'A beautiful soul': Funeral held for baby boy killed in wrong-way crash on Highway 401
A funeral was held on Wednesday for a three-month-old boy who died after being involved in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 in Whitby last week.
Hong Kong will reduce the mandatory hotel quarantine for overseas arrivals to three days from a week, the city's leader said Monday.
The southern Chinese city remains one of the few places in the world, together with mainland China, to require a quarantine to guard against travellers spreading COVID-19 to the local population. The policy taking effect Friday will be Hong Kong's shortest quarantine for arrivals since the pandemic began.
Hong Kong leader John Lee said arriving travellers must quarantine three days in a designated hotel, then undergo four days of medical surveillance during which their movements will be restricted via the use of a health code system.
Lee said the new policy of just three days in quarantine was made after scientific evidence and data had been analyzed to control the risk factors.
"We also have to balance the risks against the economic activities and the social lives of (people in) Hong Kong," Lee said.
"(The data) gives us the indication that the risk factor of people who have finished three days' quarantine in a designated hotel is actually no more than the risk level of transmission in society," he said.
The changes to COVID-19 policies come in spite of an increase in daily infections, which city health officials warn could double to 8,000 in the coming weeks.
During their week of quarantine and surveillance, travellers will also have to test regularly for COVID-19 and those who are infected must stay in isolation.
Those who test negative can use public transit and enter malls and markets, but they can't enter bars and amusement parks or visit elderly homes, schools and certain medical facilities.
For most of the pandemic, Hong Kong has imposed some of the world's strictest COVID-19 entry restrictions. At one point, Hong Kong required up to 21 days of compulsory hotel quarantine for travellers and a "circuit breaker" mechanism that would ban flights from certain airlines into the city if they imported too many COVID-19 cases.
These measures have devastated the city's tourism industry and disrupted business travel in a city known for being an international financial center and a business hub.
Sally Wong, CEO of the Hong Kong Investment Funds Association, welcomed the reduction in quarantine, describing it as a "major step forward."
She said quarantine in Hong Kong would have to be removed altogether for the city to regain its competitiveness.
"But what can move the dial is how we can go from three days to zero," Wong said. "Many conferences, meetings, etc. are planned months ahead and if the government can (shed) light on the next step, it would be extremely helpful."
Since the pandemic began, hundreds of thousands of residents have left Hong Kong. Many companies have also relocated to countries like Singapore where quarantine-free travel has resumed.
A funeral was held on Wednesday for a three-month-old boy who died after being involved in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 in Whitby last week.
There has been a "sophisticated" cybersecurity breach detected on B.C. government networks, Premier David Eby confirmed Wednesday evening.
Toronto police say a man was taken into custody outside Drake's Bridle Path mansion Wednesday afternoon after he tried to gain access to the residence.
U.S. President Joe Biden said for the first time Wednesday he would halt shipments of American weapons to Israel, which he acknowledged have been used to kill civilians in Gaza, if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders a major invasion of the city of Rafah.
Dakota Joshua had a goal and two assists and the Vancouver Canucks scored three third-period goals to claw out a 5-4 comeback victory over the Edmonton Oilers in Game 1 of their second-round playoff series Wednesday.
One of the Indian nationals accused of murdering British Columbia Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar says in a social media video that he received a Canadian study permit with the help of an Indian immigration consultancy.
Pfizer has agreed to settle more than 10,000 lawsuits about cancer risks related to the now discontinued heartburn drug Zantac, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the deal.
Quebec Premier Francois Legault is defending his comments about a new history museum after he was accused by a prominent First Nations group of trying to erase their history.
Independent U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had a parasite in his brain more than a decade ago, but has fully recovered, his campaign said, after the New York Times reported about the ailment.
The stakes have been set for a bet between Vancouver and Edmonton's mayors on who will win Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
A grieving mother is hosting a helmet drive in the hopes of protecting children on Manitoba First Nations from a similar tragedy that killed her daughter.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
A P.E.I. lighthouse and a New Brunswick river are being honoured in a Canada Post series.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.