Smith said lessons must be learned from the 2014 Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa.

"Leaders have to act like leaders. Leadership really matters in how these crises are managed," she said.

"With Ebola, we saw the world really come together with Africa to fight that. I'm afraid we've not quite seen that yet."

In dealing with the Trump administration, she urged Canada to lead "with its dialogue, with the facts and the science."

Smith said she was encouraged to see how Canada and the U.S. co-operated to close their shared border to non-essential travel in order to control the spread of the pandemic.

"I don't know what went on behind the scenes. It seemed to me that the discussions on our common border were very grown up and matter of fact. I hope we can see more of that," she said.

Both countries have to deal with the fact that their fates are intertwined, and they have to reach out to the broader international community to fight the pandemic, she said.

"Crises like these lay bare some of our vulnerabilities," Smith said.

"It probably makes sense to work with other countries and multilateral institutions because we actually need them for our own national interest and national security."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 3, 2020.

Mike Blanchfield, The Canadian Press

Kenney says he's 'insulted' by Trump order to stop exporting N95 masks to Canada

KENNEY FINALLY SPEAKS FOR ALL ALBERTANS

Joel Dryden CBC 4/4/2020

Trudeau slams Trump’s order to halt export of N95 masks to Canada

The Trump administration's attempt to pressure Minnesota-based 3M from exporting life-saving masks to Canada is "extremely disappointing" and flies in the face of decades of cooperation, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said Friday.

"If I had the chance to speak to president Trump, I would remind him of Canadian solidarity following 9/11 and in the global fight against terrorism," Kenney said. "We have made very real sacrifices to stand by our American friends and allies and, as a Canadian, I am insulted by the decision announced today.


"[This is] critically needed medical equipment that we need to fight the pandemic here in this country."

In a news release issued Friday, 3M said it was facing pressure from the White House to sell medical respirators and masks in the United States before exporting them to other countries, including Canada.

"I think it's shortsighted, because the United States is a net importer of this kind of equipment," Kenney said. "It also underscores why we must produce our own critical equipment here at home, because apparently we can't even count on our closest friend and ally to be a supplier."

Kenney voiced his support for Ontario Premier Doug Ford's call for manufacturing companies to produce medical items in short supply, saying Alberta would push to follow suit.

Trump wants N95 mask exports to Canada halted, manufacturer says

"We need to ensure we have surplus equipment, but we will not respond the same way the U.S. president has today. It's very disappointing," he said. "I would remind our American friends and neighbours that we've always been there together in important moments in history.

"We should be there together at this important moment in history."

© Reuters/Art Raham/CBC Premier Jason Kenney 

criticized the Trump administration during the province's

 daily medical briefing Friday, saying its attempt to stop

 mask exports was shortsighted.Masks not yet

 recommended in Alberta, Hinshaw says

Trump announced new federal guidelines Friday recommending Americans wear face coverings while in public, but Alberta has not adopted that as a recommendation.

"I have asked our scientific team to look at this," said Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta's chief medical officer of health, at Friday's news conference. "I hope to have a formal recommendation by next week."

There is evidence that masks can limit the spread of infection from those who are infected to others, Hinshaw said, but there are problems with cloth masks.

"When cloth masks get damp … they can actually start to trap virus, and that could be a risk for the person wearing them," she said.

B.C. health officials said Wednesday that they were considering implementing widespread use of face masks as COVID-19 cases rose in the province.

On Friday, Trump said the wearing of masks in America was voluntary, and added he was unlikely to wear one himself. 

Canada not planning retaliatory measures after U.S. restricts coronavirus mask exports: Trudeau 

Kerri Breen 4/4/2020

An N-95 mask is seen in Toronto on Friday, March 27, 2020. 

One of the world's largest U.S.-based makers of consumer products 

says it has been told by the White House to stop exporting 

medical-grade face masks to the Canadian market.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada is not looking at retaliatory measures after U.S. President Donald Trump told a manufacturer of medical masks not to export them to Canada.

Trudeau said he would be speaking with Trump in the coming days and looking for a positive solution on the issue.

He made the remarks in his daily address to Canadians from outside Rideau Cottage in Ottawa.

READ MORE: Coronavirus: Trump asks medical supply firm 3M to stop selling N95 respirators to Canada

On Friday, 3M said it was asked by the Trump administration not to supply N95 respirators to Canada and Latin America amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Trump has ordered the Minnesota-based company to produce and sell as many medical-grade masks as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) says it needs. He invoked the Defence Production Act in order to speed up the distribution of masks.

Trump later released a statement saying that nothing in his order "will interfere with the ability of PPE manufacturers to export when doing so is consistent with United States policy and in the national interest of the United States."

3M did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.

—With files from Maham Abedi, Global News

Sask. nurses union says SHA examining possibility of reusing N95 masks

Morgan Modjeski CBC 4/4/2020

© Craig Edwards/CBC 

Tracy Zambory, president of Saskatchewan Union of Nurses, said SUN 

is in favour of researching whether or not the N95 masks can be reused, 

but said the research needs to happen in a controlled lab environment.

