Alberta is limiting PCR testing as the surge in COVID-19 cases driven by the Omicron variant pushes the testing system “beyond its capaciity,” says the province’s chief medical officer of health.
“As many Albertans have found, just getting an appointment for a swab takes several days and the time to get results back is now close to 48 hours after the swab is taken,” Dr. Deena Hinshaw said at a news conference Monday.
As a result, PCR testing will now be limited to people with risk factors for severe outcomes and those who live or work in high-risk settings. This includes continuing care residents, health-care workers and staff in acute and continuing care settings, shelters and correctional facilities.
The province on Monday reported there are 635 people hospitalized with COVID-19, 131 more than Friday’s update, with 72 patients in ICU. Six new deaths have been reported since Friday, along with 17,577 new lab-confirmed cases.
WATCH | Alberta limits who can get a PCR test:
Alberta to narrow eligibility for PCR testing
5 hours ago
Duration 3:11
Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, announced a reduction in availability for PCR testing due to a rise in demand. PCR testing will be focused on specific categories of people in the province. 3:11
This comes the same day as students in Alberta and British Columbia returned to classrooms after an extended holiday break.
The question of when students should return to class, and under what conditions, has been a subject of debate across the country as provinces and territories shifted plans in the face of the fast-spreading Omicron variant.
Rapid tests and medical-grade masks will be distributed through Alberta schools, provincial officials have said, with all schools expected to have their initial shipment by the end of this week.
“Both rapid tests and masks will be shipped in phases,” read a statement issued by the province last week.
Edmonton Public Schools and the Alberta Teachers’ Association have expressed concern over the fact that the supplies won’t be on hand for everyone immediately, saying that could further exacerbate the lightning spread of Omicron cases.
Hinshaw has said returning to in-person learning is important for students’ mental wellness.
A student goes back to school on the first day returning to class at Eric Hamber Secondary School in Vancouver on Monday. The winter break was extended by a week for most students as much of the country contends with a surge in COVID-19 cases. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
In British Columbia, Education Minister Jennifer Whiteside has said safety measures will include virtual assemblies, visitor restrictions, staggered break times and access to three-layered masks as schools navigate this wave of COVID-19. School attendance will be monitored and an unusual dip will trigger a response from public health, which may include an investigation, the use of rapid tests or a temporary shift to how students learn, she said.
“To help with effective information-sharing, parents are encouraged to report rapid test results to public health and to ensure they contact the school if their child is staying home because of illness,” she said.
Teri Mooring, head of the BC Teachers’ Federation, has said she would like to see teachers prioritized for COVID-19 booster shots and N95 masks, which should be available for use in schools. Enhanced masking, using HEPA filters and ensuring teachers have their third shots will support schools in staying open, she said.
The province — which had allowed some children of essential workers and learners with some disabilities back into classrooms last week — has warned there may be functional closures due to staff illness and that COVID-19 exposure notices will no longer be sent unless there are significant dips in attendance.
B.C. on Monday reported that 431 people are now in hospital with COVID-19, including 95 in intensive care. It also reported seven more deaths and 6,966 new lab-confirmed cases since Friday.
Schools across Ontario will reopen for in-person learning on Jan. 17 sources with knowledge of the decision said Monday.
<a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/BREAKING?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#BREAKING</a>: Sources with knowledge of the decision confirm to <a href=”https://twitter.com/CBCNews?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@CBCNews</a> Ontario students will return to in class learning Monday as first reported by <a href=”https://twitter.com/robertbenzie?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@robertbenzie</a> of the <a href=”https://twitter.com/TorontoStar?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@TorontoStar</a> <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/Onpoli?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#Onpoli</a> <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/Onted?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#Onted</a>
Premier Doug Ford switched schools to remote learning on Jan. 5.
Ontario reported 2,467 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 on Monday, with 438 in intensive care units. The province, which reported 12 additional deaths, also recorded 9,706 lab-confirmed cases.
Manitoba has also confirmed that students will return to the classroom on Monday, Jan. 17, ending a brief period of remote learning after an extended holiday break.
Education Minister Cliff Cullen said the province has invested over $63 million to ensure classrooms are safe for students.
The province on Monday reported a jump in the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations over the weekend, up to 378 from 297 reported on Friday. The number of ICU patients also rose and is now at 39.
