Ontario is tightening public health restrictions in five regions as hospitals say they are inundated with COVID-19 patients.
Those regions include Hamilton, which will move to the grey or “lockdown” level, joining Peel Region and Toronto, Premier Doug Ford’s government said late Friday afternoon.
Elsewhere, Brant County and Niagara Region move into the red or “control” zone, the public health unit for Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox & Addington moves into the orange or “restrict” zone, and Timiskaming moves into yellow or “protect.” The restrictions take effect Monday and will remain in place until Jan. 4.
The province says Hamilton’s rate of new COVID-19 cases has increased by about 25 per cent, to 103.3 cases per 100,000 people and the number of hospitalizations in the region has more than doubled in the last two weeks.
The province also confirmed the current lockdowns in Toronto and Peel Region will remain in place past Monday, when they were set to expire.
“The trends we are seeing here in Ontario are very, very concerning,” Ford told reporters before heading into an emergency meeting with his chief medical officer of health and other officials.
The public health unit for the Sudbury area was meanwhile moved down a level to green or “prevent” in the province’s colour-coded system of public health measures.
WATCH | Ford confirms Toronto, Peel Region lockdowns will continue:
Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he’ll hold an emergency meeting with CEOs of hospitals this weekend before deciding how to tackle the rising number of coronavirus cases straining the province’s health-care system. 1:25
Earlier Friday, CBC News learned that Ford’s government was considering a lockdown across southern Ontario from Boxing Day until Jan. 11
Ford said earlier on Friday that the government would announce its next steps on Monday, after he meets with hospital officials and cabinet over the weekend.
Multiple sources in and outside government who are aware of the proposal for southern Ontario say that the lockdown plan is similar to what will take effect in Quebec after Christmas Day. The plan is to be put to a meeting of Ford’s cabinet Friday afternoon.
Quebec is closing all non-essential businesses and issuing a mandatory work-from-home order for nearly all office employees until Jan. 11 and asking all schools to go online-only for the first week that classes resume in the new year.
Northern Ontario would be excluded from all the lockdown measures, say the sources, who have knowledge of the plans and spoke to CBC News on condition they not be named.
The precise closures and restrictions in the widespread lockdown have yet to be decided, the sources say. However, one government source says in-person classes at schools would not resume in the areas under lockdown until Jan. 11.
Another source aware of the proposal described it as a modified version of Stage 1, the restrictions that existed across Ontario immediately after the first lockdown was lifted earlier this year. That source also says the government is considering imposing stricter measures in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton areas than in the rest of the lockdown zone.
‘Whatever is needed’
There’s already some pushback to the possible lockdown.
Durham Region chair John Henry is calling on the province to consider keeping it in the less strict red zone, rather than in a full lockdown, saying the region wasn’t consulted on any potential changes.
Durham, just east of Toronto, saw 89 new cases on Friday, based on provincial data.
Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie called on the Ford government Thursday to lock down the Toronto and Hamilton area on Monday to drive down daily case counts.
Crombie said, while she acknowledges the disappointment of remaining in lockdown during the holiday season, the situation at hospitals in Peel Region, of which Mississauga is a part, remains dire and stricter measures are required.
Toronto Mayor John Tory said he supports the idea of a lockdown in the city’s area, noting that right now, it’s still easy for people to travel from Toronto to less-affected areas, especially during the holiday season.
My statement below on Mississauga remaining in the Province’s Grey lockdown zone. <a href=”https://t.co/gnSJoFwH6F”>pic.twitter.com/gnSJoFwH6F</a>
A senior government official, however, told CBC News that the sources are getting ahead of themselves.
The official said the duration of any lockdown is yet to be decided and said it is not certain that in-person classes at schools would be cancelled in the lockdown areas.
Before his cabinet meets, Ford is set to sit down with top hospital officials for an emergency meeting as the rising number of COVID-19 cases puts increasing strain on the health-care system in the province.
The meeting comes as public health officials reported 2,290 more cases of the illness Friday morning and 68,246 coronavirus tests completed. It is the fourth day with more than 2,000 new cases in the province. Another 40 deaths of people with the illness were also reported.