The head of the province's nurses union says the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) is examining the possibility of reusing N95 masks to protect against COVID-19.

Tracy Zambory, president of the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses (SUN), said that as of Thursday front-line workers were being told by SHA managers about a trial to see if the highly-sought masks could be reused.

Zambory said overall research on reuse of the masks is "limited" and that in examples SUN found the masks were only being reused in "complete crisis mode," noting she doesn't think Saskatchewan is there just yet.

"We're all for looking at new and creative ways, but it isn't something we would envision happening on the floor with our members," she said. "It's something that we think needs to happen in a controlled setting, in a lab setting, as opposed to immediately going into the clinical environment."

Zambory said if the trial were to take place directly in the hospitals, that would raise a red flag for her union, as it may see nurses using untested masks in high-risk settings.

"Research takes a long time before it gets to clinical trials," she said. Adding: "Let's not rush it. We have to make sure whatever we're thinking about here is foolproof."
SUN says rationing already happening

Zambory didn't have specifics about how the trial will be rolled out, but said issues around available personal protective equipment (PPE) are already starting.

She said PPE is already being rationed, despite the SHA's chief medical officer Susan Shaw having made a claim to the contrary.

"Our members have told us quite clearly in the busy emergency rooms here in the province: Two masks per shift," Zambory said.

© Michael Wilson/Radio-Canada N95 masks are one of the

 most requested items by health-care workers. The SHA 

says it is currently not experiencing a shortage of PPE.

A statement from the SHA said that while a two-mask protocol was put in place at a Regina emergency room, the decision was made locally and was not a provincial directive. The statement said each of the nurses were given two masks daily, whether they are treating patients with COVID-19 symptoms or not, to prevent exposure.

"We encourage the best use of PPE," the statement said. "This means using the right equipment for the right procedure in the right place. There are guidelines that outline what type of PPE is appropriate for procedures and testing and all staff would be provided with the appropriate provisions and supply to protect themselves and their patients. This applies to all SHA locations including testing centres and ICUs."
SHA making contingency plans, tracking down PPE

The statement didn't touch on the potential plan to re-use masks, but noted SHA has developed "contingency plans regarding its supplies for the months ahead."

SHA CEO Scott Livingstone said there are adequate PPE supplies for now.

"We are not experiencing a current shortage of PPE. We have the PPE we need at this phase of our work around pandemic planning," he said.

© Guy Quenneville/CBC SHA CEO 

Scott Livingstone says it the association shares concerns 

about the availability of PPE long term, but that it is not

 currently experiencing a shortage.

Livingstone said the SHA shares the concerns of SUN and other unions about PPE in the future, but that there is a lot of work underway to secure supplies for front-line workers.

"We're not burning through PPE like you see in other jurisdictions that are experiencing different peaks and demands, in-particular in Quebec and Ontario, but we are managing those supplies provincially and we are monitoring our orders as well as our received orders." 

Global demand

Premier Scott Moe said provincial leaders across the country and the federal government are working to address the issue around PPE, saying they're chasing down every possible lead.

"Every jurisdiction in the world is looking for the very same thing," he said.

"They're looking for N95 masks, they're looking for other surgical masks, they're looking for gloves, they're looking for gowns and so are we here in this province. But we are working very hard on this at the leadership levels — all of the leadership levels."

© CBC News Premier Moe said on Friday that provincial 

and federal leaders are following every lead on additional 

supplies of PPE.

Zambory said nurses have been kept in the dark about PPE planning overall, saying the lack of transparency from the SHA has been "very frustrating."

"What is the point of all the secrecy?" she asked. "It isn't that we want to go in and make a whole bunch of changes, it's that we want to have an idea of what our members' landscape is going to look like."

In its statement, the SHA said its human resources leadership meets with union leaders daily and is working to provide them with as much information as they can as fast as they can.

"We recognize this is not always as timely as would be ideal but we commit to continuing to partner with them through these difficult times. We will continue to seek input from unions into this planning and we appreciate the input our unions provide," the statement said.

As of Friday afternoon, Saskatchewan had reported a total of 220 COVID-19 cases, with three cases in hospital, 48 people recovered and three people dead.

CBC News poll: Albertans were hurting financially even before COVID-19

4/4/2020

© CBC COVID-19 has sparked mass economic upheaval, but Albertans were having trouble paying their bills even before the coronavirus hit.

Editor's note: CBC News commissioned this public opinion research before concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic mounted. About half of the total survey of 1,200 respondents was conducted before stock markets and oil prices plunged (March 2-8). The other half of the interviews took place after this economic shock (March 9-18). Growing concerns about the pandemic continue to shape public attitudes. As with all polls, this one is a snapshot in time. CBC News — and the public opinion experts consulted on this survey research — believe the data offers some valuable insights into Albertans' attitudes about the economy and politics just at the moment when COVID-19 changed everything.

This is the second article to come out of this research. Read the previous article here:© Provided by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Mass layoffs, closed offices, shuttered shops, plunging oil prices and the need for the federal and provincial governments to implement aggressive supports for businesses and individuals — COVID-19 has sparked mass economic upheaval.

