Manitoba is stepping up enforcement of COVID-19 restrictions as it tries to tamp down the spread of the novel virus, while Alberta’s top doctor is warning that more restrictions could be coming there unless the province sees case numbers “decline dramatically” in the days ahead.
Premier Brian Pallister on Thursday backed away from the idea of imposing a curfew in the Winnipeg area, saying the province will spend money to step up enforcement around existing restrictions first.
“There will be consequences for people when they put others in danger, when they put themselves in danger,” Pallister said at a Thursday briefing.
Pallister said that 277 more personnel, including fire safety inspectors, motor carrier enforcement officers and municipal bylaw officers will help make sure public health orders are followed. That brings the total number of enforcers to more than 3,000.
The number of people in hospital with COVID-19 in Manitoba has more than tripled in two weeks, from 42 on Oct. 22 to 153 on Nov. 5. (Bryce Hoye/CBC)
The province has seen an uptick in COVID-19 cases in recent days — health officials reported 427 new cases and four more deaths on Thursday — and hospitalization numbers have been climbing.
In Alberta, Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Deena Hinshaw warned that more restrictions could be coming as the province reported a record high number of new cases.
“Unless our numbers decline dramatically in the next few days, we will have to consider additional measures,” she said.
The province wasn’t able to provide an exact number of new cases Thursday because of technical issues, but the range provided was well over its previous one-day record of 622.
“I can tell you that about 800 new cases have been identified in the last 24 hours,” Hinshaw said, noting that there are nine hospitals in Alberta dealing with COVID-19 outbreaks.
Faced with mounting case numbers, the province is looking to hire more contact tracers to help existing staff. A spokesperson for Alberta Health Services said there are currently 800 people working with the contact tracing team, and AHS is looking to hire “approximately 380 additional staff” in the coming weeks.
British Columbia also saw a record high daily case number on Thursday as health officials reported 425 new cases of COVID-19.
WATCH | Dr. Bonnie Henry talks about COVID-19 in Fraser Health region:
Dr. Bonnie Henry says there are a number of factors, including a large number of essential workers and multigenerational families. 1:50
Most of the new cases reported by B.C. health officials were in the Fraser Health region, which covers an area east of Vancouver and includes communities like Burnaby and Surrey.
A statement from public health officials said there were 97 people hospitalized with COVID-19, including 24 in intensive care.
What’s happening across Canada
As of 11:15 a.m. ET on Friday, provinces and territories in Canada had reported a cumulative total of 253,474 confirmed or presumptive coronavirus cases. Provinces and territories listed 208,947 cases as recovered or resolved. A CBC News tally of deaths based on provincial reports, regional health information and CBC’s reporting stood at 10,420.
In Ontario, case numbers continued to rise a day after Premier Doug Ford’s government unveiled a much-anticipated budget after months of delay attributed to the global pandemic.
On Friday, the province reported 1,003 cases of COVID-19 and 14 new deaths.
Ontario is reporting 1,003 cases of <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#COVID19</a>. Locally, there are 300 new cases in Toronto, 280 in Peel and 125 in York Region. There are 949 more resolved cases and nearly 41,300 tests completed.<br> <br>Today’s numbers will be available at 10:30 a.m. at <a href=”https://t.co/ypmgZbVRvn”>https://t.co/ypmgZbVRvn</a>.
Provincial figures updated Friday put the number of people in hospital at 380, with 86 in intensive care.
Quebec on Friday reported 1,133 new cases of COVID-19 and 25 new deaths — including five in the last 24 hours. According to the data on the provincial dashboard, there were 539 people in hospital, with 77 in ICU.
Saskatchewan also reported a record high on Thursday, with 129 COVID-19 cases. According to health officials, many of the new cases were in Saskatoon and the area around Prince Albert.
Across the North, there were no new cases reported in Yukon, the Northwest Territories or Nunavut.
What’s happening around the world
Soldiers from the Yorkshire Regiment prepare a mass COVID-19 testing site in Liverpool, England. The government is piloting loop mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) coronavirus testing technology, offering all Liverpool residents quick-result tests to identify who has COVID-19 and asking them to isolate. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
As of Friday morning, more than 48.8 million of cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, with more than 32.2 million of those listed as recovered, according to a coronavirus tracking tool maintained by Johns Hopkins University. The global death toll stood at more than 1.2 million, the U.S.-based university reported.
