Students in Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick headed back to classrooms on Monday — a move that comes amid a broader easing of restrictions in the two Atlantic provinces.
P.E.I. Premier Dennis King said earlier this month that teachers, administrators, parents and children have been “champions” through the period of remote learning, which had “brought its own challenges.” But as he announced the plan to shift back to in-person learning, the premier said it was time to get students back to classrooms.
New Brunswick started to ease up its rules late last week. Businesses that had been closed, including salons, dining rooms and gyms, were allowed to reopen with capacity limits as of 11:59 p.m. last Friday. Rules around gatherings, sports and recreation also eased up as part of a broader shift to a lower alert level.
New Brunswick on Monday reported a total of 152 COVID-19 hospitalizations — down by 12 from Sunday — with 16 people in the province’s ICUs, according to the province’s posted update. The provincial COVID-19 dashboard also reported five additional deaths, along with 169 new lab-confirmed cases.
Prince Edward Island‘s shift in restrictions begins Monday, with businesses that had been closed allowed to open with capacity limits.
Effective January 31, 2022 – businesses and organizations such as retail, casinos, museums and libraries can have up to 50% capacity with physical distancing. The vax pass program remains in place <a href=”https://t.co/bdu9zqb7Za”>https://t.co/bdu9zqb7Za</a> <a href=”https://t.co/dPprms6Pot”>https://t.co/dPprms6Pot</a>
Gyms are among the businesses on the island allowed to reopen under new COVID-19 measures that take effect today. The province said fitness facilities can reopen at 50 per cent capacity with physical distancing.
Health officials in P.E.I. reported a decrease in the number of hospitalizations from COVID Monday to 15 from 19. There are two people being treated in the ICU. There have also been 234 newly confirmed cases.
In Nova Scotia, there were 93 people in hospital with COVID-19 Monday, including 15 in the ICU. There were also an additional 256 confirmed cases.
Quebec, Ontario begin loosening Omicron restrictions
1 day ago
Duration 1:57
Ontario and Quebec have started loosening restrictions brought in because of the Omicron variant as hospitalizations slowly recede. But with hospitals still under extraordinary pressure, doctors are wary of a bounce back. 1:57
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.
In Central Canada, Canada’s two most populous provinces are embarking on a gradual loosening of restrictions put in place to try and stem the spread of the highly transmissible Omicron variant.
Quebec is easing some COVID-19 restrictions on Monday, including allowing restaurants to open with limited capacity and a return of small private indoor gatherings.
The province on Monday reported 2,888 COVID-19 hospitalizations — down by seven from a day earlier — with 223 people in intensive care units. The COVID-19 situation report posted online by the province also showed 33 additional deaths and 2,423 additional lab-confirmed cases.
Ontario is also moving forward with a plan to ease some restrictions. As of Monday, restaurants, gyms and theatres in the province will welcome patrons back today for the first time in nearly a month. Larger venues will also reopen, with capacity limited to 50 per cent or 500 people — whichever is fewer.
It’s the first step in the province’s plan to gradually ease public health restrictions meant to curb the spread of COVID-19.
Ontario on Monday reported a total of 2,983 COVID-19 hospitalizations — down by 36 from a day earlier — with 583 people in intensive care units across the province. The provincial COVID-19 dashboard also showed a total of 32 additional deaths, though a spokesperson for Health Minister Christine Elliott noted that the deaths had occurred over the past 17 days. The province also reported an additional 3,043 additional lab-confirmed cases.
In the Prairie provinces, health officials in Saskatchewan on Monday reported a total of 363 COVID-19 hospitalizations — up by 14 from a day earlier — with 42 people in ICU. The province also reported two additional deaths and 748 additional lab-confirmed cases. Premier Scott Moe doubled down Monday on his assertion that the COVID-19 vaccine does not reduce transmission of the Omicron variant, something health officials say is false.
Manitoba and Saskatchewan have the highest seven-day case positivity rates in the country, at 32.7 per cent and 33.2 per cent respectively.