But even before all that, Albertans were hurting financially.
Janet Brown Opinion Research, on behalf of CBC News, was polling Albertans just as the economic reality of the coronavirus was becoming apparent.

It's an interesting snapshot in time of how people in our province were feeling.

And, when it comes to their finances, many were already feeling worried, even before the worst of the pandemic had hit.

The poll found 51 per cent of people believed their household's financial situation was worse now than it was last year, while 35 per cent felt things were about the same. Just 13 per cent said their finances had improved. 

Back in 2018, we asked the same question. At that time, 37 per cent of Albertans had said their financial situation had worsened, while 44 per cent said it was about the same and 18 per cent said things had improved.

Compare the two polls, taken two years apart, and you see a 14-percentage point increase in the proportion of people who feel their finances are worsening.

These personal finance findings mirror the concerns Albertans have for the wider provincial economy, which also showed increased pessimism.

The new survey results also show that people in this province are finding it harder to pay their bills, with 48 per cent of Albertans saying it is either very or somewhat difficult to meet their monthly expenses.

This is an increase of six percentage points from the 2018 survey.

Those numbers are disquieting to see in a province that is used to leading the country in wage earnings. The pain, however, is not being felt evenly across Alberta.

The biggest differences

In the chart below, you'll see only very slight regional differences. Albertans living outside the two major cities are just a little more likely to say they are worse off and having more difficulty with their expenses than people in Calgary and Edmonton.

There is also only a slight gender gap, when it comes to expenses.

But it is in age, income, and education where the differences are most stark.

Of those whose household income is less than $60,000 a year, 61 per cent say their financial situation has gotten worse over the past year.

For those with household incomes of $120,000 or more, only 44 per cent say it's gotten worse.

That's a 17-point difference.

This gap jumps to 43 points when you look at the proportions of those same two groups who say they are having difficulty meeting their monthly expenses (71 per cent of households making less than $60,000, versus 28 per cent of those making $120,000 or more).

In terms of education, there is a big gap in financial concerns between those with and without a university degree.

Fifty-six per cent of those without a university degree (people holding either a high school diploma or less, or only some post-secondary education), say their financial situation has worsened.

Compare that to 46 per cent of those with a bachelor's degree and 41 per cent of those with a graduate or professional degree.
The patterns are also complex when it comes to age. 

Trouble for both seniors and younger Albertans

Older Albertans are more likely to say their financial situation has gotten worse than younger Albertans — 59 per cent of those aged 45 to 64, and 54 per cent of seniors. Compare this with only 41 per cent of those aged 18 to 24.

However, college-age Albertans are more likely than any other age group to say they are having trouble meeting their monthly expenses.

Sixty per cent of those aged 18 to 24 are having difficulty getting through the month. Compare that to 46 per cent of those aged 25 to 44. It's 49 per cent for those aged 45 to 64. For seniors, it's 44 per cent.

This difference could be explained by life-cycle effects.

College-aged Albertans are either in school or just starting their careers. They do not have much purchasing power or savings to begin with, and one cannot lose what one doesn't have. That also means they have fewer financial resources to fall back on when they lose their job or cannot find a job — a familiar refrain in Alberta over the last few months.

Conversely, even if older Albertans are earning less, or have lost value in their investment portfolios, they likely have more savings that can shore up lost income, at least for now.
Personal financial future

The poll also asked Albertans how they expect their household financial situation to change over the next year.

Forty per cent expect it to get worse. Thirty-seven per cent expect it to stay the same, and twenty per cent actually expect it to get better.

Remember, this is data from early to mid-March, before social distancing, before restaurants and bars started closing their doors, and before the oil patch began laying off workers.

It was already a pretty bleak picture — the proportion who have negative expectations now (40 per cent) is almost twice the proportion that had negative expectations in 2018 (22 per cent).

It has been two weeks since Albertans answered our questions.

Since then, the global economy has received an epic shock, oil prices have dropped to historic lows, and over two million Canadians have applied for employment insurance.

We expect the answers to these questions will continue to change as the economic repercussions of COVID-19 on businesses and individuals evolve. We will explore that in follow-up research we plan on conducting in the coming months.

Methodology:

CBC News' random survey of 1,200 Albertans was conducted using a hybrid method between March 2 and March 18, 2020 by Edmonton-based Trend Research under the direction of Janet Brown Opinion Research. The sample is representative along regional, age, and gender factors. The margin of error is +/-2.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. For subsets, the margin of error is larger.

The survey used a hybrid methodology that involved contacting survey respondents by telephone and giving them the option of completing the survey at that time, at another more convenient time, or receiving an email link and completing the survey online. Trend Research contacted people using a random list of numbers, consisting of half land lines and half cellphone numbers. Telephone numbers were dialled up to five times at five different times of day before another telephone number was added to the sample. The response rate among valid numbers (i.e. residential and personal) was 13.2 per cent.

What life was like in Alberta during the Spanish flu, COVID-19's nearest historical precedent

Jonny Wakefield CALGARY SUN POSTMEDIA Published:March 23, 2020

Alberta Government Telephones operators in High River

wore compulsory masks during the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic. 

