What can the rest of Canada learn about fighting COVID-19? Welcome to the Maclean's daily newsletter. As the coronavirus disrupts life in Canada, and Canadians get used to the notion of "social distancing" and "flattening the curve," Maclean's has expanded this newsletter to include everything you need to know about the global pandemic. You'll still find our best stories of the day at the bottom of the newsletter, but we'll also catch you up on news and notes from around the world. QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Finally, a virus got me.” — Peter Piot, a veteran virologist who helped discover the Ebola virus in 1976. Returning home after a week in hospital with COVID-19, he can’t climb a flight of stairs without becoming breathless. The number of Canadians infected with COVID-19 has neared 70,000, while 5,000 people have died. Worldwide, 4.1 million people have been infected while 285,000 have died. COVID-19 has hit privately run and publicly run long-term care facilities in Ontario at roughly the same rate, but their death tolls are radically different, says a Toronto Star investigation. It found that not only were 16 of the province’s 20 deadliest LTC outbreaks in privately run facilities, but the number of deaths was four times that of municipally run institutions. On April 12, two cases of the virus were reported at the Kearl Lake oil sands work camp in Alberta. Deemed an essential service by the provincial government, the camp continued its operations. Now, thanks to communal living conditions and a transient workforce, the outbreak is linked to more than 100 cases in four provinces, including in a remote Dene community in Saskatchewan, the Globe and Mail reports. The question of reopening the Canada-U.S. border to non-essential traffic is being raised more and more, the National Post reports. But as the number of cases in the United States tops 1.3 million with 80,000 deaths, Ontario Premier Doug Ford says, “I do not want those borders open.” Though Russia’s health care system is underfunded and poorly staffed, the nation’s death toll is far below that of the worldwide average, suggesting massive undercounting by Vladimir Putin’s government. Now, death records in Moscow may offer clues to the size of that discrepancy. “The number of COVID-19 victims is possibly almost three times higher than the official toll,” Tatiana Mikhailova of the Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration in Moscow told the New York Times. As many European nations slowly relax their strict lockdown policies, businesses begin to reopen and workers seek alternatives to packed public transit systems, bike makers are seeing their sales soar. VanMoof, a Dutch firm that produces electric bikes, has seen a 184-per-cent increase in Britain, Reuters reports. Olive and Mabel, two now-famous Labrador retrievers, get their performance reviews by video chat and it goes just about as well as you'd expect. Comedian Jerry Stiller died at age 92. Of his long career, perhaps some of the most iconic moments were on Seinfeld, where its actors were driven into bouts of uncontrollable laughter by the veteran star. RIP. —Patricia Treble As of the latest update, this is the number of confirmed cases in Canada. We're updating this chart every day.
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