The latest:
Premier Jason Kenney says he wants to eliminate Alberta’s COVID-19 vaccine passport program as soon as it’s safe to do so, but he noted that it’s not yet the right time, as hospitals continue to feel pandemic pressures.
Kenney said Thursday the government will move toward a widespread relaxation of public health measures once pressure on the health system and COVID-19 hospitalizations trend down.
The vaccine passport system in Alberta, called the Restrictions Exemption Program, permits businesses to operate with fewer restrictions if patrons provide proof of vaccination, negative test results or a medical exemption.
“While there is some good news that can be encouraging for all of us, now is not the right time to be relaxing measures when … hospitals are under so much pressure,” Kenney said at a briefing on Thursday.
Decisions will be based on data and public health advice, he said — and though he did not offer precise timelines, he noted that he’s “pretty confident” it will come before the end of March.
“I’ll just tell you this — we will eliminate the Restriction Exemption Program as soon as it’s safe to do so.”
After the premier’s comments on Thursday, Alberta reported 1,496 total COVID-19 hospitalizations on Friday, an increase of 27 over the previous day. There were 105 COVID-19 patients being treated in the province’s intensive care units. Thirteen more deaths and 3,036 lab-confirmed cases were also reported on Friday.
Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, said children under the age of two will be eligible again for provincial PCR testing, since rapid tests and vaccinations are not currently an option for this age group.
Meanwhile, Saskatchewan is revising its public health orders as it moves to treat the COVID-19 Omicron variant like other common respiratory viruses. Starting Friday, close contacts of people who test positive will not be required to self-isolate.
Anyone who is infected, immunized or not, will still need to self-isolate for five days, but the change eases the isolation requirement of 10 days for the unvaccinated. Health officials said Omicron is so transmissible that many people who have been able to dodge COVID-19 thus far will be exposed.
Total COVID-19 hospitalizations stood at 342 in Saskatchewan on Friday — up by 14 from a day earlier — with 34 people in ICUs. Saskatchewan also reported two deaths and 1,392 new cases on Friday.
Manitoba sticks with restrictions
Dr. Brent Roussin, Manitoba’s chief provincial public health officer, said Friday that many indicators around COVID-19 are starting to point in the right direction for the province — but he noted there’s still significant spread in the community and pressure on hospitals.
Roussin, who appeared alongside Health Minister Audrey Gordon, said the current restrictions — which were set to lapse on Feb. 1 — will remain in place until Feb. 8.
Manitoba is extending its public health order for one more week. It will now expire Feb. 8. <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#COVID19</a>
—@bkives
The province on Friday reported 715 hospitalizations due to COVID-19, an increase of four from the previous day. There are 52 COVID-19 patients in ICUs.
-From The Canadian Press and CBC News, last updated at 5:49 p.m. ET
What’s happening across Canada
LISTEN | Dr. Bonnie Henry talks about how B.C. is handling COVID-19 and what may come next for the province:
The Current19:04Changing our approach to COVID-19 doesn’t mean throwing in the towel, says Bonnie Henry
B.C.’s provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry talks to Matt Galloway about the province’s shift around COVID-19, amidst the highly transmissible Omicron variant. 19:04
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.
You can also read more from the Public Health Agency of Canada, which provides a detailed look at every region — including seven-day average test positivity rates — in its daily epidemiological updates.
In Central Canada, Ontario on Friday reported a total of 3,535 COVID-19 hospitalizations — down by 110 from a day earlier — with 607 people in intensive care units. The province also reported a total of 68 additional deaths, along with 5,337 lab-confirmed cases.
The update came a day after the province’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board said Ontarians who suspect they caught COVID-19 at work can make a claim even without a positive result from a PCR test. But the board said people should seek out a rapid test or a medical professional’s diagnosis now that the gold-standard PCR tests aren’t widely available.
With access to lab-based PCR tests now restricted in many parts of the country, workers compensation boards in several provinces and territories are wrestling with what the standard will be for showing workplace exposure to the novel coronavirus. The workers compensation organization in Alberta, for example, will accept a positive rapid test, PCR test or a doctor’s diagnosis as part of the claim process, the province’s top doctor said Thursday.
Quebec on Friday reported 3,091 hospitalizations — down by 62 from a day earlier — with 228 people in intensive care. The province’s COVID-19 dashboard also showed 48 new deaths and 3,600 lab-confirmed cases.
In the North, health officials in Nunavut on Friday reported 41 new cases of COVID-19. Yukon‘s government reported 23 new cases. Health officials in the Northwest Territories had not yet provided updated information for the day.