From left to right: Gladys Stephenson, Cora Stephenson, 

Addie McDonald and Annie Grisdale

GLENBOW ARCHIVES
They pose shoulder-to-shoulder in the doorway of the government telephone building, white gauze masks covering their faces from the cheekbones down. Though rendered in black and white, their eyes are piercing. Beneath her mask, one of the women appears to smile.

More than 100 years ago, four female telephone operators in High River became the face of the Spanish flu pandemic in Alberta. The flu ultimately killed around 50 million people — more than the entire First World War — among them 3,300 Albertans.

For the foreseeable future, Albertans living under the threat of COVID-19 will see circumstances that wouldn’t be unfamiliar to those who survived the 1918 pandemic. It was a time before television, regular commercial air travel, and antibiotics, but the parallels to today are striking.

Swathes of society shut down in an effort to contain the virus. Health officials urged people to stay home. Schools, theatres and places of worship closed. Bars would have been ordered to shut their doors, too, if prohibition hadn’t shuttered them two years earlier.

“It just spread like wildfire,” said Edmonton historian Shirley Lowe. “It was a particularly virulent and very contagious virus. It killed very quickly.”

Spanish flu was Edmonton’s first modern pandemic. Introduced infectious disease, though, had been a defining feature of life on the Canadian prairies since the fur trade. From the 1730s to the 1870s, contagious diseases “swept through the region with regularity,” James Daschuk wrote in Clearing the Plains, his study of the historic roots of health disparities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians.

Smallpox was a major killer. An outbreak in 1870 showed what we now call social distancing in action. During the outbreak, the death rate among Indigenous people varied tremendously depending on whether Catholics or Protestants ministered to their communities.

Protestants usually told their communities to disperse into the bush when news of an epidemic arrived. Catholics, on the other hand, “dealt with the suffering by bringing their communities together,” Daschuk wrote. As a result, Indigenous communities near Catholic missions suffered especially appalling death rates.

The first recorded case of Spanish flu in North America was an American soldier at a Kansas military base in March 1918. The virus arrived in Canada the following September. The Edmonton Journal’s first headline about the epidemic came Sept. 24, 1918: “Spanish Influenza Taking Many Lives in the East. Epidemic Still Spreading.

On Oct. 4, Alberta Health Minister A.G. MacKay warned that 30-40 per cent of the population would likely catch the virus (MacKay himself later died of complications from the illness.)

Spanish flu tended to kill the young and fit. The real killer was often pneumonia, which typically set in a few days after the virus.

“There are all kinds of stories about people who were strong, healthy people and then they were dead,” said Lowe.

The first confirmed Alberta cases were in Drumheller. By mid-October, Edmonton was on edge.

City theatres purchased a full-page ad in the Journal, declaring they were “leaving no stone unturned to make our Theatres thoroughly safe and sanitary places for public attendance.”

They were forced to close anyway on Oct. 18, when the Edmonton Board of Health banned public gatherings and ordered schools and churches to shut their doors. Gauze masks became mandatory — the Journal even printed instructions for how to make one out of cheesecloth.

1918 board of health influenza poster. Submitted / GLENBOW ARCHIVES

Reports began to roll in of local flu cases. On Oct. 19, the Journal reported 41 cases under quarantine, including a group of soldiers who had travelled on a troop train. Four days later, there were 1,035 cases in Alberta, 70 of them in Edmonton.

News of Edmonton’s first deaths came Oct. 24. Schools and hospitals were crowded with the sick — some 2,000 by that point. The University of Alberta converted Pembina Hall into a hospital.

Businesses struggled to stay open. The government forced stores and offices to remain closed until 1 p.m., historian Tom Monto wrote in Old Strathcona Before the Great Depression, to give employees time to help in “stamping out the flu epidemic” in their communities.

Suzanna Wagner, a history masters student at the U of A, studied Edmonton’s response to the flu for a project on its 100th anniversary. What struck her most was the grassroots response to the pandemic.

“There was a tremendous volunteer network set up,” she said.

One innovation was the relief districts. During the crisis, Edmonton’s mayor and local clergy divided the city into more than a dozen districts centred on an (empty) neighbourhood school.

“They used the schools as a headquarters,” Wagner said.

An army of volunteers — many of them young, unmarried women — provided services for the sick, including nursing, child care, laundry, cooking and food delivery. Many of the relief workers themselves fell ill.

“This was dangerous work,” said Wager.

Most wore only a cheesecloth mask — changed every few hours — and a standard nursing smock. There were, like today, debates about the efficacy of mask wearing. Rubber gloves did exist, but it’s unclear if local health providers used them.

Wagner notably found no evidence of hoarding during the 1918 outbreak.

By November 5, 1918, there were 9,206 Spanish flu cases in Alberta. Six days later, Armistice in the First World War was declared, and officials could not contain the jubilation. Photographs of local victory parades show revellers wearing flu masks, but they weren’t enough contain the spread. Three days later, there were 58 new cases in Edmonton.
A victory parade on Jasper Avenue and 101 Street following

 the allied victory over Germany in World War I. Originally

 published in the Edmonton Journal on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 1918. 

