INTERNATIONAL NEWS
CBC: The last of 422 ships delayed due to the grounding of the Ever Given container vessel passed through the Suez Canal waterway on Saturday. The 400-metre-long ship ran aground on March 23, beginning a week-long effort to free it through dredging and tugging operations. The backlog of ship traffic in the canal has thrown international supply chains into disarray. An investigation to determine if human or technical errors was to blame is currently underway. Many ships were forced to take a 5,000-kilometre detour around the Cape of Good Hope at Africa’s southern tip, others waited in place for the blockage to be resolved. The detour has cost shipping companies hundreds of thousands of dollars in fuel and other costs.
NATIONAL NEWS
CBC: Canada has decided to suspend the use of AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine nation-wide to those under 55 due to potential risk of rare, but potentially fatal blood clots seen in Europe. According to Health Canada, the benefits of this vaccine outweigh the potential risks, however the decision to place the use of AstraZeneca-Oxfords’ vaccine at a stand still remains. Although, more than 300,000 doses of this shot have been administered with no signs of serious clotting, individual experts warn the lack of data from this vaccine is concerning, and it order to avoid putting lives at risk it’s best to pause this administration for those under 55 until further notice.
LOCAL NEWS
CTV: Ottawa’s Public Health has announced that 112 more people have tested positive for COVID-19 in Ottawa. This has become the sixth day of triple-digit cases in the nation’s capital. This is the first time Ottawa has seen more than five days of COVID-19 cases above 100 counts. The pandemics’ current local death toll holds at 463 as of March 30, 2021. The COVID-19 dashboard shows a new total case count of 17,177 laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ottawa since the pandemic began.