In Atlantic Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador health officials said Friday that 20 people were in hospital, with eight people in ICUs. The province, which sent students back to in-person education earlier this week, also reported 265 lab-confirmed cases and no new deaths.
Nova Scotia had 88 COVID-19 patients being treated in hospitals, a decrease of five from the day before, officials said Friday. There were 15 patients in ICUs. The province also reported 620 new cases and one death Friday.
There’s a push to bring back pay hikes for retail workers in essential stores such as grocery stores. The so-called hero pay was instituted early in the pandemic before vaccines, but workers say they still face risks. 1:59
In Prince Edward Island, 17 people were hospitalized for COVID-19 Friday, the same number as Thursday. Two patients were in ICUs. The province also reported 215 new cases.
In New Brunswick, officials on Friday reported a total of 135 COVID-19 hospitalizations, including 16 people in ICUs, which was an increase of eight over the previous day. The province also reported four additional deaths and 396 lab-confirmed cases.
In British Columbia, health officials on Thursday reported a total of 977 COVID-19 hospitalizations — up 28 from a day earlier — with 141 people in the province’s ICUs. The province also reported 13 additional deaths and 2,033 lab-confirmed cases.
–From CBC News and The Canadian Press, last updated at 5:53 p.m. ET
What’s happening around the world
Pfizer has started testing an Omicron-based COVID-19 vaccine to see if it can prevent infection and not only severe illness. The testing comes as researchers investigate an emerging variant described as Omicron’s twin. 2:02
As of Friday afternoon, more than 368.6 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University’s case-tracking tool. The reported global death toll stood at more than 5.6 million.
In Europe, the BA.2 subtype of the Omicron coronavirus variant appears to have a substantial growth advantage over the currently predominant BA.1 type, Britain’s UK Health Security Agency said on Friday.
UKHSA said that there was an increased growth rate of BA.2 compared with BA.1 in all regions of England where there were enough cases to compare them, and that “the apparent growth advantage is currently substantial.”
“We now know that BA.2 has an increased growth rate which can be seen in all regions in England,” said Dr. Susan Hopkins, Chief Medical Advisor for the UKHSA.
The agency said there was no data on the severity of BA.2 compared to BA.1, but reiterated that a preliminary assessment did not find a difference in vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic disease between the two Omicron subtypes.
The rapid spread of BA.1 fuelled an Omicron wave which pushed cases to record highs in Britain in December, displacing the previously dominant Delta variant.
However, hospitalizations did not rise to the same extent, owing to population immunity through vaccination and previous infection, as well as Omicron’s lower severity.
The UKHSA said that a separate analysis showed that between Nov. 24 and Jan. 19, the majority of intensive care admissions from COVID-19 had Delta infections, even as Omicron was growing to dominate the number of cases.
Russia’s COVID-19 deaths passed the 700,000 mark on Friday, Reuters calculations based on new data from the Rosstat state statistics service showed.
In the Americas, Omicron is driving the daily American death toll higher than during last fall’s Delta wave, with deaths likely to keep rising for days or even weeks. The seven-day rolling average for daily new COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. has been climbing since mid-November, reaching 2,288 on Friday, according to data from U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, surpassing a September peak of 2,100 when Delta was the dominant variant. Now Omicron is estimated to account for nearly all of the virus circulating in the country.
In the Asia-Pacific region, Thai health authorities approved new guidelines Friday outlining the parameters for declaring the coronavirus pandemic an endemic disease. Official figures show that the country already meets the criteria, but a government spokesman said it would be between six months and a year before the government would be able to make the decision to start treating COVID-19 as an illness that is here to stay, such as the flu or measles.
South Korea plans next month to add hundreds of small neighborhood hospitals and clinics to treat the thousands more people expected to get COVID-19 during a developing Omicron surge.
In the Middle East, Israel has signed a deal to buy five million COVID-19 vaccine doses from Novavax, the country’s Health Ministry said on Friday. The vaccines are due to arrive in Israel in the coming months, pending regulatory approval, the ministry said. Financial details of the deal, which includes the option for an additional five million doses, were not disclosed.
In Africa, Nigeria’s vaccine rollout has slowly gained pace as public confidence increases and the government has assured citizens they will not receive expired doses.
Meanwhile, health officials in South Africa on Thursday reported 4,100 new cases of COVID-19 and 160 additional deaths.
-From The Associated Press, Reuters and CBC News, last update at 4:34 p.m. ET