John Lucas (COPY SHOT) / City of Edmonton Archives

Wagner said the flu eventually petered out. On November 30, the government lifted bans on public gatherings. The flu flared up once social isolation measures came to an end, but by May 1919, there were no cases in Edmonton, Wagner says.

The illness returned the following two winters, but she said those were much smaller outbreaks with minimal societal disruption.

In the end, 7,914 Edmontonians were treated for the flu. A total of 615 died.

Scholars continue to debate why the flu isn’t better remembered. One theory, Wagner said, is people were simply exhausted from the war.

“The war seemed more crucial, so that’s what they chose to put their time and energy into remembering.”

Another theory is early 20th-century society didn’t really honour the work of women.

“Most of the actual care that happened during the flu was done by women — doctors couldn’t do a heck of a lot, it was mostly nursing care that was needed,” Wagner said.

There may have been a feeling “that that didn’t merit remembrance in the same way the actions of men did.”

For Wagner, watching COVID-19 play out after studying the Spanish flu has been surreal.

“It’s kind of scary to see the thing you’ve studied come and happen in (your) lifetime,” she said.

“I’m hoping that we end up with the same kind of volunteer ethos that we saw in 1918,” Wagner added, stressing that in the case of COVID-19, that means practising social distancing and doing whatever you can to stop the spread of the virus.

“Because that’s a tremendously hopeful story.”

— With files from Voice of a City, The Edmonton Journal’s First Century

UNION TAKES ACTION TO SAVE EMPLOYEES FROM LAYOFFSManitoba
City staff, school workers reinventing themselves to stave off layoffs due to COVID-19

It's 'other duties as assigned' for staff now stocking shelves or filling sandbags

CUPE IS A NATIONAL UNION WHY DID IT NOT COME UP WITH THIS AS A NATIONAL STRATEGY FOR ITS LOCALS ACROSS THE COUNTRY TO APPLY

Ian Froese · CBC News · Posted: Apr 03, 2020 

As people stay home and economic activity slows to a halt 

 to COVID-19, government workers are increasingly worried

 about the viability of their jobs. (Tyson Koschik/CBC)

While government and school workers are losing their jobs nationwide, many of their peers in Manitoba are bucking the trend — at least, for now.

In Winnipeg, city employees are turning the phrase "other duties as assigned" into a mantra.

Library and recreation centre employees, whose jobs have become temporarily obsolete in an unexpected pandemic, are suddenly stocking shelves for Winnipeg Harvest, or filling sandbags to save homes prone to spring flooding.

These workers are telling their union, CUPE Manitoba, what else they're suited for.

Some employees are proposing new tasks, union president Gord Delbridge said — and CUPE is compiling those ideas and sharing them with officials.

Maybe the employees could deliver library books to readers cooped up in their homes? Maybe employees could help with child-care?

Gord Delbridge, president of the Canadian Union of 

Public Employees Local 500, says city workers are proposing

 new ideas to keep themselves busy and services functioning. 

(Gary Solilak/CBC)

"We're working together to find ways of making this work." Delbridge said.

"At this point, all the discussions that we're having with the city is that they're with us, with keeping people employed and ensuring that they're working."

Still, the fear of government and school workers is palpable as they watch thousands of people lose their jobs from a contagious virus that's choking the Canadian economy.

Edmonton and Quebec City are letting go of 2,000 employees apiece. Calgary will cut 1,200 staff, while Windsor is reducing its ranks by 500 employees.

Revenues bleeding

Locally, governments are taking a big hit. Provincial revenues will be "way down," Premier Brian Pallister warned last month, while pegging the government's deficit at $5 billion.

The City of Winnipeg could be more than $73 million in the red, a challenging number for a city mandated to balance its budget.

And it doesn't help that municipalities have limited ways to earn income — it's essentially property taxes, user fees and transfers from other governments, said Enid Slack, director of the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance at the University of Toronto.

"It's going to be even harder because we're seeing tax revenues potentially falling or at least being deferred," she said.

At least 70 Health Sciences Centre staff self-isolating after COVID-19 exposure, unions say

"When you have to balance that budget, you either have to find another way to raise revenue — you have to go to provincial, federal governments for assistance — or you have to cut services."

Educators are feeling uneasy as well.

It will be left to school divisions, education minister Kelvin Goertzen said on Tuesday, to decide if any support staff are laid off. The divisions are asked to reassign support staff whenever possible to support at-home learning, but it's up to them if they choose to lay off employees.

"In these times, I think everybody is worried," said Abe Araya, president of CUPE Manitoba and longtime employee at the Winnipeg School Division.

Work is plentiful: Araya

But he argues there's no shortage of work.

One librarian he knows is busier than ever, supporting teachers and printing papers for students without computer access.

Educational assistants are still needed for one-to-one support, he said. Bus drivers could deliver course work.

It's all hands on deck, Araya said.

"Kids are our future and we can't afford for them to fall back on their school work."

