Ottawa uncertain if Moderna shortage will impact Indigenous vaccine rollout.
Ontario reports 1,670 new cases of COVID-19 as test positivity rate dips to lowest in months.
U.S. Senate passes budget plan to advance Biden’s $1.9-trillion US COVID aid package.
Israel plans to begin slowly easing its latest coronavirus lockdown on Sunday.
Have a question about the coronavirus pandemic? Send your question to COVID@cbc.ca.
The U.S. House of Representatives approved a budget package on Friday that enables Democrats to push President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion US coronavirus relief package through Congress without Republican support in a process that will likely take weeks.
The Senate approved the budget plan earlier on Friday.
Intended as a blueprint for writing the upcoming COVID-19 aid bill, the budget resolution is not a law, and does not require a presidential signature.
“We can’t do too much here; we can do too little,” Biden told House Democrats earlier in the day. “Real, live people are hurting. And we can fix it. And we can fix it and the irony of all ironies is when we help them, we are also helping our competitive capacity, through the remainder of this decade.”
The Senate early Friday approved a measure that would let Democrats muscle the relief plan through the chamber without Republican support. Vice-President Kamala Harris was in the chair to cast her first tie-breaking vote.
Senate Democrats applauded after Harris announced the 51-50 vote around 5:30 a.m. The action came after a gruelling all-night session, where senators voted on amendments that could define the contours of the eventual COVID-19 aid bill.
U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to approve a measure that would let Democrats muscle the relief plan through the chamber without Republican support. (Greg Nash/Pool/Reuters)
New signs of weakening economy
The push for stimulus comes amid new signs of a weakening U.S. economy. Employers added just 49,000 jobs in January, after cutting 227,000 jobs in December, the Labour Department said Friday. Restaurants, retailers, manufacturers and even the health-care sector shed workers last month, meaning that private employers accounted for a meagre gain of 6,000 jobs last month.
“At that rate, it’s going to take 10 years until we hit full employment,” Biden said at the meeting with House Democrats. “That’s not hyperbole. That’s a fact.”
In this August 2020 file photo, a pedestrian is shown in front of a business that is closing amid the COVID-19 pandemic in the Manhattan borough of New York City. (Carlo Allegri/Reuters)
The unemployment rate fell to 6.3 per cent from 6.7 per cent, but there was a decline in the number of people who were either working or looking for a job in a sign that some people are dropping out of the labour force. The U.S. economy is 9.9 million jobs shy of its pre-pandemic level.
Biden, who has been meeting with lawmakers in recent days to discuss the package, welcomed the leaders of House committees who will be assembling the bill under the budget process known as “reconciliation.”
Biden also plans to make remarks Friday on the economy as he keeps up the pressure on Congress to “act big” on his relief package.
Concerns over Super Bowl
Coronavirus deaths in the United States surpassed 450,000 on Thursday, and daily deaths remain stubbornly high at more than 3,000 a day, despite falling infections and as the country races to vaccinate more people.
Infectious disease specialists expect deaths to start dropping soon, after new cases hit a peak right around the beginning of the year. New COVID-19 deaths could ebb as early as next week, said the new director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
San Diego International Airport workers hold a rally on Thursday to demand being put on the COVID-19 vaccine priority list. The biggest driver to the U.S. death toll over the past month has been California, which has averaged more than 500 deaths per day in recent weeks. (Mike Blake/Reuters)
But there’s also the risk that improving trends in infections and hospitalizations could be offset by people relaxing and coming together — including this Sunday, to watch football, she added.
“I’m worried about Super Bowl Sunday, quite honestly,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press.
Public health experts are watching Florida closely this week, because the Super Bowl will be played in Tampa. City leaders and the NFL are trying to physical social distancing by capping attendance at a third of the stadium’s capacity — 22,000 people.
– From Reuters and The Associated Press, last updated at 2:30 p.m. ET
What’s happening across Canada
As of 1:45 p.m. ET on Friday, Canada had reported 796,624 cases of COVID-19 — with 46,589 considered active. A CBC News tally of deaths stood at 20,591.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday that he understands why there is a “tremendous amount of anxiety” among Canadians with the constant flow of bad news about the inoculation campaign, but he doubled down on his promise to deliver six million shots by the end of March.
“We are very much on track,” he said.
Trudeau asked Canadians to tune out the “noise” from some circles about the sorry state of the country’s vaccine efforts, saying the temporary “ups and downs” in the rollout may be frustrating to “some people,” but they’re just that — temporary.