In a tweet, Ford said the discussion with hospital leaders will focus on “next steps to break the concerning trends in cases and hospitals in our province.”
As he has often repeated throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Ford said “everything is on the table when it comes to protecting the health of Ontarians.”
WATCH | Here’s what Ford said about a potential further lockdown on Thursday:
There are many things to consider before Ontario will tighten its lockdown of the province to slow the spread of the coronavirus, said Premier Doug Ford. But he said he will not make a ‘snap’ judgment about which course to take. 1:34
OHA calls for ‘stricter’ public health measures
In a statement released Friday, the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) said it is hopeful the government will heed the advice of hospitals during this time.
The association said its members were “grateful” that Ford, along with Health Minister Christine Elliott and the province’s chief medical officer of health Dr. David Williams “were able to hear firsthand, from hospital leaders from across the province, about the extremely serious situation many organizations are facing and the severe pressures they are under.”
The OHA is calling on the Ford government for “urgent implementation of stricter and more robustly enforced public health measures,” and also asking municipal leaders to get on board to support the action.
“On the cusp of the holiday season, should stricter measures not be put in place, and should the public ignore public health advice and choose to gather over the holiday season, the consequences risk overwhelming Ontario’s hospitals,” the statement says.
“Ultimately, every health care system has its breaking point.”
LISTEN | ‘This could be your family,’ Toronto doctor warns:
Metro Morning7:00‘This could be your family:’ Dr. Michael Warner on losing 5 isolated, COVID-19 patients this week
There are more COVID-19 patients in intensive care units right now than at any other point in the pandemic. That’s led the Ontario Hospitals Association to call on the Premier to tighten restrictions and impose harsher lockdowns. 86 more people died from COVID-19 this week and five of them were being treated at the Michael Garron hospital ICU where Dr. Michael Warner works. He reflects on the state of COVID-19 in Ontario. 7:00
7-day average reaches new high
The new cases reported Friday include 691 in Toronto, 361 in Peel Region, 296 in York Region, 207 in Windsor-Essex and 126 in Hamilton.
The other public health units that saw double-digit increases are:
Durham Region: 89
Waterloo Region: 84
Simcoe Muskoka: 61
Halton Region: 57
Ottawa: 52
Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph: 51
Niagara Region: 47
Southwestern: 37
Middlesex-London: 30
Eastern Ontario: 16
Leeds, Grenville & Lanark: 13
Thunder Bay: 11
(Note: All of the figures used for new cases in this story are found on the Ontario Health Ministry’s COVID-19 dashboard or in its daily epidemiologic summary. The number of cases for any region may differ from what is reported by the local public health unit because local units report figures at different times.)
Combined, the additional cases push the seven-day average of new daily cases to 2,089.
Close to 18,000 active cases across province
The Ministry of Education also reported 133 new cases that are school-related: 111 students and 22 staff members. Around 957 of Ontario’s 4,828 publicly funded schools, or about 19.8 per cent, have at least one case of COVID-19 while 22 schools are currently closed because of the illness.
There are now 17,742 confirmed, active cases of COVID-19 throughout the province, the most at any point during the pandemic.
They come as Ontario’s network of labs processed 68,246 test samples for the novel coronavirus and reported a test positivity rate of 3.9 per cent. There are another 81,235 tests in the queue waiting to be completed.
The 40 additional deaths of people with COVID-19 increases the official toll to 4,098.
17 more vaccination sites announced
Also this morning, the provincial government announced that doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine will be shipped to 17 additional hospital sites over the next two weeks.
The distribution is part of the initial phase of Ontario’s immunization campaign, which is focused primarily on front-line health-care workers and essential caregivers who work in congregate settings for seniors, such as long-term care homes.
The province expects about 90,000 total doses of the vaccine to arrive before the end of the year.
Speaking to CBC News yesterday, retired general Rick Hillier, the head of Ontario’s vaccine distribution task force, said that about 2,000 people have received their first dose of the vaccine this week. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine requires two doses, about 21 days apart.
In addition to the University Health Network in Toronto and The Ottawa Hospital, vaccine doses will be available at:
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. syphilis epidemic slowed dramatically last year, gonorrhea cases fell and chlamydia cases remained below prepandemic levels, according to federal data released Tuesday.