Alberta health officials reported Monday that an additional 20 people have been admitted to hospital with COVID-19, bring the total to 1,516, with 99 of them in the ICU. Another 6,537 cases of the virus were also confirmed in the province over the past three days, along with 35 new deaths.
In British Columbia Monday, there were 1,048 patients with COVID-19 in hospital — the first time the number exceeded 1,000 — 138 of them in the ICU. There were also 4,075 newly confirmed cases over the past three days and 19 additional deaths.
Across the North, there were 152 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Nunavut Monday, with no patients being treated in hospital with the virus.
Health officials in Yukon reported one person in hospital with COVID-19 along with 45 new cases.
There were no patients with COVID-19 in hospital Monday in the Northwest Territories, which reported 251 new cases.
-From CBC News and The Canadian Press, last updated at 8:25 p.m. ET
What’s happening around the world
As of Monday evening, more than 377.7 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, according to a case-tracking database maintained by U.S.-based Johns Hopkins University. The reported global death toll stood at more than 5.6 million.
The highly transmissible Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus — the most common form of which is known as BA.1 — now accounts for nearly all of the coronavirus infections globally, although dramatic surges in COVID-19 cases have already peaked in some countries.
Scientists are now tracking a rise in cases caused by a close cousin known as BA.2, which is starting to overtake BA.1 in parts of Europe and Asia. Some early reports indicate that BA.2 may be even more infectious than the already extremely contagious BA.1, but there is no evidence so far that it is more likely to evade vaccine protection.
An ethnic Chinese worshiper wearing a face mask to help curb the spread of the coronavirus prays to celebrate the Lunar New Year at a temple in Jakarta Monday. (Achmad Ibrahim/The Associated Press)
In the Asia-Pacific region, people across Asia prepared Monday for muted Lunar New Year celebrations amid concerns over the coronavirus, even as increasing vaccination rates raised hopes that the Year of the Tiger might bring life back closer to normal.
China has detected 119 COVID-19 cases among athletes and personnel involved in the Beijing Winter Olympics over the past four days, with authorities imposing a “closed loop” bubble to keep participants, staff and media separated from the public.
Tokyo has launched a mass inoculation drive for COVID-19 booster shots at a temporary centre operated by the military as Japan tries to speed up delayed third jabs to counter surging infections.
Japan began administering booster shots to medical workers in December, but has only provided such inoculations to 2.7 per cent of the population after delaying a decision to cut the interval between the first two coronavirus shots and a booster to six months from the initial eight. On a smaller scale, people 65 and older can get booster shots elsewhere.
Staff dressed in COVID-19 safety gear direct people as they make their way through the first steps of customs, COVID-19 testing and accreditations upon arriving at the airport for the Beijing Winter Olympics on Monday. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
Australia reported its lowest daily COVID deaths in two weeks on Monday while cases continued to trend lower as authorities braced for staff shortages in schools due to likely outbreaks as thousands of students return after their summer break.
Masks are mandatory indoors for older children and millions of at-home antigen tests, still not readily available in many stores, are being rolled out to families free of cost, with children asked to undergo COVID tests twice a week.
In the Middle East, health officials in Iran on Monday said 30 additional people had died from COVID-19 in the last 24 hours. The country also reported 28,995 additional cases.
In Qatar, the Ministry of Health said Sunday it had approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children aged 5-11.
A medical staff member prepares to treat a patient with COVID-19 at an ICU of an hospital in Krasnodar, in southern Russia, late last week. (Vitaliy Timkin/The Associated Press)
In Europe, Romania will from Tuesday drop a demand for travellers to quarantine if they are vaccinated, have proof of recovery from COVID-19 or can provide a negative test result, regardless of where they are coming from.
Russia reported a record daily number of COVID-19 cases on Monday as the Omicron variant spread across the country, authorities said. New daily cases jumped to 124,070, up from 121,228 a day earlier. The government coronavirus task force also reported 621 deaths in the last 24 hours.
The German government has failed to hit its goal of vaccinating 80 per cent of the population against COVID-19 before the end of January, roughly a month before lawmakers are expected to vote on a draft law on mandatory vaccinations.