WATCH | Physical distance key to preventing transmission of variants, York’s chief medical officer says:
There is obvious community transmission of COVID-19 variants, according to York Region Medical Officer of Health Dr. Karim Kurji, who says the virus needs to be contained as it has the capacity to increase case numbers exponentially. 7:51
Labs completed 62,710 tests for the coronavirus and reported a provincewide positivity rate of 2.5 per cent — the lowest it has been since Oct. 22, 2020.
The provincial government has said it is considering calling off March Break in an effort to reduce the spread of COVID-19, a move educators and some parents say could lead to mass burnout.
On Wednesday, Education Minister Stephen Lecce announced that students in regions hit hard by COVID-19 will begin returning to physical classrooms next week in the face of gradually declining new infections and additional safety measures put in place for schools.
WATCH | Quick detection key to stopping spread of variants, immunologist says:
In order to limit the spread of COVID-19 variants, cases must be detected quickly to ensure isolation occurs, says microbiologist and immunologist Craig Jenne. 3:21
In Quebec, officials have also announced more details on the province’s plan for a gradual return to class for CEGEPs, colleges and universities.
Starting next week, students in red zones can head back several times a month, ideally once a week, Quebec’s Higher Education Minister Danielle McCann said Thursday. Classroom capacity is being capped at 50 per cent for theory classes, and everyone must maintain a 1.5-metre distance and wear a mask.
Quebec reported 1,101 new cases and 33 new deaths on Friday, as the province’s public health director said the government is increasing its capacity to analyze COVID-19 cases for the presence of coronavirus variants.
Dr. Horacia Arruda said eight cases of the more infectious variant discovered in the United Kingdom have been identified so far in the province.
In other provincial and territorial updates, New Brunswick reported seven new cases, Newfoundland and Labrador reported one new case and Nunuvat reported no new cases. Manitoba reported 110 new cases Friday, as well as one death.
Here’s a look at what’s happening across the country:
– From CBC News and The Canadian Press, last updated at 1:45 p.m. ET
What’s happening around the world
As of Friday afternoon, more than 105 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, with more than 58.4 million of those considered recovered or resolved, according to a tracking tool maintained by Johns Hopkins University. The global death toll stood at more than 2.2 million.
In the Americas, the White House said the Pentagon will deploy more than 1,100 troops to help vaccinate people in the United States against COVID-19. Biden has called for setting up 100 mass vaccination centres around the country within a month. Two of the five new military teams will go to vaccination centres opening in California. Three additional centres are expected to be announced soon.
A nurse changes the diaper of a newborn baby lying in an incubator who is infected with COVID-19 at the coronavirus neo-natal unit of the Monica Pretelini Saenz Maternal Perinatal Hospital in Toluca, Mexico on Thursday. (Luis Cortes/Reuters)
In Africa, Burundi has become at least the second African country to say it doesn’t need COVID-19 vaccines, even as doses finally begin to arrive on the continent that’s seeing a deadly resurgence in cases.
The health minister of the East African nation, Thaddee Ndikumana, told reporters on Thursday evening that prevention is more important, and “since more than 95 per cent of patients are recovering, we estimate that the vaccines are not yet necessary.”
The minister spoke while announcing new measures against the pandemic. The country closed its land and water borders last month. It now has well over 1,600 confirmed coronavirus cases.
Neighbouring Tanzania this week said it had no plans to accept COVID-19 vaccines after President John Magufuli expressed doubt about them, without giving evidence. He insists the country has long defeated the virus with God’s help but faces growing pushback from fellow citizens, and officials with the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization have urged Tanzania to co-operate.
In the Middle East, Israel plans to begin slowly easing its latest coronavirus lockdown on Sunday, hoping that its rapid vaccination campaign helps to contain an outbreak accelerated by new variants.
Israelis get the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at Clalit Health Services, in a gymnasium in the central Israeli city of Hod Hasharon on Thursday. (Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images)
A government statement released early Friday details the lifting of restrictions. People will no longer have to remain within 1,000 metres of home, national parks will reopen, and restaurants can offer takeout. Workplaces not open to the public can also reopen.
Yemen expects a first batch of 2.3 million COVID-19 vaccine doses by March through the COVAX vaccine-sharing facility, and Saudi Arabia could separately finance shots for about half of the population, agencies involved have said.
