Two more regions in Ontario are moving into lockdown, the province announced on Friday. As of 12:01 a.m. ET on Monday, York Region and Windsor-Essex will join Toronto and Peel Region in lockdown in order to slow the spread of COVID-19.
The provincial government also said Middlesex-London, Simcoe Muskoka and Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph will move into the red “control” zone. Ontario reported 1,848 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday along with 45 additional deaths.
“Over the last week, public health indicators in the York and Windsor regions have continued to trend in the wrong direction and it is evident additional measures are needed to help limit the spread of the virus,” Dr. David Williams, Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, said in a statement.
Earlier, federal health officials provided updated information and forecasts around the pandemic. Canada is still experiencing high COVID-19 infection rates and the country remains in a “rapid growth” trajectory for cases, Dr. Theresa Tam, the country’s chief public health officer, said as she and other health officials unveiled new modelling data.
WATCH | Dr. Theresa Tam talks about updated COVID-19 modelling for Canada:
Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Tam, updates reporters with the rising number of COVID 19 cases in regions across the country and reveals modeling projections. 0:50
“We need to rapidly reduce the strain on hospitals and our public health systems so that our health workers can keep the pandemic under manageable control” while they also implement a complex vaccination campaign, Tam said.
What’s happening across Canada
As of 3 p.m. ET on Friday, Canada’s COVID-19 case count stood at 446,336, with 73,223 of those cases considered active. A CBC News tally of deaths based on provincial reports, regional health information and CBC’s reporting stood at 13,222.
In Quebec, health officials reported 1,713 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday and 53 additional deaths, bringing the provincial death toll to 7,435. COVID-19 hospitalizations increased to 871, with 123 people in intensive care, according to a provincial dashboard.
The province faced scrutiny Thursday for how its long-term care system handled the first wave of the pandemic. An ombudsperson’s report said Quebec’s long-term care system failed to ensure the safety and dignity of residents as the virus first spread last winter and spring.
In the report, Marie Rinfret said the system was disorganized and unprepared for the surge, with many homes lacking in personal protective equipment and some unable to provide basic care and services.
WATCH | Military arrives in Shamattawa First Nation amid COVID-19 crisis:
A military team has arrived to help deal with the escalating COVID-19 crisis in Shamattawa First Nation in northern Manitoba, where some 300 people have tested positive in a community of about a thousand people. 1:39
In Manitoba, health officials reported 293 new cases of COVID-19 and 13 additional deaths, bringing the provincial death toll to 451.
Dr. Brent Roussin, the province’s chief provincial public health officer, again urged people to follow the rules and not gather for the holidays — saying that case numbers will spike again if people ignore the restrictions.
Tam said Friday that health officials are “beginning to see” the impact of the public health measures put in place in Manitoba.
PUBLIC HEALTH ADVISORY: Five COVID-19 cases identified in Yellowknife. All isolating appropriately. All identified as part of testing call due to wastewater signal. Details at the link. <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/yzf?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#yzf</a> <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/nwtpoli?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#nwtpoli</a> <a href=”https://t.co/qIauzJZlsB”>https://t.co/qIauzJZlsB</a>
New Brunswick reported eight new cases on Friday, along with one more death. Dr. Jennifer Russell, the province’s chief medical officer of health, said the Edmundston region is being moved into the more restrictive “orange” level of restrictions at midnight due to a growing outbreak.
Across the North, Nunavut reported 16 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday. All are in the community of Arviat, bringing the total number of active cases there to 56.
Dr. Kami Kandola, chief public health officer of the Northwest Territories, said in a news release late Thursday five travel-related cases had been reported in Yellowknife.
Yukon reported no new cases on Thursday and had not yet provided an update on Friday.
Saskatchewan reported 324 new cases of COVID-19 and four additional deaths on Thursday, bringing the provincial death toll to 75.
Health Minister Paul Merriman said residents will have to wait until next week to learn what public health orders will be in place over the holidays. He said the Saskatchewan Party government is ultimately responsible for any decisions made, but it works with the chief medical health officer, who presents them with recommendations.