Winnipeg Liquor Mart closes for cleaning after employee tests positive for COVID-19
'This is our time to act': A timeline of coronavirus in Manitoba

Louis Riel School Division superintendent Christian Michalik said administrators aren't planning for layoffs.

"That's not the approach we're taking in Manitoba. Our approach is that right now we need to talk about how we reassign folks to a new reality."

He said every school division is united in devising a plan to keep everyone employed and help students learn the best way they can.

"We don't want to overburden parents with this role."
Staff must meet the needs: province

The Manitoba government wouldn't make any promises when asked about the future for their civil servants.

"Managers are working to ensure staff are able to do their work as safely as possible and the province is constantly reviewing the way its staff meets the needs of Manitobans," the province said in a statement.

Workers in government departments are worried for their

 job security, Michelle Gawronsky, president of the 

Manitoba Government and General Employees' Union, says. 

(Jeff Stapleton/CBC)

"A lot of the services public servants provide are critical to the everyday lives of Manitobans and we are making every effort to ensure that work continues."

That doesn't satisfy the president of the Manitoba Government and General Employees' Union, which represents 12,000 civil servants.

"I'm being asked by different departments within government: Am I going to be needed? Are they going to keep me? Am I going to be laid off?" Michelle Gawronsky said. "Nobody's telling us anything."

MGEU wants the province to top up the employment insurance earnings of every Manitoban laid off during the pandemic. So far, Gawronsky said she hasn't heard back.

---30---

UNIONS IN ALBERTA GET DECIMATED BY COVID-19 LAYOFFS BECAUSE OF CONTRACTS BROKEN LEGALLY DUE TO PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY LAWS APPLIED BY UNION BUSTING KENNEY GOVERMENT AND OTHER LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT

BUT WILL THEY FIGHT BACK?

UNIONS POWERLESS TO PROTECT WORKERS.

WORKERS MUST ORGANIZE A GENERAL STRIKE AGAINST CAPITALISM

BECAUSE THEIR UNIONS WON'T

READ ON TRY NOT TO WEEP FOR THE PROLETARIAT 

City forces laid-off workers to 'choose between a rock and a hard place'

Union officials are concerned their members are being asked to make untenable choices as the city rolls out its deployment strategy for newly laid-off employees.

Liane Faulder EDMONTON JOURNAL 4/4/2020

The city of Edmonton laid off 1,600 workers at recreation 

centres on Monday due to closures caused by the COVID-19 

pandemic. DAVID BLOOM / Postmedia
Share

Employees who chose not to take the unknown job were told they would lose supplementary unemployment benefits that were a part of their lay-off package, including a top-up over what the federal government has promised fired workers. They would also be taken out of the redeployment pool.

The benefits were included in a letter of understanding (LOU) recently negotiated by five city unions after being approached by the City of Edmonton, said Lanny Chudyk, president of Civic Service Union 52.

Other benefits in the new agreement included using laid-off workers first when it comes to hiring, and the accrual of staff seniority during the lay-off period.

Chudyk said distraught members have contacted the union. One was a single mother with two small children who couldn’t consider a job until she understood the child-care implications. Some of the re-deployed jobs involve cleaning buses late at night.
 

BUS CLEANING IS A DIFFERENT JOB CLASSIFICATION AND IMPACTS A DIFFERENT UNION, ATU.

“The normal fear with being assigned to a duty that might not be within the normal scope of your job might be that it would have some safety issues,” said Chudyk. “But we have been assured by the employer that safety measure are in place to protect the members.”

THE CITY HAS PROVEN IT'S ASSURANCES ARE USELESS

In a letter obtained by Postmedia, one worker previously in an administrative position wrote the union to say the city’s deployment e-mail felt like “a veiled threat … making me feel like I was stuck between a rock and a hard place.”

“I feel very frustrated with the lack of professionalism and understanding during this pandemic,” said the employee in the letter.

Lou Arab, communications representative for the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which signed the LOU, called the move by the city “unreasonable behaviour.” 

PATHETIC

Chudyk said the LOU was better than previous agreements unions had with the city and noted that once a state of emergency has been declared, governments can operate outside of collective agreements. WELL THEN THE LOU WAS USELESS

MANAGEMENT USES THE 'F' WORD

“The city came to us and said they didn’t want to (violate) the agreement, but they wanted flexibility,” said Chudyk, who was meeting with the city Friday afternoon to try and resolve problems.

He said some union members have health issues that could be affected by a particular deployment and should contact their union with their concerns.

“The City of Edmonton, and any employers, even during an emergency, is not exempt from … health and safety rules,” he said.

University of Athabasca associate professor Jason Foster 

(A FULL TIME PROFESSIONAL POLITICAL MOUTHPIECE FOR THE NDP THEN THE AFL NOW WITH OTHER FORMER UNION REPS TEACHING LABOUR STUDIES AT ATHABASCA U....A SMALL CIRCLE OF FRIENDS )

 said that he was surprised that the city would both refuse to stipulate which job employees would be deployed to, and operate on such a tight timeline.