The numbers represented some good news about sexually transmitted diseases, which experienced some alarming increases in past years due to declining condom use, inadequate sex education, and reduced testing and treatment when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
Last year, cases of the most infectious stages of syphilis fell 10% from the year before — the first substantial decline in more than two decades. Gonorrhea cases dropped 7%, marking a second straight year of decline and bringing the number below what it was in 2019.
“I’m encouraged, and it’s been a long time since I felt that way” about the nation’s epidemic of sexually transmitted infections, said the CDC’s Dr. Jonathan Mermin. “Something is working.”
More than 2.4 million cases of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia were diagnosed and reported last year — 1.6 million cases of chlamydia, 600,000 of gonorrhea, and more than 209,000 of syphilis.
Syphilis is a particular concern. For centuries, it was a common but feared infection that could deform the body and end in death. New cases plummeted in the U.S. starting in the 1940s when infection-fighting antibiotics became widely available, and they trended down for a half century after that. By 2002, however, cases began rising again, with men who have sex with other men being disproportionately affected.
The new report found cases of syphilis in their early, most infectious stages dropped 13% among gay and bisexual men. It was the first such drop since the agency began reporting data for that group in the mid-2000s.
However, there was a 12% increase in the rate of cases of unknown- or later-stage syphilis — a reflection of people infected years ago.
Cases of syphilis in newborns, passed on from infected mothers, also rose. There were nearly 4,000 cases, including 279 stillbirths and infant deaths.
“This means pregnant women are not being tested often enough,” said Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a professor of medicine at the University of Southern California.
What caused some of the STD trends to improve? Several experts say one contributor is the growing use of an antibiotic as a “morning-after pill.” Studies have shown that taking doxycycline within 72 hours of unprotected sex cuts the risk of developing syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia.
In June, the CDC started recommending doxycycline as a morning-after pill, specifically for gay and bisexual men and transgender women who recently had an STD diagnosis. But health departments and organizations in some cities had been giving the pills to people for a couple years.
Some experts believe that the 2022 mpox outbreak — which mainly hit gay and bisexual men — may have had a lingering effect on sexual behavior in 2023, or at least on people’s willingness to get tested when strange sores appeared.
Another factor may have been an increase in the number of health workers testing people for infections, doing contact tracing and connecting people to treatment. Congress gave $1.2 billion to expand the workforce over five years, including $600 million to states, cities and territories that get STD prevention funding from CDC.
Last year had the “most activity with that funding throughout the U.S.,” said David Harvey, executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors.
However, Congress ended the funds early as a part of last year’s debt ceiling deal, cutting off $400 million. Some people already have lost their jobs, said a spokeswoman for Harvey’s organization.
Still, Harvey said he had reasons for optimism, including the growing use of doxycycline and a push for at-home STD test kits.
Also, there are reasons to think the next presidential administration could get behind STD prevention. In 2019, then-President Donald Trump announced a campaign to “eliminate” the U.S. HIV epidemic by 2030. (Federal health officials later clarified that the actual goal was a huge reduction in new infections — fewer than 3,000 a year.)
There were nearly 32,000 new HIV infections in 2022, the CDC estimates. But a boost in public health funding for HIV could also also help bring down other sexually transmitted infections, experts said.
“When the government puts in resources, puts in money, we see declines in STDs,” Klausner said.
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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.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists can’t know precisely when a volcano is about to erupt, but they can sometimes pick up telltale signs.
That happened two years ago with the world’s largest active volcano. About two months before Mauna Loa spewed rivers of glowing orange molten lava, geologists detected small earthquakes nearby and other signs, and they warned residents on Hawaii‘s Big Island.
Now a study of the volcano’s lava confirms their timeline for when the molten rock below was on the move.
“Volcanoes are tricky because we don’t get to watch directly what’s happening inside – we have to look for other signs,” said Erik Klemetti Gonzalez, a volcano expert at Denison University, who was not involved in the study.
Upswelling ground and increased earthquake activity near the volcano resulted from magma rising from lower levels of Earth’s crust to fill chambers beneath the volcano, said Kendra Lynn, a research geologist at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and co-author of a new study in Nature Communications.