The World Health Organization is looking at biosecurity around mink farms in countries across the world to prevent further “spillover events” after Denmark ordered a national mink cull because of an outbreak of coronavirus infections in the animals.
In the Americas, the U.S. has been dealing with a surge in cases, reporting more than 100,000 new daily cases two days in a row, according to numbers reported by the New York Times.
The American job market showed a burst of strength in October, with employers adding 638,000 jobs and the unemployment rate tumbling to 6.9 per cent. Still, the pace of hiring isn’t enough to rapidly soak up the millions of Americans who were thrown out of work by the pandemic recession.
It’s far from clear that employers can maintain — let alone increase — their pace of hiring. The job market and the overall economy are under intensified pressure from the accelerating pandemic.
On Thursday, the country broke another record in the seven-day rolling average for new cases, hitting nearly 90,000. Daily new cases were also on track for another day above 100,000, with surging numbers reported all around the country, including a combined nearly 25,000 in Texas, Illinois and Florida.
A shopper wearing a face mask walks by the Christmas decorations at The Grove outdoor shopping centre in Los Angeles on Thursday. COVID-19 case numbers are on the rise in the U.S. (Valerie Macon/AFP/Getty Images)
Latin American countries, including those that have brought down coronavirus transmission rates, should take heed of the second wave hitting much of Europe, a Pan American Health Organization official said.
In Europe, Germany’s health minister has warned of hard times ahead unless the country can “break” the rising trajectory of coronavirus cases. Jens Spahn told lawmakers in parliament on Friday that “the situation is serious,” noting that the number of COVID-19 patients being treated in the country’s intensive care units has doubled in the last 10 days.
“As of today, the health system can cope with this,” he said. “But a doubling every 10 days is something the best health system in the world can’t cope with in the long term.”
A woman buys a pack of face masks from the seller at a shop in Stuttgart, southern Germany on Thursday. Germans are living with a new round of shutdowns for the cultural, leisure as well as food and drink sectors, in a bid to halt a surge in new coronavirus infections. (Thomas Kienze/AFP/Getty Images)
Germany’s disease control agency reported a new record of more than 21,500 confirmed infections in the country in the past day, and 166 further deaths.
Russia’s daily number of new coronavirus infections topped 20,000 Friday, setting a new record since the beginning of the pandemic. Russia’s tally of confirmed coronavirus cases — currently the fourth largest in the world — has exceeded 1.7 million following a quick spread of contagion since September. The government’s coronavirus task force has reported 29,887 deaths since March.
Despite new daily records, authorities insist there is no need to impose a second lockdown or shut down businesses nationwide. They argue that the health-care system is capable of handling a surge in infections. Russian media, however, have reported on overwhelmed hospitals, drug shortages and inundated medical workers in some regions, indicating that the health-care system is under significant strain.
Austria warned that all its COVID-19 intensive care beds could be full within two weeks because of the “much stronger, more serious” second wave of infections.
Italian taxi drivers and co-operative taxi workers demonstrate in Rome on Friday as part of a national strike against the government’s restriction measures taken to curb the spread of COVID-19. (Andreas Solaro/AFP/Getty Images)
Oslo has shut down restaurants, cafés, bars, gyms, cinemas and theatres to help curb the coronavirus. On Friday, officials in the Norwegian capital introduced what they called a “social closure of Oslo.”
Mayor Raymond Johansen said that to bring down the infection rates, “we must shut down where people gather.” However, schools will remain open.
Slovenian police said they detained 10 people following violent protests in the capital Ljubljana against lockdown measures designed to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
In the Asia-Pacific region, South Korea has alerted about 1,000 people who attended the memorial of the late Samsung Group patriarch Lee Kun-hee last week to get tested for the coronavirus after one person at the event tested positive.
India has recorded 47,638 new cases of the coronavirus, taking its total to 8.4 million.