“Anytime the employer throws in a threat of punishment in the form of removing a benefit, that always makes me distrustful of what their motivations are,” said Foster, who teaches human resources and labour relations. “Basically, they’re putting these workers in an impossible situation.”

In an e-mailed statement of response to Postmedia queries received late Friday afternoon, the City of Edmonton said it could not be specific about redeployment“because we were continually receiving redeployment requests from operational areas, and were filling various opportunities as employees responded to the email.”

The city said in the future, deployment e-mails will “clarify for employees the urgency and timeliness of their response as well as the rationale as to why we cannot provide more detail about the specific jobs available for redeployment.” The statement said the city is “working with each employee who refuses redeployment to understand and attempt to resolve the reasons behind the refusal.”

lfaulder@postmedia.com

RED DEER

SOME TOLD TO REAPPLY
Return to former jobs not guaranteed for laid off City staff

By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

Mar 30, 2020

Concerns linger over whether City of Red Deer staff laid off due to the COVID-19 pandemic will be getting their former jobs back once it’s over.

The City announced on March 20 that it was laying off around 120 casual workers as recreation and culture facilities were closing until at least June 30. The number of people impacted rose by about 50 as days went by, totalling about 170.

Red Deer City Manager Allan Seabrooke said during a March 20 media conference that workers would be “recalled” once the pandemic is over and operations at facilities can resume.

“Our casual employees that provide all the various services would automatically come back into those jobs,” Seabrooke said in response to a question from rdnewsNOW. “They would not be required to reapply for that job. It is simply a recall and they will go back into the positions they previously had.”

RELATED: City says rec facilities closed until June 30, 120 casual staff laid off

But one employee who’s been laid off says they weren’t told that would necessarily be the case, telling rdnewsNOW that they were informed they’d have to reapply to get their job back, and that there were no guarantees about receiving the same wages if they did get it.

“What’s most frustrating to me is that I have worked there for many years and all they have to say is that they encourage me to reapply,” the employee says. “It is also unfair for me to be left wondering if I should be looking for another job during this time.”

Barry Brookes, President of CUPE Local 417, which represents usually close to 1200 casual part-time City workers, was pleasantly surprised to hear the City Manager initially say all staff would be automatically recalled.

THATS NICE WONDER WHAT HE THINKS NOW, OH RIGHT HIS JOB IS NOT ON THE LINE


City of Calgary to temporarily lay off part-time workers

BY TOM ROSS Mar 30, 2020

CALGARY (660 NEWS) — As the City of Calgary is being affected like any other business during the COVID-19 pandemic, temporary layoffs have now been announced.

Monday afternoon, City Manager David Duckworth said they are making some “temporary workforce adjustments”, meaning that part-time, casual and on-call workers will be let go for the time being.

“These are not permanent reductions,” added Duckworth. “We look forward to the time that we are able to re-open facilities and restore impacted services so we can bring our valued employees back to work.”

An official number could not be given at the time, but around 1,300 workers fall under the classification and could be susceptible to the layoffs — though not all of the 1,300 will be let go.

Mayor Naheed Nenshi said it was a very difficult decision, but it makes sense as many people are getting zero hours due to the closure of services such as recreation centres.

“There’s a lot of specifics around things like benefits that we are working through at the moment, but ultimately we are going to treat people as fairly as we can,” Nenshi said.

“If you are teaching a fitness class and that fitness facility is closed, you’re just not getting those hours. And for a lot fo these folks, it made sense to help get them into a place where they can access some of the federal and provincial government supports.”

Final details need to be worked out and many of the workers are still being notified of what is happening. Some will be given eight weeks notice, others will get longer, but supports and compensation will be worked out based on their time of service.

This follows an announcement from the City of Edmonton, where 1,600 people were laid off on Monday.

There are still numerous operations still going on at City Hall, such as building services, so people can still get permits for renovations.

Nenshi said everyone still at the city is working extremely hard, with over 10 per cent working from home now as well. But they have also taken a significant hit as many more are staying home sick or self-isolating.

For example, the transportation department normally sees about 200 people away on a given week due to average sickness or vacation days. Now, that number is up to 600 or 700.

In addition, Calgary Transit is seeing a major financial shortfall due to plummeting ridership.

“It’s real big,” said Nenshi. “We are down about sixty per cent ridership on the bus fleet, about eighty per cent on the train.”

“It’s in the order of six to eight million dollars a month,” added Duckworth.

With that, there are no plans to extend normal transit passes into April, after the City said low-income transit passes for March will stay valid until April 30. Nenshi is encouraging the remaining passengers to continue paying their fares so that the situation does not get worse.

Ultimately, it creates a wider issue for Calgary as the city is not able to have a deficit in the budget, so Nenshi said they have to keep a close eye on it and figure out how to make money back at the end of the year.

Another message was also passed along about the need to continue practicing physical distancing guidelines.

Nenshi said it is good to go out and get exercise, as long as you stay spread out, and encourages people to stay in their neighbourhood rather than drive somewhere so they can walk. Also, if you are on an isolation order you should not be venturing outside of your home.