In the Americas, the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advised against travel to a dozen destinations, including Mexico, Brazil, Singapore, Ecuador, Kosovo, Philippines and Paraguay.
Mexico on Sunday reported 131 more fatalities from COVID-19, raising the overall death toll since the pandemic began to 305,893.
In Africa, South Africa is no longer requiring those who test positive without symptoms to isolate and has reduced the isolation period for those with symptoms by three days, as the country exits its fourth COVID-19 wave.
-From The Associated Press, Reuters and CBC News, last updated at 5:30 p.m. ET
VANCOUVER – A disciplinary investigation has found a former Vancouver police sergeant shared “disrespectful” commentary on a fellow officer’s court testimony about being sexually assaulted by a colleague.
The decision against Narinder Dosanjh, obtained by The Canadian Press, includes the running commentary on the woman’s testimony — apparently written by someone inside the courtroom — that calls her a “bad drunk” and says there was “no way” her case would be proved.
Former New Westminster police chief Dave Jansen, the external officer who rendered the decision against Dosanjh, says his assessment accounts for a culture of treating officers who testify against each other as “rats.”
Former Vancouver constable Jagraj Roger Berar was convicted in 2021 and sentenced to a year in jail for assaulting the woman, who can’t be identified because of a publication ban on her name.
Jansen says in his ruling, dated Oct. 11, that the comments in a Vancouver police group chat appear “supportive” of Berar and reflect “all-too-common myths” about women who make sexual assault allegations.
While Jansen found Dosanjh committed discreditable conduct by sharing the chats, a complaint against a more-senior Vancouver officer who was inside the courtroom, and who the victim and other officers believed wrote the commentary, were not substantiated.
The ruling says Jansen, who retired as New Westminster’s chief constable, would accept submissions before deciding how Dosanjh should be punished.
The woman who was assaulted was the complainant in the disciplinary investigation, and said in an interview she felt “vindicated” by Jansen’s decision because it “truly paints what I’ve been through,” after reporting a fellow officer for sexual assault.
She said many other women in municipal policing fear speaking out about ill-treatment at work, and some have told her about being assaulted and harassed but feared ruining their careers if they complained.
“This decision is important for those women to see,” she said. “It shows the tides are changing. Like, this is the first win I’ve had.”
A spokesman for the Surrey Police Service, where Dosanjh now works, did not immediately answer a question about how he was penalized, and said Dosanjh declined an interview request with The Canadian Press.
In his decision, Jansen said there was an “unfortunate but often pervasive” culture of treating officers who complain as “‘rats’, who betrayed their colleagues.”
“In terms of the messages themselves, Sergeant Dosanjh alleges that they are not degrading, humiliating or derogatory and do not attack the personal character of the complainant. I disagree,” Jansen wrote.
The decision includes a screenshot of the commentary about the complainant, who said the order of the messages appeared to refer to her evidence while she was being cross-examined and suggested the comments were written by someone listening to her testimony.
The commentary on a Vancouver police chat group on the Signal messaging app said the victim “wore a wire twice,” and “admitted in cross to possibly drinking way more alcohol than she originally claimed.”
“Her memory is super hazy and there’s no way you can prove beyond reasonable doubt,” the person wrote.
“And she admitted that she is really bad drunk,” they added.
Another message said it was a “nail in the coffin” of the case that video showed the complainant “cuddling, holding hands” with Berar.
The victim, who became aware of the commentary when a friend in the department showed them to her, was distressed by the messages and disputed their accuracy, said Jansen.
“The comments also appear to reflect some of the all-too-common myths around women making allegations of sexual assault. Some of these myths include the belief that because a victim socialized with the perpetrator, or engaged in some consensual activity with him, therefore she must have consented to the assault,” he wrote.
Jansen’s decision said Dosanjh shared the messages with a fellow officer after getting them from a “VPD chat group that he claims he knew little about, from a co-worker he claims not to be able to identify.”