Deaths rose by 670 in the last 24 hours, driving total fatalities to 124,985 on Friday, the health ministry data showed. India has the world’s second-highest caseload behind the United States. Even though the country has seen a steady dip in cases since mid-September, its capital is witnessing a surge in infections.
Health authorities in Thailand on Friday announced the country’s 60th death from COVID-19, a 66-year-old Thai man who was diagnosed with coronavirus after he returned from the United Kingdom. It was Thailand’s first coronvirus death since mid-September.
The U.S. mission in Geneva urged World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Friday to invite Taiwan to a major meeting the body is hosting next week that is expected to focus on the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Africa, the coronavirus pandemic is having a knock-on effect on other vital health services as countries are forced to redirect already stretched resources, a regional head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday. Lockdowns imposed by countries to halt the spread of the virus in May, June and July contributed to a more than 50 per cent drop in services monitored by WHO.
In Nigeria, for example, more than 362,000 pregnant women missed their antenatal care between March and August.
Iran remained the hardest-hit country in the Middle East, according to the Johns Hopkins tally. The country had more than 663,000 reported cases, with more than 37,400 deaths recorded.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Democrats who control both chambers of the Virginia legislature are hoping to make good on promises made on the campaign trail, including becoming the first Southern state to expand constitutional protections for abortion access.
The House Privileges and Elections Committee advanced three proposed constitutional amendments Wednesday, including a measure to protect reproductive rights. Its members also discussed measures to repeal a now-defunct state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and ways to revise Virginia’s process to restore voting rights for people who served time for felony crimes.
“This meeting was an important next step considering the moment in history we find ourselves in,” Democratic Del. Cia Price, the committee chair, said during a news conference. “We have urgent threats to our freedoms that could impact constituents in all of the districts we serve.”
The at-times raucous meeting will pave the way for the House and Senate to take up the resolutions early next year after lawmakers tabled the measures last January. Democrats previously said the move was standard practice, given that amendments are typically introduced in odd-numbered years. But Republican Minority Leader Todd Gilbert said Wednesday the committee should not have delved into the amendments before next year’s legislative session. He said the resolutions, particularly the abortion amendment, need further vetting.
“No one who is still serving remembers it being done in this way ever,” Gilbert said after the meeting. “Certainly not for something this important. This is as big and weighty an issue as it gets.”
The Democrats’ legislative lineup comes after Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin, to the dismay of voting-rights advocates, rolled back a process to restore people’s civil rights after they completed sentences for felonies. Virginia is the only state that permanently bans anyone convicted of a felony from voting unless a governor restores their rights.
“This amendment creates a process that is bounded by transparent rules and criteria that will apply to everybody — it’s not left to the discretion of a single individual,” Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, the patron of the voting rights resolution, which passed along party lines, said at the news conference.
Though Democrats have sparred with the governor over their legislative agenda, constitutional amendments put forth by lawmakers do not require his signature, allowing the Democrat-led House and Senate to bypass Youngkin’s blessing.
Instead, the General Assembly must pass proposed amendments twice in at least two years, with a legislative election sandwiched between each statehouse session. After that, the public can vote by referendum on the issues. The cumbersome process will likely hinge upon the success of all three amendments on Democrats’ ability to preserve their edge in the House and Senate, where they hold razor-thin majorities.
It’s not the first time lawmakers have attempted to champion the three amendments. Republicans in a House subcommittee killed a constitutional amendment to restore voting rights in 2022, a year after the measure passed in a Democrat-led House. The same subcommittee also struck down legislation supporting a constitutional amendment to repeal an amendment from 2006 banning marriage equality.
On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of lawmakers voted 16-5 in favor of legislation protecting same-sex marriage, with four Republicans supporting the resolution.
“To say the least, voters enacted this (amendment) in 2006, and we have had 100,000 voters a year become of voting age since then,” said Del. Mark Sickles, who sponsored the amendment as one of the first openly gay men serving in the General Assembly. “Many people have changed their opinions of this as the years have passed.”
A constitutional amendment protecting abortion previously passed the Senate in 2023 but died in a Republican-led House. On Wednesday, the amendment passed on party lines.
