Ontario lowers booze prices; BMO Field repurposed to help make meals for Toronto health-care workers - Toronto Star

The latest novel coronavirus news from Canada and around the world Wednesday (this file will be updated throughout the day). Web links to longer stories if available.

8:15 a.m.: Premier Doug Ford’s government is further liberalizing Ontario’s liquor laws as a prescription for helping an ailing restaurant sector stricken by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario has lowered the minimum price that restaurants and bars are allowed to sell gin, rum, tequila, vodka, and whiskey.

7:30 a.m. Having already turned Scotiabank Arena into a giant kitchen, Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment is adding BMO Field to the cooking mix.

With the help of sponsor BMO, the lakefront stadium is being repurposed to add more kitchen muscle to help produce meals for Toronto’s front-line health-care workers and the city’s most vulnerable during the global pandemic.

Adding BMO Field’s primary kitchen is expected to increase the number of daily meals to up to 13,000 from the initial goal of 10,000. The program total to date should hit the 100,000-meal milestone this week.

The program is taking advantage of the nine kitchens at Scotiabank Arena.

MLSE culinary director Chris Zielinski has some 25 chefs at work along with 75 support staff assembling the meals at the two venues. “It’s an army,” he said.

5:33 a.m.: The Disneyland theme park in Shanghai will reopen May 11. Visits will be limited initially and must be booked in advance, and the company said it will increase cleaning and require social distancing in lines for the various attractions.

With warmer weather and new virus cases and deaths falling to near-zero, China has been reopening tourist sites such as the Great Wall and the Forbidden City palace complex in Beijing.

5:27 a.m.: Health officials are rushing to contain the spread of the coronavirus in India’s southern city of Chennai, where a large cluster has been identified among people at one of the country’s largest markets for fruit, vegetables and flowers.

The busy Koyambedu market, with 500 shops spread over 250 acres, is central to the food supply chain in Tamil Nadu and neighbouring states. It had remained open through India’s nationwide lockdown, and hundreds of traders visited regularly until the market was shut on Monday after the viral cluster was detected.

Some 7,000 people connected to the market were being traced and quarantined, J. Radhakrishnan, the nodal officer for COVID-19 in Chennai told The Associated Press late Tuesday.

5:15 a.m.: The coronavirus has delayed Indonesian regional elections being decided by more than 100 million voters.

President Joko Widodo signed a regulation that would move the elections from September to December or later depending on the pandemic situation, the State Secretariat website said. The vote would elect 9 governors, 37 mayors and 224 district chiefs across the archipelago.

5:10 a.m.: A senior government scientist is alleging that the Trump administration failed to prepare for the onslaught of the coronavirus in spite of his repeated warnings earlier this year.

Dr. Rick Bright, former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, also alleges in his whistleblower complaint that he was reassigned to a lesser role because he resisted political pressure to allow widespread use of hydroxychloroquine.

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U.S. President Donald Trump has pushed the malaria drug as a treatment for COVID-19, but the Food and Drug Administration now warns doctors against prescribing it except in hospitals and research studies.

4 a.m.: The Trudeau government is expected to face a grilling today from opposition parties over its handling of the COVID-19 crisis.

A small number of MPs are to convene for a once-a-week, in-person sitting of the House of Commons and they are expected to zero in on the perceived deficiencies of the billions of dollars in emergency aid programs the federal government has implemented to cushion the economic impact of the pandemic.

Among the criticisms, the outraged reaction of Canadian farmers to the $252 million in support announced Tuesday for the agri-food sector — far less than the $2.6 billion deemed necessary by the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.

1 a.m.: New York City’s subway system went silent in the early morning hours of Wednesday, as part of a plan for the normally round-the-clock system to shut down for train cleaning.

The trains, which had been running on a reduced schedule since late March, are now going to be stopped from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. each day.

Fewer trains would be running in the overnight hours anyway, but the shutdown allows for daily cleaning’s and for city workers to move homeless people who have been more visible in subway cars during the coronavirus.

Tuesday 8:45 p.m.: At least 10 taxi and limo drivers working out of Pearson International Airport have died since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, including three more since Friday, the drivers’ union says.

Those drivers include Karam Singh Punian, who died Monday, and Akashdip Grewal, who died Friday, said Rajinder Aujla, president of the Airport Taxi Association, which represents about 700 drivers operating about 350 vehicles licenced to pick up passengers at Pearson.

Full story by Kevin McGran here.

Tuesday 6:20 p.m.: Mount Pleasant Cemetery Group is looking at opening its cemeteries on the day before and the day after Mother’s Day to allow people to pay their respects to loved ones who have passed away, Mayor John Tory said, speaking at the daily city hall press conference.

Tory said the decision was discussed with the cemetery’s provincial regulator and the city’s medical officer of health, following on the heels of discussions with Coun. Josh Matlow.

He said families will have to abide by social distancing rules and avoid mingling with others at the cemetery, and respect current provincial regulations limiting the size of groups to a maximum of five people.

Read more of Tuesday’s coverage here.

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2020-05-06 12:00:00Z
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