The province reported 2,383 new lab-confirmed cases and 19 new deaths over the last three days. The five-day test positivity rate now stands at 49 per cent, according to provincial data
— From CBC News and The Canadian Press, last updated at 9 p.m. ET
What’s happening across Canada
WATCH | Ontario First Nation gets military help:
Ontario First Nation receives military help after half of community gets COVID-19
1 day ago
Duration 1:59
The chief of Bearskin Lake First Nation in northern Ontario is calling for more support from the Canadian government amid a COVID-19 outbreak that has affected at least half of the residents. Four Canadian Rangers are working in the community, and four more have been promised. 1:59
With lab-based testing capacity deeply strained and increasingly restricted, experts say true case counts are likely far higher than reported. Hospitalization data at the regional level is also evolving, with several provinces saying they will report figures that separate the number of people in hospital because of COVID-19 from those in hospital for another medical issue who also test positive for COVID-19.
For more information on what is happening in your community — including details on outbreaks, testing capacity and local restrictions — click through to the regional coverage below.
Quebec‘s Public Health Director Dr. Horacio Arruda has offered to resign after nearly 12 years in the position.
The offer comes as hospitals across the province reach their highest alert, reducing services in the face of overcrowding.
Quebec health officials tracking COVID-19 reported 26 additional deaths and 2,554 hospitalizations on Monday, with 248 in intensive care units. The province reported 10,573 additional lab-confirmed cases.
In Atlantic Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador on Monday reported two additional deaths and said hospitalizations stood at four. The province recorded an additional 455 lab-confirmed cases.
The province also reported several hundred additional cases after test results came back from out of province. In a statement, the province said because of strain on the provincial laboratory, between Dec. 29 and Jan. 6, samples were sent out of province for testing.
“An additional 680 cases are being reported today arising from these results,” said a statement released Monday.
Health Minister John Haggie held a COVID-19 briefing on Monday, his first public appearance since testing positive himself on Jan. 1.
“It’s one of those COVID experiences I could really have done without. It was really a miserable time, and I feel better,” he said.
It’s a briefing about COVID testing with Health Minister John Haggie<br>The demand for testing was very high after Christmas<br>”our capacity to deliver on those tests in house was exceeded”<br>They sent out 6,635 swabs <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/covid19nfld?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#covid19nfld</a>
Meanwhile, Prince Edward Island reported 320 new lab-confirmed cases over two days, with five people currently hospitalized with COVID-19.
New Brunswick’s premier says the province may revisit mandatory COVID-19 vaccines.
“I think it’s something that will get further discussion in New Brunswick, and probably across the country,” said Premier Blaine Higgs.
The province reported 220 new lab-confirmed cases, with the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 rising to 86. As of Monday, all New Brunswickers 18 and older are now eligible to book an appointment for a booster, as long as five months have passed since their second dose.
In the Prairies, the number of patients with COVID-19 in Saskatchewan hospitals rose to 119 on Sunday, with no additional deaths reported. The province, which as of Sunday was reporting 13 ICU cases, recorded 1,099 additional lab-confirmed cases.
WATCH | Changes to how Saskatchewan tracks hospitalizations:
Sask. changes how hospitalizations are reported amid patient surge
1 day ago
Duration 2:01
As COVID-19 hospitalizations soar, Saskatchewan has started to track, and report, patients that were admitted for virus-related illness and those admitted for other reasons separately. 2:01
In the North, Nunavut reported 14 new lab-confirmed cases over two days, while Yukon reported 197 new lab-confirmed cases over three days, with two people currently hospitalized with COVID-19. Officials in the Northwest Territories reported 220 cases over two days.
— From The Canadian Press and CBC News, last updated at 9 p.m. ET
What’s happening around the world
A group of young students wearing face masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 attend their first class after Christmas holidays at Luis Amigo school in Pamplona, Spain, on Monday. (Alvaro Barrientos/The Associated Press)
As of Monday evening, roughly 310 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, according to Johns Hopkin University’s case tracking tool. The reported global death toll stood at around 5.5 million.
In Europe, Italy targeted the unvaccinated with a host of new coronavirus restrictions on Monday, with proof of vaccination or recovery from a recent infection required to enter public transit, coffee shops, hotels, gyms and other everyday activities.
The new “super” health pass requirement, which eliminates the ability to show just a negative test to gain access to services, comes as many Italians return to work and school after the Christmas and New Year holidays. COVID-19 infections are soaring past 100,000 per day in Italy.
