In March, 12 Canadian hematologists and scientists came up with a strategy to fight COVID-19. A thousand patients, forty Canadian hospitals, and the doctors from the University of Ottawa, University of British Columbia, University of Toronto, McMaster, University of Montreal, and others got involved in the study. The blood-transfusion experts are using plasma from the bodies of recovered individuals to cure infected patients. Convalescent plasma is fluid in the blood-filled with antibodies. The plasma from the body of a recovered individual should have a certain number of antibodies to be injected into the body of an infected patient. At the early stages of the disease, the body cannot produce the antibodies, so the experts hope that the antibodies in the plasma will aid the infected patients to beat the virus. The USA, China, Singapore, and South Korea have already tested the method. Canadian Blood Services and Héma-Québec are in charge of blood donation management. All patients who need ventilation can take part in the study.

Canada’s economy is standing still

2019 was a good year for Canada. The country was included in the list of the top 10 biggest economies of the world. In 2020 the pandemic of COVID-19 hit every country. Canada’s economy took a huge blow. The government has given away big subsidies to the branches of the industry, smaller businesses, and individuals. The numbers go way over $ 157 billion.  It may take the country two years to fight the consequences of this huge blow to the economy. The field that got affected the least by the COVID-19 pandemic, and in some cases even saw growth is the digital economy. In 2016 when Justin Trudeau became the Prime Minister of Canada the government laid out a plan for the development of the economy. The government would actively support the industries to adopt innovations and modernize their businesses. It was a multiyear strategy with many stages, consultations, and discussion panels with businesspersons and citizens of Canada. As a result, in 2019 the Ministry of Innovation, Science, and Industry published Canada’s Digital Charter. Digital Charter is a set of principles that Canada will stand by as the technologies advance and the industries switch to the digital world. A great example of digitalization is iGaming businesses. Online casinos are increasingly popular in Canada. There are multiple reasons for this. One is that iGaming platforms accept not only real money but also cryptocurrencies. Online gambling for real money in Canada was at its prime when the crypto industry had a massive growth, so industry leaders saw a trend and adapted to it. The businesses saw rapid growth in the number of users when they started accepting digital currencies such as Ripple, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others. This enabled users to make faster money transactions than before. Traditional money transactions can take days while you only need under an hour to make a transaction with cryptocurrency. Besides, digital currencies are easily accessible to users around the world. The number of international users gambling on iGaming platforms and online casinos also grew. Another reason that online gambling is so popular is that it offers a greater variety of choices than traditional casinos. In addition to gambling forms such as poker, slots, sports betting iGaming providers also offer competition in video games. Popular games such as Mario have been adopted by the iGaming platforms for this purpose.

 

Canada Confirms More Than 60 000 Cases of COVID-19

At the moment, Canada has 102 242 COVID-19 cases. 63 860 of the infected people recovered. The number of deaths reached 8 430. Quebec and Ontario are the epicenters of the outbreak with 54 766 and 33 476 cases, respectively. However, Ontario has a bigger number of recovered patients than in Quebec. 28 719 of the patients in Ontario recovered and 2,606 patients passed away. In Quebec, the number of recovered patients is 23.322. The number of deaths for the region is 5 417. According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, 64% of infected people did not travel and have not been near the infected patient. In a situation like this, it is hard to track infected people because some carriers of the virus are asymptomatic. 36% of cases are people who got infected while being abroad or people exposed to someone returning from abroad. The indigenous communities and retirement facilities took the biggest blow because people live in close proximity there. Despite the numbers rising the country reopens step by step. It is still advised to wear a mask and keep social distancing.