Some provinces revamp efforts as economy flails

GDP has worst quarterly showing since 2009, Statistics Canada says

The COVID-19 pandemic’s economic toll came into sharper focus on Friday as several provinces revamped their efforts to root out the coronavirus and slow its spread.

Statistics Canada announced gross domestic product fell at an annualized rate of 8.2 per cent in the first three months of 2020 — the worst quarterly showing since 2009 — even though efforts to contain the coronavirus by shuttering businesses and schools didn’t begin in earnest until March.

Many of those businesses are now reopening in a bid to reemploy some of the three million people who lost their jobs, putting workers and clients in close proximity and lending new urgency to the testing and tracing process.

“Moving forward it will become even more important to quickly identify and isolate this virus,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said.

“To do that effectively, we need to co-ordinate across the country.”

He said some provinces were already asking for help with contact tracing and they’re all working together on developing an app to ease the process.

To further those efforts, Premier Doug Ford announced a new testing strategy on Friday.

He added that once there’s enough data to know where the virus is most prevalent, the province may look at a regional approach to reopening the economy.

Alberta took a different tack to slowing the viral spread, announcing plans to issue masks to the masses — with a fastcasual caveat.

Starting next month, the provincial government will begin handing out 20 million nonmedical masks through A&W, McDonald’s and Tim Hortons drive-thrus.

In New Brunswick, officials were working their way through a web of people who may have been infected by a health-care worker who did not self-isolate upon his return from a trip to Quebec.

Health officials announced three additional cases in the region on Thursday, bringing the total of cases in the cluster to six, including the health-care worker at the Campbellton Regional Hospital. One of the new patients also works in health care.

“Based on the contact tracing and the testing that we are doing, we will see more cases,” said Dr. Jennifer Russell, the chief medical officer of health.

The province’s Vitalité Health Network issued a statement saying the worker had come into contact with dozens of people at the hospital, including 50 employees.

The outbreak forced the adjournment of the provincial legislature Thursday and caused officials to delay a new phase of the recovery plan by a week.

Ottawa, too, announced new efforts meant to guide the country through the pandemic, including an additional $650 million for First Nations, Inuit and Metis communities. That adds to $305 million the feds had previously promised.

“Although we’ve made progress, there are still communities that are not properly equipped to handle a COVID-19 outbreak,” Trudeau said. “We need to address that.”