The government has responded to the Omicron-fuelled wave of infections by passing new restrictions aimed at encouraging vaccine holdouts to get the shots or be increasingly shut out of recreational and even essential activities, such as taking a bus or subway to work.
Italy, where the coronavirus outbreak first erupted in Europe in February 2020, has fully vaccinated more than 80 per cent of people over 18, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
A man shows his ‘Super Green Pass’ before getting on a train at Termini main train station in Rome. Italy brought in tougher rules for the unvaccinated Monday. (Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters)
But two million people out of Italy’s population of 60 million are currently positive, impacting essential services. School districts have complained they don’t have enough teachers to reopen, since so many are positive or in quarantine. Some train service has been curtailed because of labour shortages.
Doctors’ associations, meanwhile, have said the surge is hitting Italy’s hospitals hard. Some 16,000 COVID-19 patients are in the hospital and 1,600 are in intensive care, but that is well short of the 4,000 people in intensive care units during the height of the first wave. Officials say around two-thirds of those now hospitalized are unvaccinated.
In the Asia-Pacific region, India began administering vaccine boosters to front-line workers and vulnerable elderly people, as Omicron fuelled a rapid increase in cases.
The Chinese city of Tianjin tightened exit controls and is requiring residents to obtain approval from employers or community authorities before leaving town to block the spread of Omicron.
In Africa,health officials in South Africa — one of the first countries to raise the alarm about the Omicron variant — on Monday reported 77 deaths and 2,409 additional cases of COVID-19.
As of today the cumulative number of <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#COVID19</a> cases identified in SA is 3 528 463 with 2 409 new cases reported. Today 77 deaths have been reported bringing the total to 92 530 deaths. The cumulative number of recoveries now stand at 3 291 578 with a recovery rate of 93.3% <a href=”https://t.co/4fwcG5UKtg”>pic.twitter.com/4fwcG5UKtg</a>
In the Americas, Mexico hit a record for daily infections over the weekend and its official death toll rose to 300,334 on Sunday, while Brazil’s climbed to 619,981.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., Chicago school leaders cancelled class a fourth day in the nation’s third-largest district as negotiations with the teachers’ union over remote learning and other COVID-19 safety protocols failed to produce an agreement over the weekend.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez said in a joint statement Sunday evening that there wasn’t “sufficient progress” in talks to resume in-person classes Monday, extending disruptions into a second school week. But they vowed negotiations would continue “through the night.”
Disputed issues included testing and metrics to close schools. The Chicago Teachers Union wants the option to revert to districtwide remote instruction, and most members have refused to teach in-person until there’s an agreement or the latest COVID-19 spike subsides. But Chicago leaders reject districtwide remote learning, saying it’s detrimental to students and schools are safe. Instead, Chicago opted to cancel classes as a whole, two days after students returned from winter break.
In the Middle East, health officials in Iran on Monday reported 37 additional deaths and 1,932 new cases.
— From Reuters, The Associated Press and CBC News, last updated at 8:30 p.m. ET
NEW YORK (AP) — Teen smoking hit an all-time low in the U.S. this year, part of a big drop in the youth use of tobacco overall, the government reported Thursday.
There was a 20% drop in the estimated number of middle and high school students who recently used at least one tobacco product, including cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, nicotine pouches and hookahs. The number went from 2.8 million last year to 2.25 million this year — the lowest since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s key survey began in 1999.
“Reaching a 25-year low for youth tobacco product use is an extraordinary milestone for public health,” said Deirdre Lawrence Kittner, director of CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health, in a statement. However, “our mission is far from complete.”
A previously reported drop in vaping largely explains the overall decline in tobacco use from 10% to about 8% of students, health officials said.
The youth e-cigarette rate fell to under 6% this year, down from 7.7% last year — the lowest at any point in the last decade. E-cigarettes are the most commonly used tobacco products among teens, followed by nicotine pouches.
Use of other products has been dropping, too.
Twenty-five years ago, nearly 30% of high school students smoked. This year, it was just 1.7%, down from the 1.9%. That one-year decline is so small it is not considered statistically significant, but marks the lowest since the survey began 25 years ago. The middle school rate also is at its lowest mark.
Recent use of hookahs also dropped, from 1.1% to 0.7%.
The results come from an annual CDC survey, which included nearly 30,000 middle and high school students at 283 schools. The response rate this year was about 33%.