Calgary Emergency Management Agency Chief Tom Sampson said people were doing good over the weekend while using parks and pathways, and one thing that helped was closing off some road lanes so that pedestrians could spread out further and take advantage of reduced traffic.

However, there are still some compliance issues — such as children using closed-off playgrounds — and if it continues, they may be forced to begin strictly enforcing the rules.

“Our whole thing right now is to spread the word, so we don’t spread the virus,” said Sampson.

He said they are focusing on education at the moment, so parents need to stress the need to their children to listen to these guidelines.

“It’s about talking to people and having them understand that you, the citizens of Calgary, can determine whether or not we have luck pushing this virus down or whether we have a problem,” he said. “And I ensure you that we will have a problem if you don’t physically space if you don’t wash your hands.”

“I never thought that, in the middle of this pandemic, one of the things we would be thinking about is playground police to pull the children off the swings,” added Nenshi.

Sampson agreed there’s no need for playground cops right now, as long as the compliance gets better.

He added that anecdotal reports of people being ticketed for not practicing physical distancing are false, and he is not aware of a bylaw or police officers issuing fines for that.

Finally, on questions about how the homeless can be helped during the crisis, Nenshi said they are doing everything they can at the moment, but decisions on overflow housing will have to come largely from the provincial level.

Some shelters are extending their hours to keep people safe during the day, but there is still a concern around a lack of bathrooms and other public space due to the closure of libraries or cafes or restaurants.

“This is just something that we are continuing to try to adjust to while making sure that everyone stays safe,” added Nenshi.

Earlier plans to use hotels as overflow space were cancelled by the province, despite local hoteliers enthusiastically coming out in support of helping.

ISLAMOPHOBIA OR GENUINE CONCERN
Tablighi Jamaat: The group blamed for new Covid-19 outbreak in India

BBC•April 1, 2020

Almost 400 cases of Covid-19 have been traced to a Tablighi Jamaat event in Delhi

The Tablighi Jamaat have come into the spotlight after an event they held in the Indian capital Delhi has spawned a number of Covid-19 clusters across the country. But exactly who is this group and why did they hold a big gathering in Delhi? BBC Hindi's Zubair Ahmed reports.

Who are the Tablighi Jamaat?

The organisation was founded in 1926 in the northern Indian region of Mewat by prominent Islamic scholar Maulana Mohammed Ilyas Kandhlawi.

Its aim was to inculcate "true" Islam among the "Umma" (Global Islamic community) - many Muslims at the time felt that their political and religious identities were being compromised under the British Raj.

The organisation flourished in what was then undivided India. This did not change when the country was partitioned after independence in 1947. It has a strong following in both Pakistan and Bangladesh.

What is its mission?

The Jamaat's founder, Mohammed Ilyas, once famously said, "Oh Muslims be good Muslims" - and that is in essence, the organisation's main objective - to promote the ideals of Islam among Muslims.

India event sparks huge hunt for coronavirus cases

Its members claim that it is a non-political organisation which aims to build an Islamic society based on the teachings of the Koran.

The Jamaat sends out delegates to different countries for 40 days a year and sometimes for shorter durations. The preachers believe in person-to-person contact, so they knock on the doors of ordinary Muslims to give them the message of Islam.
What happened in Delhi?

The Delhi conference, an annual event, was inaugurated on 3 March though there are differing accounts of when it may have ended. What is clear is that once it ended many people - including 250 foreigners - chose to stay on.

It is thought that some of them were carrying the Covid-19 infection, that has now been transported across the country.

Everyone inside the organisation's building in Delhi were evacuated

One of its members, Waseem Ahmed, told BBC Hindi that hundreds of delegates left before the lockdown came into effect on 24 March, but that more than 1,000 followers, including many foreigners, got stranded, as all modes of transport and international flights were cancelled.

Since then, police have cleared out the hostel where these foreign nationals were staying and quarantined them in another location in Delhi. Efforts are now on in every state to trace and test people who were at the event as the number of Covid-19 cases linked to the event steadily rises. On Thursday morning, local media put that number at 389.
How large is the group?

Tablighi Jamaat is now a global religious movement, with followers in more than 80 countries, including Indonesia, Malaysia and the US.

The Jamaat has its own headquarters in every country it operates in, but its global spiritual centre remains the Markaz (centre) in Delhi.

This is housed in a multi-storey building in Nizamuddin, a prominently Muslim residential area in Delhi. The Markaz comprises a mosque and dormitories that can accommodate 5,000 people.

The Biswa Ijtema in Bangladesh is one of the largest gatherings of Muslims in the world

The Jamaat also organises big events in other countries.

In Bangladesh, it holds an event called the Biswa Ijtema which is believed to be the second-largest gathering of Muslims in the world after the Haj.

The group also has some famous South Asian personalities as its followers.

Some of its more famous followers include members of Pakistan's national cricket team, including 90s batting stars Shahid Afridi and Inzamam ul-Haq. South African cricketer Hashim Amla is also a follower.

Former Pakistani Presidents, Farooq Legari and Mohammed Rafiq Tarar were also believed to be the followers while former Indian president Dr Zakir Hussain was also associated with the movement.