Six years of war in Yemen have left what little remains of its health system relying on foreign aid. The health ministry for Yemen’s internationally recognized government on Friday said it had applied to Saudi Arabia’s King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre (KSRelief) for it to finance vaccines for 50 per cent of the population.
KSRelief could not immediately be reached for comment. Saudi’s finance minister last month said his country was talking to manufacturers to provide COVID-19 vaccines to low-income countries including Yemen.
In the Asia-Pacific region, all 507 Australian Open players and staff who stayed at a quarantine hotel where a worker contracted COVID-19 have tested negative and been cleared to participate in the Grand Slam, tournament director Craig Tiley said on Friday.
Health officials said on Wednesday that a worker at the Grand Hyatt hotel had contracted the virus, prompting the testing and quarantining of 160 players, as well as coaches and Australian Open officials. Warm-up matches at Melbourne Park were called off on Thursday but resumed on Friday.
A person wearing a face mask enters a drugstore in Berlin on Thursday. Most shops in Germany are still closed to avoid the spreading of the coronavirus, but essential stores are allowed to open. (Markus Schreiber/The Associated Press)
In Europe, Germany’s health minister says first batches of the newly authorized Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine will be delivered to the country’s 16 states Friday.
Jens Spahn said the addition of a third vaccine would “make a real difference” to Germany’s immunization campaign, which has so far been sluggish compared to the United States or Britain. But Spahn said that, for now, the AstraZeneca shot will only be given to people aged 18-64, due to lack of data on older age groups.
Spain has reported its first case of the COVID-19 variant first detected in Brazil in a passenger arriving at Madrid airport The Madrid regional health department said Friday the 44-year-old man arrived from Brazil on Jan. 29 and had a negative PCR document but tested positive in an antibody test at the airport. He was taken to a city hospital, which later confirmed the variant.
On Friday, Spain reported 28,565 new coronavirus cases, resuming a downward trend. Spain has registered 2.9 million cases and a confirmed death toll of 61,386. The country this week began tightening restrictions on flights from Brazil and South Africa owing to variants detected in those countries. It already has similar restrictions with Britain.
British officials say everyone arriving in the country from coronavirus hot spots will have to spend 10 days in hotel quarantine starting Feb. 15 in a bid to stop new variants of the virus reaching the U.K.
Arrivals from high-risk countries will have to quarantine in approved hotels patrolled by security guards and will be billed for their stay. The government is facing criticism for the delay in implementing the policy, which it first announced in late January.
Poland’s prime minister says hotel, theatres, ski lifts, swimming pools and other facilities will be allowed to reopen with conditions such as limited capacity, social distancing and mask use starting next week.
Prime Minster Mateusz Morawiecki said Friday that the country’s existing pandemic restrictions have led to a “fragile stabilization” in the number of new COVID-19 cases but the number of deaths, around 400 daily, remains “very disturbing.”
– From The Associated Press and Reuters, last updated at 2:25 p.m. ET
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A conservative prosecutor’s attorney struggled Monday to persuade the Wisconsin Supreme Court to reactivate the state’s 175-year-old abortion ban, drawing a tongue-lashing from two of the court’s liberal justices during oral arguments.
Sheboygan County’s Republican district attorney, Joel Urmanski, has asked the high court to overturn a Dane County judge’s ruling last year that invalidated the ban. A ruling isn’t expected for weeks but abortion advocates almost certainly will win the case given that liberal justices control the court. One of them, Janet Protasiewicz, remarked on the campaign trail that she supports abortion rights.
Monday’s two-hour session amounted to little more than political theater. Liberal Justice Rebecca Dallet told Urmanski’s attorney, Matthew Thome, that the ban was passed in 1849 by white men who held all the power and that he was ignoring everything that has happened since. Jill Karofsky, another liberal justice, pointed out that the ban provides no exceptions for rape or incest and that reactivation could result in doctors withholding medical care. She told Thome that he was essentially asking the court to sign a “death warrant” for women and children in Wisconsin.
“This is the world gone mad,” Karofsky said.
The ban stood until 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide nullified it. Legislators never repealed the ban, however, and conservatives have argued the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe two years ago reactivated it.
Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul filed a lawsuit challenging the law in 2022. He argued that a 1985 Wisconsin law that prohibits abortion after a fetus reaches the point where it can survive outside the womb supersedes the ban. Some babies can survive with medical help after 21 weeks of gestation.