In Alberta, health officials reported 1,566 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday and 13 additional deaths, bringing the provincial death toll to 666. Hospitalizations stood at 682, with 124 in intensive care units.
Dr. Deena Hinshaw, the chief medical officer of health, said the province completed roughly 16,800 new tests — for a positivity rate of approximately nine per cent.
“The messaging that we are clearly providing to Albertans is our health system is in trouble and we need to work together to save it,” Hinshaw said at a briefing Thursday in response to a question about public health restrictions and whether more needs to be done.
On Thursday, British Columbia reported 28 additional COVID-19 deaths — a single-day high for the province that Dr. Bonnie Henry described as “one of the most tragic days we have had yet.”
Speaking at a briefing on Thursday, the provincial health officer said all but two of the deaths were seniors who were in long-term care homes.
“These are family, these are friends, these are people who have had interesting and challenging lives,” she said as she offered condolences to families and those who lost loved ones.
With the additional deaths, the provincial death toll rose to 587. Hospitalizations stood at 346, with 83 people in critical care on intensive care units.
Henry said the upcoming COVID-19 immunization program is an “important, encouraging milestone” but cautioned that the province is “not yet through this storm.”
The province reported 723 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday and Henry urged people not to gather beyond households during upcoming religious observances.
What’s happening around the world
From The Associated Press and Reuters, last updated at 2:30 p.m. ET
As of Friday afternoon, more than 69.9 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, with more than 45 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 1.5 million.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said nearly a billion doses of vaccines had been secured for the COVAX program to provide shots for poor- and middle-income countries, with 189 countries participating. But several WHO officials noted that it would still take time to manufacture enough doses of vaccines to meet demand.
WATCH | WHO needs $4.3 billion to buy vaccines for poor countries:
The World Health Organization is urging countries to help fill a funding gap of $4.3 billion to help buy COVID-19 vaccines for poor- and middle-income countries. 1:06
AstraZeneca intends to start clinical trials to test a combination of its experimental COVID-19 vaccine with Russia’s Sputnik V shot to see if this can boost the efficacy of the British drugmaker’s vaccine, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund said on Friday. Trials will start by the end of the year and Russia wants to produce the new vaccine jointly if it is proven to be effective, said the RDIF wealth fund, which has funded Sputnik V.
The move is likely to be seen in Moscow as a long-awaited vote of confidence by a Western manufacturer in Sputnik V, which the Russian defence ministry alleged on Friday was the target of a foreign-backed smear campaign. Sputnik’s Russian developers say clinical trials, still under way, have shown it has an efficacy rate of over 90 per cent, higher than that of AstraZeneca’s own vaccine and similar to those of rivals Pfizer and Moderna.
In the Americas, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on Friday pressed U.S. Food and Drug Administration chief Stephen Hahn to grant an emergency use authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine by the end of the day.
The vaccine won approval Thursday from an FDA panel of outside advisers, and sign-off from the FDA is the next step needed to get the shots to the public.
Meadows spoke to Hahn by telephone on Friday, according to a senior official familiar with the call but not authorized to discuss private conversations. Hahn signalled that he would tell regulators to do so, the official said.
President Donald Trump has been pressing for quick approval for the vaccine.
Meanwhile, U.S. land borders with Canada and Mexico will remain closed to non-essential travel until at least Jan. 21 amid a rising number of U.S. coronavirus cases, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said Friday.
The decision means it will be up to the administration of president-elect Joe Biden to determine when it will drop the restrictions, first imposed in March to control the spread of the virus.
Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf said on Twitter the latest one-month extension was to “continue to prevent the spread of COVID.”
In Europe, Denmark will expand lockdown measures announced earlier this week to more cities.
Switzerland has ordered restaurants, bars and shops to close from 7 p.m. across much of the nation.
Meanwhile, calls were growing Friday for tougher lockdown measures in Germany as officials report record daily increases in both coronavirus cases and deaths.
Kim Young Sun, CFO of Korea Superfreeze, sprays water inside an ultra-cold storage facility at the Korea Superfreeze company in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, on Thursday in preparation for vaccines. (Heo Ran/Reuters)
The Robert Koch Institute said the country’s 16 states reported 29,875 new cases of COVID-19, breaking the previous daily record of 23,679 cases reported the day before. The number of deaths from the virus rose by 598, to a total of 20,970. The previous daily record of deaths was 590, set on Wednesday.
