The latest:
The Public Health Agency of Canada says it’s working with other governments still dubious about allowing Canadians with mixed COVID-19 vaccines to travel across their borders without quarantining.
Several countries, including the United States, only recognize people with two identical doses of an approved vaccine as being fully vaccinated.
Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, says PHAC has presented data on the effectiveness of mixed doses to the U.S. and other top-priority destinations.
She says Canada has been particularly active in spreading information about the effectiveness of mixing Oxford-AstraZeneca with mRNA vaccines like Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.
Many countries don’t have domestically generated data on that front, so Canada is working to help them make decisions about their own tourist regulations.
The federal government is expected to release more details about a standardized vaccine passport for Canadians in the coming weeks.
What’s happening across Canada
![](https://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/497/115/mpx-brend-covid-west.jpeg?crop=1.777xh:h;*,*&downsize=510px:* 510w")
Nearly 70 per cent of Canada’s COVID-19 patients are found in just three provinces: B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan. The pandemic there has hospitals scrambling, and people gasping for breath. 3:00
What’s happening around the world
As of Monday, more than 234.9 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus-tracking tool. The reported global death toll stood at more than 4.8 million.
In Asia-Pacific, New Zealand — among just a handful of countries to bring COVID-19 cases down to zero last year — on Monday abandoned its long-standing strategy of eliminating coronavirus amid a persistent delta outbreak, with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern saying the country will instead look to live with the virus and control its spread as its vaccination rate rises.
In Europe, the EU’s drugs regulator said people with weakened immune systems should get a third dose of a vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna, but left it to member states to decide if the wider population should get a booster.
In the Americas, Venezuelans are increasingly relying on friends and strangers to help pay for COVID-19 treatment as hyperinflation and soaring health-care fees make social media pleas and crowdfunding campaigns the only way to cover costs while infection rates rise.
In Africa, Senegal logged only two new daily infections, the lowest number since the pandemic reached the country and two months after the rate of new cases hovered at record highs, the health ministry said.
