The Canadian dollar is trading weaker due to overall weaker market conditions, traders are starting to take their profits after a six up-days in a row. U.S. equity markets have come back from being red on the year, traders say the market’s hot streak over the last two months is in large part thanks to confidence about the reopening of the U.S. economy and a barrage of government stimulus. Expect the USDCAD to range 1.3380-1.3465 today.
Covid-19 may have been circulating in China as early as August 2019, a new study from Harvard Medical School (HMS) claims. In a study published on Monday on Harvard University’s DASH server, analysts used satellite images of parking lots at six hospitals in Wuhan to calculate vehicle counts and estimate hospital occupancy trends. The vehicle numbers were compared to trends seen during other flu-like illness outbreaks. It found that between 2018 and 2020 there was a general upward trend in hospital occupancy — but there was a steep increase in occupancies from August 2019, which culminated with a peak in December 2019. The report authors argued that their findings supported theories that Covid-19 was already circulating before the outbreak in Wuhan was first documented, adding that the virus may have even spread internationally before Chinese authorities detected it in late 2019.
Canada’s two largest provinces are helping businesses that can’t pay their rent during the coronavirus shutdown after a federal aid measure failed to gain traction. The program required landlords to swallow a temporary 25% reduction in rent for some business tenants. In return, the federal and provincial governments agreed to pay at least half of a tenant’s rent in the form of a forgivable loan to the landlord. Applications have been nowhere near what the Federal Government expected to finance, Quebec has announced that it will boost its share which allows landlords to absorb 12.5% of the rent payable. Ontario will do the same.
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