In Africa, Nigeria may be on the verge of a second wave of COVID-19 infections, the health minister warned, as another official said the country expects to roll out a vaccine by April next year.
In the Middle East, Bahrain will provide the vaccine for free for all citizens and residents, state news agency BNA reported.
In the Asia-Pacific region, the ability of developing countries in Asia to fight the pandemic got a boost after the Asian Development Bank said it has launched a $9 billion US facility to help nations access and deliver COVID-19 vaccines.
South Korean health officials reported another 689 new coronavirus cases on Friday.
Worker Jan Loested cleans out a shed on Thursday that housed mink at the Semper Avanti mink farm in Moldrup, Denmark. The Danish government ordered a mink cull after hundreds of farms suffered outbreaks of coronavirus. (Andrew Kelly/Reuters)
The country is expanding the use of rapid tests and deploying hundreds of police officers and soldiers to help with contact tracing as it deals with its worst surge of coronavirus cases since the early days of the pandemic.
Senior Health Ministry official Yoon Taeho said Friday that rapid antigen tests at emergency rooms, intensive-care units and remote-area hospitals will be covered by national health insurance starting Monday.
In Japan, Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura said he wanted to see the government avoid issuing another state of emergency over the coronavirus.
EDMONTON – RCMP say a second suspect has been arrested in the killing of an Alberta county worker.
Mounties say 28-year-old Elijah Strawberry was taken into custody Friday at a house on O’Chiese First Nation.
Colin Hough, a worker with Rocky View County, was shot and killed while on the job on a rural road east of Calgary on Aug. 6.
Another man who worked for Fortis Alberta was shot and wounded, and RCMP said the suspects fled in a Rocky View County work truck.
Police later arrested Arthur Wayne Penner, 35, and charged him with first-degree murder and attempted murder, and a warrant was issued for Strawberry’s arrest.
RCMP also said there was a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of Strawberry, describing him as armed and dangerous.
Chief Supt. Roberta McKale, told a news conference in Edmonton that officers had received tips and information over the last few weeks.
“I don’t know of many members that when were stopped, fuelling up our vehicles, we weren’t keeping an eye out, looking for him,” she said.
But officers had been investigating other cases when they found Strawberry.
“Our investigators were in O’Chiese First Nation at a residence on another matter and the major crimes unit was there working another file and ended up locating him hiding in the residence,” McKale said.
While an investigation is still underway, RCMP say they’re confident both suspects in the case are in police custody.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
RICHMOND, B.C. – The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team says the 26-year-old son of a man found dead on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast has been charged with his murder.
Police say 58-year-old Henry Doyle was found badly injured on a forest service road in Egmont last September and died of his injuries.
The homicide team took over when the BC Coroners Service said the man’s death was suspicious.
It says in a statement that the BC Prosecution Service has approved one count of first-degree murder against the man’s son, Jackson Doyle.
Police say the accused will remain in custody until at least his next court appearance.
The homicide team says investigators remained committed to solving the case with the help of the community of Egmont, the RCMP on the Sunshine Coast and in Richmond, and the Vancouver Police Department.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Mediated talks between the union representing HandyDART workers in Metro Vancouver and its employer, Transdev, have broken off without an agreement following 15 hours of talks.
Joe McCann, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1724, says they stayed at the bargaining table with help from a mediator until 2 a.m. Friday and made “some progress.”
However, he says the union negotiators didn’t get an offer that they could recommend to the membership.
McCann says that in some ways they are close to an agreement, but in other areas they are “miles apart.”
About 600 employees of the door-to-door transit service for people who can’t navigate the conventional transit system have been on strike since last week, pausing service for all but essential medical trips.
McCann asks HandyDART users to be “patient,” since they are trying to get not only a fair contract for workers but also a better service for customers.
He says it’s unclear when the talks will resume, but he hopes next week at the latest.
The employer, Transdev, didn’t reply to an interview request before publication.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