Urmanski contends that the ban was never repealed and that it can co-exist with the 1985 law because that law didn’t legalize abortion at any point. Other modern-day abortion restrictions also don’t legalize the practice, he argues.
Dane County Circuit Judge Diane Schlipper ruled last year that the ban outlaws feticide — which she defined as the killing of a fetus without the mother’s consent — but not consensual abortions. The ruling emboldened Planned Parenthood to resume offering abortions in Wisconsin after halting procedures after Roe was overturned.
Urmanski asked the state Supreme Court in February to overturn Schlipper’s ruling without waiting for a lower appellate decision.
Thome told the justices on Monday that he wasn’t arguing about the implications of reactivating the ban. He maintained that the legal theory that new laws implicitly repeal old ones is shaky. He also contended that the ban and the newer abortion restrictions can overlap just like laws establishing different penalties for the same crime. A ruling that the 1985 law effectively repealed the ban would be “anti-democratic,” Thome added.
“It’s a statute this Legislature has not repealed and you’re saying, no, you actually repealed it,” he said.
Dallet shot back that disregarding laws passed over the last 40 years to go back to 1849 would be undemocratic.
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin filed a separate lawsuit in February asking the state Supreme Court to rule directly on whether a constitutional right to abortion exists in the state. The justices have agreed to take the case but haven’t scheduled oral arguments yet.
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This story has been updated to correct the Sheboygan County district attorney’s first name to Joel.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Better catch this week’s supermoon. It will be a while until the next one.
This will be the year’s fourth and final supermoon, looking bigger and brighter than usual as it comes within about 225,000 miles (361,867 kilometers) of Earth on Thursday. It won’t reach its full lunar phase until Friday.
The supermoon rises after the peak of the Taurid meteor shower and before the Leonids are most active.
In 2025, expect three supermoons beginning in October.
What makes a moon so super?
More a popular term than a scientific one, a supermoon occurs when a full lunar phase syncs up with an especially close swing around Earth. This usually happens only three or four times a year and consecutively, given the moon’s constantly shifting, oval-shaped orbit.
A supermoon obviously isn’t bigger, but it can appear that way, although scientists say the difference can be barely perceptible.
How do supermoons compare?
This year features a quartet of supermoons.
The one in August was 224,917 miles (361,970 kilometers) away. September’s was 222,131 miles (357,486 kilometers) away. A partial lunar eclipse also unfolded that night, visible in much of the Americas, Africa and Europe as Earth’s shadow fell on the moon, resembling a small bite.
October’s supermoon was the year’s closest at 222,055 miles (357,364 kilometers) from Earth. This month’s supermoon will make its closest approach on Thursday with the full lunar phase the next day.
What’s in it for me?
Scientists point out that only the keenest observers can discern the subtle differences. It’s easier to detect the change in brightness — a supermoon can be 30% brighter than average.
With the U.S. and other countries ramping up lunar exploration with landers and eventually astronauts, the moon beckons brighter than ever.
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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.
YEMASSEE, S.C. (AP) — Employees at a South Carolina compound that breeds monkeys for medical research have recaptured five more animals that escaped last week from an enclosure that wasn’t fully locked.
As of Monday afternoon, 30 of the 43 monkeys that made it outside the Alpha Genesis facility in Yemassee are back in the company’s custody unharmed, police said in a statement.
Most if not all of the Rhesus macaques appeared to stay close to the compound after their escape Wednesday and Alpha Genesis employees have been watching them and luring them back with food, officials said.
They cooed at the monkeys remaining inside and interacted with the primates still inside the fence, the company told police.
Veterinarians have been examining the animals that were brought back and initial reports indicate they are all in good health, police said.
Alpha Genesis has said that efforts to recover all the monkeys will continue for as long as it takes at its compound about a mile (1.6 kilometers) from downtown Yemassee and about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Savannah, Georgia.
The monkeys are about the size of a cat. They are all females weighing about 7 pounds (3 kilograms).
Humans have been using the monkeys for scientific research since the late 1800s. Scientists believe that Rhesus macaques and humans split from a common ancestor about 25 million years ago and share about 93% of the same DNA.
Alpha Genesis, federal health officials and police all said the monkeys pose no risk to public health. The facility breeds the monkeys to sell to medical facilities and other researchers.
If people encounter the monkeys, they are advised to stay away from them — and to not fly drones in the area.
Alpha Genesis provides primates for research worldwide, according to its website.
