TAMPA, FLA. Toronto Raptors coach Nick Nurse says a COVID-19 outbreak in March spiked his team s chances for a post-season run. The Raptors (27-45) finished 12th in the Eastern Conference to miss the playoffs for the first time since 2013. They were in the thick of the post-season race before a COVID-19 outbreak sidelined numerous key players plus much of the coaching staff in March, and saw them win just one game that month. Nurse faces a busy off-season, including at least three weeks as head coach of Canada s men s national team. Canada must win a last-chance qualifying tournament next month in Victoria to earn a berth in the Tokyo Olympics.
Indian telecommunications giant Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd has announced its participation in the construction and deployment of two next generation cables to support what it calls the extraordinary growth in data demand across India.
TORONTO The city’s top doctor says Toronto residents need to do everything possible to “prevent history from repeating itself” when it comes to transmission of emerging COVID-19 variants. At a news conference at city hall on Monday, Dr. Eileen de Villa, Toronto’s medical officer of health, said the B.1.617 variant, which was first detected in India, has the potential to cause explosive growth similar to the B.1.1.7 variant, which is now the dominant strain here in Ontario. “Cases of the (B.1.617) variant have doubled in the UK in a little more than a week…. The government’s scientific advisors there believe it is a realistic possibility the variant is as much as 50 per cent more transmissible than B.1.1.7,” de Villa said.