When pressure was high enough, the magma broke through brittle surface rock and became lava – and the eruption began in late November 2022. Later, researchers collected samples of volcanic rock for analysis.
The chemical makeup of certain crystals within the lava indicated that around 70 days before the eruption, large quantities of molten rock had moved from around 1.9 miles (3 kilometers) to 3 miles (5 kilometers) under the summit to a mile (2 kilometers) or less beneath, the study found. This matched the timeline the geologists had observed with other signs.
The last time Mauna Loa erupted was in 1984. Most of the U.S. volcanoes that scientists consider to be active are found in Hawaii, Alaska and the West Coast.
Worldwide, around 585 volcanoes are considered active.
Scientists can’t predict eruptions, but they can make a “forecast,” said Ben Andrews, who heads the global volcano program at the Smithsonian Institution and who was not involved in the study.
Andrews compared volcano forecasts to weather forecasts – informed “probabilities” that an event will occur. And better data about the past behavior of specific volcanos can help researchers finetune forecasts of future activity, experts say.
(asterisk)We can look for similar patterns in the future and expect that there’s a higher probability of conditions for an eruption happening,” said Klemetti Gonzalez.
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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.
Waymo on Tuesday opened its robotaxi service to anyone who wants a ride around Los Angeles, marking another milestone in the evolution of self-driving car technology since the company began as a secret project at Google 15 years ago.
The expansion comes eight months after Waymo began offering rides in Los Angeles to a limited group of passengers chosen from a waiting list that had ballooned to more than 300,000 people. Now, anyone with the Waymo One smartphone app will be able to request a ride around an 80-square-mile (129-square-kilometer) territory spanning the second largest U.S. city.
After Waymo received approval from California regulators to charge for rides 15 months ago, the company initially chose to launch its operations in San Francisco before offering a limited service in Los Angeles.
Before deciding to compete against conventional ride-hailing pioneers Uber and Lyft in California, Waymo unleashed its robotaxis in Phoenix in 2020 and has been steadily extending the reach of its service in that Arizona city ever since.
Driverless rides are proving to be more than just a novelty. Waymo says it now transports more than 50,000 weekly passengers in its robotaxis, a volume of business numbers that helped the company recently raise $5.6 billion from its corporate parent Alphabet and a list of other investors that included venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz and financial management firm T. Rowe Price.
“Our service has matured quickly and our riders are embracing the many benefits of fully autonomous driving,” Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said in a blog post.
Despite its inroads, Waymo is still believed to be losing money. Although Alphabet doesn’t disclose Waymo’s financial results, the robotaxi is a major part of an “Other Bets” division that had suffered an operating loss of $3.3 billion through the first nine months of this year, down from a setback of $4.2 billion at the same time last year.
But Waymo has come a long way since Google began working on self-driving cars in 2009 as part of project “Chauffeur.” Since its 2016 spinoff from Google, Waymo has established itself as the clear leader in a robotaxi industry that’s getting more congested.
Electric auto pioneer Tesla is aiming to launch a rival “Cybercab” service by 2026, although its CEO Elon Musk said he hopes the company can get the required regulatory clearances to operate in Texas and California by next year.
Tesla’s projected timeline for competing against Waymo has been met with skepticism because Musk has made unfulfilled promises about the company’s self-driving car technology for nearly a decade.
Meanwhile, Waymo’s robotaxis have driven more than 20 million fully autonomous miles and provided more than 2 million rides to passengers without encountering a serious accident that resulted in its operations being sidelined.
That safety record is a stark contrast to one of its early rivals, Cruise, a robotaxi service owned by General Motors. Cruise’s California license was suspended last year after one of its driverless cars in San Francisco dragged a jaywalking pedestrian who had been struck by a different car driven by a human.
Cruise is now trying to rebound by joining forces with Uber to make some of its services available next year in U.S. cities that still haven’t been announced. But Waymo also has forged a similar alliance with Uber to dispatch its robotaxi in Atlanta and Austin, Texas next year.
Another robotaxi service, Amazon’s Zoox, is hoping to begin offering driverless rides to the general public in Las Vegas at some point next year before also launching in San Francisco.