Officials attribute the declines to a number of measures, ranging from price increases and public health education campaigns to age restrictions and more aggressive enforcement against retailers and manufacturers selling products to kids.
Among high school students, use of any tobacco product dropped to 10%, from nearly 13% and e-cigarette use dipped under 8%, from 10%. But there was no change reported for middle school students, who less commonly vape or smoke or use other products,
Current use of tobacco fell among girls and Hispanic students, but rose among American Indian or Alaska Native students. And current use of nicotine pouches increased among white kids.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Whooping cough is at its highest level in a decade for this time of year, U.S. health officials reported Thursday.
There have been 18,506 cases of whooping cough reported so far, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. That’s the most at this point in the year since 2014, when cases topped 21,800.
The increase is not unexpected — whooping cough peaks every three to five years, health experts said. And the numbers indicate a return to levels before the coronavirus pandemic, when whooping cough and other contagious illnesses plummeted.
Still, the tally has some state health officials concerned, including those in Wisconsin, where there have been about 1,000 cases so far this year, compared to a total of 51 last year.
Nationwide, CDC has reported that kindergarten vaccination rates dipped last year and vaccine exemptions are at an all-time high. Thursday, it released state figures, showing that about 86% of kindergartners in Wisconsin got the whooping cough vaccine, compared to more than 92% nationally.
Whooping cough, also called pertussis, usually starts out like a cold, with a runny nose and other common symptoms, before turning into a prolonged cough. It is treated with antibiotics. Whooping cough used to be very common until a vaccine was introduced in the 1950s, which is now part of routine childhood vaccinations. It is in a shot along with tetanus and diphtheria vaccines. The combo shot is recommended for adults every 10 years.
“They used to call it the 100-day cough because it literally lasts for 100 days,” said Joyce Knestrick, a family nurse practitioner in Wheeling, West Virginia.
Whooping cough is usually seen mostly in infants and young children, who can develop serious complications. That’s why the vaccine is recommended during pregnancy, to pass along protection to the newborn, and for those who spend a lot of time with infants.
But public health workers say outbreaks this year are hitting older kids and teens. In Pennsylvania, most outbreaks have been in middle school, high school and college settings, an official said. Nearly all the cases in Douglas County, Nebraska, are schoolkids and teens, said Justin Frederick, deputy director of the health department.
That includes his own teenage daughter.
“It’s a horrible disease. She still wakes up — after being treated with her antibiotics — in a panic because she’s coughing so much she can’t breathe,” he said.
It’s important to get tested and treated with antibiotics early, said Dr. Kris Bryant, who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases at Norton Children’s in Louisville, Kentucky. People exposed to the bacteria can also take antibiotics to stop the spread.
“Pertussis is worth preventing,” Bryant said. “The good news is that we have safe and effective vaccines.”
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AP data journalist Kasturi Pananjady contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
WASHINGTON (AP) — An Alabama man was arrested Thursday for his alleged role in the January hack of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission social media account that led the price of bitcoin to spike, the Justice Department said.
Eric Council Jr., 25, of Athens, is accused of helping to break into the SEC’s account on X, formerly known as Twitter, allowing the hackers to prematurely announce the approval of long-awaited bitcoin exchange-traded funds.
The price of bitcoin briefly spiked more than $1,000 after the post claimed “The SEC grants approval for #Bitcoin ETFs for listing on all registered national securities exchanges.”
But soon after the initial post appeared, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said on his personal account that the SEC’s account was compromised. “The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products,” Gensler wrote, calling the post unauthorized without providing further explanation.
Authorities say Council carried out what’s known as a “SIM swap,” using a fake ID to impersonate someone with access to the SEC’s X account and convince a cellphone store to give him a SIM card linked to the person’s phone. Council was able to take over the person’s cellphone number and get access codes to the SEC’s X account, which he shared with others who broke into the account and sent the post, the Justice Department says.
Prosecutors say after Council returned the iPhone he used for the SIM swap, his online searches included: “What are the signs that you are under investigation by law enforcement or the FBI even if you have not been contacted by them.”
An email seeking comment was sent Thursday to an attorney for Council, who is charged in Washington’s federal court with conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud.
The price of bitcoin swung from about $46,730 to just below $48,000 after the unauthorized post hit on Jan. 9 and then dropped to around $45,200 after the SEC’s denial. The SEC officially approved the first exchange-traded funds that hold bitcoin the following day.
