Expanded Wheels section for people who drive, ride or just love cars
Johnson & Johnson OK’d as Ottawa also announces a quicker Pfizer delivery
We’re all revved up for the spring!
Starting today, the Toronto Star is excited to unveil its expanded Wheels section — with fun, smart and informative news and features to appeal to automotive enthusiasts, gearheads and casual drivers.
We call it “an automotive section for people who drive, ride or just love cars.”
The expanded Wheels is designed to be a meeting point for lifestyles and automobiles — a section reflecting all that the world of automobiles has to offer: people, reviews, opinion innovation, pop culture, excursions and diversions.
We will examine how cars and trucks and other vehicles not only get us from Point A to Point B, but also the many ways they affect how we move, how we live and how we are entertained.
For many people, the current pandemic has made us rethink our relationship with our vehicles. From summer nights spent rediscovering drive-in theatres, to drive-through holiday light and Halloween experiences or just a sense of hesitation about riding on public transit, the role of automobiles in our daily lives has become more central than ever.
In the coming weeks, we’ll profile fascinating people and their emotional ties to automobiles, look at how new technology is changing the role of the car in our day-to-day lives and examine how what we stream, read and listen to is tied to car culture — all in ways that may surprise you!
Of course, all of this follows in the proud tradition of our Wheels section.
Launched in 1986, Wheels was one of the first regular newspaper automotive sections in North America. Over the years, Wheels broke new ground by nurturing a generation of the best Canadian auto journalists, including the recently retired Jim Kenzie, sponsoring races, writing about travel and traffic and people and having journalists drive the coolest roads in the world.
Building on that history of excellence, the expanded Wheels section will include many new features, including: á Car reviews from the buyer’s point of view: We tell the stories of recent car buyers in Ontario who found the perfect car for them — and why they love it.
á Ask a Mechanic: We pose the big (and little) questions that vehicle buyers want to know about vehicles but may be afraid to ask.
á A feature you won’t want to miss: perspectives from some of the world’s top motorsports racers who will give you and “inside look” on what it takes to race at the highest levels, such as Formula One and NASCAR.
á A look at the “latest and greatest” in automotive technology and innovation, such as the extreme lengths carmakers go to ensure their cars are safe and how electronic engines are becoming more efficient.
á Canadian opinion makers: We ask thought leaders in the Canadian auto industry to share their ideas on the issues affecting how and where we drive.
á A fun read: Wheels loves cars and the automotive life, so we feature light articles on the role cars play in popular culture and the way we spend our leisure time.
á Canada’s best writers: Wheels continues its tradition of featuring the country’s leading automotive writers, including Norris McDonald, Canada’s top auto racing journalist, who writes his popular weekly news and racing columns.
As we said, Wheels is “an automotive section for people who drive, ride or just love cars.”
We hope you enjoy it. We are confident it will give you a nice adrenaline rush to help you pass the day!
Jordan Bitove
Publisher, Toronto Star
OTTAWA—Health Canada approved a fourth COVID-19 vaccine on Friday and Ottawa announced 3.5 million doses will arrive months sooner than expected in what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hailed as a double boost to Canada’s multibillion-dollar national vaccine campaign, which has lagged behind dozens of peer countries.
After the national vaccine delivery operation faltered because of production delays in February, and provinces delayed second doses in the face of dwindling supplies to inoculate as many people as possible, Trudeau told Canadians wondering when they’ll get their first shot that, “Your turn is coming.”
At a news conference on Parliament Hill, Trudeau announced the accelerated deliveries and said, “Millions of doses are on the way.”
With the approval Friday of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine — the first single-dose vaccine to get the green-light in Canada — the federal government now expects to receive 117.9 million doses of the four authorized vaccines by the end of September. That includes 44 million doses from Moderna, 40 million from Pfizer-BioNTech, 23.9 million AstraZeneca, and at least 10 million from Johnson & Johnson.
The delivery schedule could accelerate further if regulators approve the only other vaccine currently under Health Canada review. It was developed by Novovax, and Canada has prepurchased at least 52 million doses, with options of up to 76 million more.
In all, Canada has contracted to buy up to 400 million doses under contracts with seven vaccine manufacturers, details of which Ottawa insists are confidential.
As the vaccine operation ramps up, it is becoming clear that the bill will be much higher than the $1 billion predicted last fall.
According to spending estimates recently submitted to Parliament, the Trudeau government has spent or expects to spend more than $9.2 billion on COVID-19 medical research and vaccine development. Of that, $8 billion has been set aside for “purchase agreements for vaccine supplies,” a senior official with the Public Health Agency of Canada confirmed to the Star.
That amount does not include about $1 billion for working with international partners on vaccines, and $200 million for treatments, like remdesivir. Under the international envelope, Canada has so far contributed $440 million to COVAX, the global vaccine-sharing facility. Half of that, $220 million, will procure up to 15 million vaccine doses for Canada, the other half will help lower-income countries.
The $9.2-billion tab does not include the work of the federal vaccine advisory task force, which is supported by the National Research Council and whose members are unpaid volunteers. Nor does the total include $536.5 million spent by the industry department to increase
domestic capacity in the final stage of vaccine manufacturing.
Despite the massive spending and political rhetoric about having the most diversified portfolio, Canada’s effort to deliver shots in arms has been stymied by production delays.
Public Services and Procurement Minister Anita Anand said the early deliveries are “important” news, but the government is still negotiating the delivery schedule of the latest authorized vaccines with companies that are “reluctant” to confirm precise timelines until they are sure of their global production capacity in the coming months.
For now, an additional 1.5 million Pfizer doses are slated to arrive in Canada before the end of March, with another two million doses arriving in April and May instead of summer.
By the end of June, the federal government expects to have received at least 36.5 million doses, a number that does not include any of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine or AstraZeneca vaccine produced in the U.S.
But Friday’s confirmed earlier deliveries and the September date for delivery of 118 million doses of authorized vaccines mean there will be more than enough to vaccinate the entire population and meet Trudeau’s self-imposed deadline to offer every Canadian a vaccination by the end of September.
Anand cautioned that more supply disruptions are possible. Canada’s expected shipments were reduced after production delays at Pfizer and Moderna plants in Europe. The slowdown lasted from mid-January to late February, when Canada received hundreds of thousands fewer doses than initially expected.
Johnson & Johnson has also had issues with production after falling behind on its targets. In February, Reuters reported the company had only a “few million” doses in stock. The company announced Tuesday that it is partnering with pharmaceutical rival Merck to ramp up production.
The increased supplies will ease pressure on provinces that sought to delay second doses.
The National Advisory Committee on Immunization recommended this week that provinces maximize limited supplies by delaying the second dose to up to four months after the first, a move Dr. Supriya Sharma, chief medical adviser at Health Canada, said Friday was “a reasonable recommendation … because it’s grounded in science — and evidence. I wouldn’t classify that as an experiment. If we can get earlier doses, we do not have to wait for the four months to give those second doses.”
But Dr. Alan Bernstein, president of the global research organization CIFAR and a member of Canada’s COVID-19 vaccine task force, said in an interview the second shots should not be delayed much beyond the recommended time frame, because the best evidence available from the clinical trials of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines showed they were up to 95-per-cent effective after a second shot, three and four weeks out, and “you’re not going to get better than that.”