The latest:
The Ontario government announced Wednesday that it will not mandate COVID-19 vaccination for health-care workers, while Quebec backtracked on its plan to do so.
In a statement, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said that making the vaccine mandatory could jeopardize patient care in the province.
“The impact of the potential departure of tens of thousands of health-care workers is weighed against the small number of outbreaks that are currently active in Ontario’s hospitals,” he said in a news release.
“Having looked at the evidence, our government has decided to maintain its flexible approach by leaving human resourcing decisions up to individual hospitals.”
In Quebec, Health Minister Christian Dubé said the province is cancelling the vaccine mandate for current health-care workers. The move came just weeks after he gave health-care workers a one-month extension, up to Nov. 15, to get the shot, calling it non-negotiable at the time.
At a briefing Wednesday, Dubé said about 14,000 health-care workers have yet to get a first dose of vaccine. He said 8,000 of them are currently working in the field — 5,000 of them working directly with patients.
“To deprive ourselves of 8,000 workers would have had devastating consequences for our network,” he said.
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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control has given final approval to Pfizer’s kid-sized COVID-19 shot, a milestone that opens a major expansion of the country’s vaccination campaign to children as young as five. 4:09
– Last updated at 3:30 p.m. ET
What’s happening in Canada
What’s happening around the world
As of early Wednesday afternoon, more than 247.8 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University’s online coronavirus tracker. The reported global death toll stood at more than five million.
The number of coronavirus cases has risen in Europe for the fifth consecutive week, making it the only world region where COVID-19 is still increasing, the World Health Organization reported.
In its weekly report on the pandemic, the UN health agency said new cases jumped by six per cent in Europe for the week of Oct. 25 to 31, compared to an 18 per cent increase the previous week. The weekly number of new infections in other regions either fell or remained about the same, according to the report.
While the Czech Republic, Poland and other countries in Central and Eastern Europe have reported recent infection spikes, the continuing rise in confirmed cases across Europe has been driven mostly by:
- The United Kingdom, with 285,028 new cases — a 14 per cent decrease from a week earlier.
- Russia, with 272,147 new cases — a nine per cent increase.
- Turkey, with 182,027 new cases — an eight per cent decrease.
The highest number of deaths in the region were reported in:
- Russia, with 7,938 reported deaths — a nine per cent increase.
- Ukraine, with 3,857 reported deaths — a 19 per cent increase.
- Romania, with 3,072 deaths — a six per cent increase.
Several hundred people blocked traffic in the centre of the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on Wednesday in a protest against coronavirus restrictions and mandatory vaccinations, which the government introduced to curb new infections. Vaccines have become mandatory for some state workers, and in “red” zone areas, including Kyiv, only vaccinated people or those with negative COVID-19 test results are allowed into restaurants, gyms and on public transport.
In the Americas, AstraZeneca has asked Health Canada to review a new long-acting antibody combination that could be used to prevent symptomatic COVID-19. If approved, it would be the first antibody protection of its kind in Canada.
The company says preliminary findings show the antibodies neutralize recent COVID-19 variants, including the delta and mu variants, and was found in trials to reduce the risk of developing symptomatic COVID-19 by 77 per cent compared to a placebo.
Mexico’s health ministry reported 269 confirmed coronavirus fatalities, bringing the country’s overall death toll from the pandemic to 288,733.
In the Asia-Pacific region, Hong Kong will roll out booster doses of vaccines from next week, Health Secretary Sophia Chan said, as authorities ramp up efforts to convince Beijing to allow cross-border travel to mainland China.
About 200 contracted factories that make sportswear for Nike across Vietnam have resumed operations after months of COVID-19 suspension, the government said, as it races to get its key manufacturing sector back on track.
In Africa, nations in West and Central Africa could see a rise in HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths in a few years due to disruptions in health services because of the pandemic, the executive director of the UN AIDS agency said.
In the Middle East, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian has tested positive for COVID-19.
-From The Associated Press and Reuters last updated at 2:15 p.m. ET