If successful, the resolution proposed by House Majority Leader Charniele Herring would be part of a growing trend of reproductive rights-related ballot questions given to voters. Since 2022, 18 questions have gone before voters across the U.S., and they have sided with abortion rights advocates 14 times.
The voters have approved constitutional amendments ensuring the right to abortion until fetal viability in nine states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Ohio and Vermont. Voters also passed a right-to-abortion measure in Nevada in 2024, but it must be passed again in 2026 to be added to the state constitution.
As lawmakers debated the measure, roughly 18 members spoke. Mercedes Perkins, at 38 weeks pregnant, described the importance of women making decisions about their own bodies. Rhea Simon, another Virginia resident, anecdotally described how reproductive health care shaped her life.
Then all at once, more than 50 people lined up to speak against the abortion amendment.
“Let’s do the compassionate thing and care for mothers and all unborn children,” resident Sheila Furey said.
The audience gave a collective “Amen,” followed by a round of applause.
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Associated Press writer Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, contributed to this report.
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Olivia Diaz is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative.
Vancouver Canucks winger Dakota Joshua is set to make his season debut Thursday after missing time for cancer treatment.
Head coach Rick Tocchet says Joshua will slot into the lineup Thursday when Vancouver (8-3-3) hosts the New York Islanders.
The 28-year-old from Dearborn, Mich., was diagnosed with testicular cancer this summer and underwent surgery in early September.
He spoke earlier this month about his recovery, saying it had been “very hard to go through” and that he was thankful for support from his friends, family, teammates and fans.
“That was a scary time but I am very thankful and just happy to be in this position still and be able to go out there and play,,” Joshua said following Thursday’s morning skate.
The cancer diagnosis followed a career season where Joshua contributed 18 goals and 14 assists across 63 regular-season games, then added four goals and four assists in the playoffs.
Now, he’s ready to focus on contributing again.
“I expect to be good, I don’t expect a grace period. I’ve been putting the work in so I expect to come out there and make an impact as soon as possible,” he said.
“I don’t know if it’s going to be perfect right from the get-go, but it’s about putting your best foot forward and working your way to a point of perfection.”
The six-foot-three, 206-pound Joshua signed a four-year, US$13-million contract extension at the end of June.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 14, 2024.
NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump says he will nominate anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, putting him in charge of a massive agency that oversees everything from drug, vaccine and food safety to medical research and the social safety net programs Medicare and Medicaid.
“For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social site announcing the appointment. Kennedy, he said, would “Make America Great and Healthy Again!”
Kennedy, a former Democrat who ran as an independent in this year’s presidential race, abandoned his bid after striking a deal to give Trump his endorsement with a promise to have a role in health policy in the administration.
He and Trump have since become good friends, with Kennedy frequently receiving loud applause at Trump’s rallies.
The expected appointment was first reported by Politico Thursday.
A longtime vaccine skeptic, Kennedy is an attorney who has built a loyal following over several decades of people who admire his lawsuits against major pesticide and pharmaceutical companies. He has pushed for tighter regulations around the ingredients in foods.
With the Trump campaign, he worked to shore up support among young mothers in particular, with his message of making food healthier in the U.S., promising to model regulations imposed in Europe. In a nod to Trump’s original campaign slogan, he named the effort “Make America Healthy Again.”
It remains unclear how that will square with Trump’s history of deregulation of big industries, including food. Trump pushed for fewer inspections of the meat industry, for example.
Kennedy’s stance on vaccines has also made him a controversial figure among Democrats and some Republicans, raising question about his ability to get confirmed, even in a GOP-controlled Senate. Kennedy has espoused misinformation around the safety of vaccines, including pushing a totally discredited theory that childhood vaccines cause autism.
He also has said he would recommend removing fluoride from drinking water. The addition of the material has been cited as leading to improved dental health.
HHS has more than 80,000 employees across the country. It houses the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Medicare and Medicaid programs and the National Institutes of Health.
Kennedy’s anti-vaccine nonprofit group, Children’s Health Defense, currently has a lawsuit pending against a number of news organizations, among them The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking action to identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy took leave from the group when he announced his run for president but is listed as one of its attorneys in the lawsuit.