The decision said other officers believed the commentary was written bya more-senior officer in the department who had been present at the trial, but Jansen said the discreditable conduct complaint against that person was unsubstantiated.
The decision said Dosanjh claimed he was the “fall guy” and “a pawn in a broader game.”
Jansen’s decision said Dosanjh was a senior officer and supervisor who was aware of the “vulnerability of victims of sexual crimes and of the myths that surround sexual assault victims.”
It said Dosanjh’s “distribution of these messages that were disrespectful of an alleged victim of sexual violence who was also a co-worker, should they become public, would likely discredit the reputation of the police force.”
The Vancouver Police Department did not immediately provide comment on Jansen’s decision.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 13, 2024.
FREDERICTON – The offspring of beetles imported from British Columbia are ready to take up the fight against an invasive insect that is killing hemlock trees in Nova Scotia.
Last fall and spring, about 5,000 Laricobius nigrinus beetles — affectionately called Lari by scientists — made an overnight journey from the West Coast.
Lucas Roscoe, research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service, says in the fight against the woolly adelgid that is destroying swaths of hemlock trees in Nova Scotia, the first step was to make sure the Lari beetle can survive a Nova Scotia winter.
The one-to-two-millimetre black flying beetles were released across six sites in Nova Scotia that had the woolly adelgids.
In one of the sites, scientists placed cages of imported beetles and about 60 per cent of them were able to survive the winter in Nova Scotia, which Roscoe says is an encouraging rate.
He says the woolly adelgid was first seen in southwestern Nova Scotia in 2017 and the peppercorn-sized insect, aided by climate change, has since spread north.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 13, 2024.
Dozens of researchers across Canada, including renowned environmentalist David Suzuki, have joined a growing chorus of voices urging the federal government to halt the importation of an endangered monkey species for medical research in Quebec.
A letter signed by 80 scientists, academics, doctors and students says testing on long-tailed macaques from Cambodia should be banned due to ethical concerns and potential public-health risks.
“A decade ago, chimpanzees, our closest primate relatives, ceased to be used for experimentation because using such animal ‘models’ could no longer be justified from scientific, ethical, and/or financial perspectives,” says the letter addressed to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, his environment minister and the premier of Quebec.
The researchers say they are also concerned about “the serious risks of transmission of zoonotic pathogens” that could be associated with transporting macaques.
Their letter urges the federal government to end charter flights that have been bringing the macaques into Canada, and to adopt regulations banning the importation of all primates for biomedical testing.
It’s the latest group to add more pressure on Ottawa to suspend the monkey imports by Charles River Laboratories, a U.S.-based pharmaceutical giant that has a sprawling facility in Montreal.
The company announced in 2023 that it was halting macaque imports into the U.S., after it was subpoenaed in a case that involved the indictment of two senior Cambodian officials over what authorities described as “multiple felonies for their role in bringing wild long-tailed macaques into the United States.”
No charges have been brought against Charles River Laboratories, or any of its officials, and the company has said it will fully co-operate with the U.S. investigation.
At around the same time, imports of monkeys from Cambodia into Canada dramatically surged, with Statistics Canada data showing a 500 per cent increase in 2023 from the year before.
Environment and Climate Change Canada, the federal department responsible for monitoring commercial trade in wildlife, confirmed to the Canadian Press that Charles River Laboratories has imported 6,769 long-tailed macaques into the country between January 2023 and August of this year. The monetary value of these imported macaques is around $120 million dollars, according to Statistics Canada.
The department previously said that officials rigorously and closely inspect imports of foreign animals, including those brought in by Charles River Laboratories, and that all macaque imports so far this year have complied with federal and international wildlife regulations.
The government and the company have both said that no Canadian laws have been broken.
Last month, the Canadian Transportation Authority issued a permit for another shipment on a cargo plane chartered by Charles River Laboratories. A flight tracker shows that a plane with the same flight number as what is shown on the permit departed Phnom Penh, Cambodia last Thursday, and arrived in Montreal on Friday.
Jesse Greener, a professor of chemistry at Laval University who signed the researchers’ letter to the government, said medical technology has developed to a point that makes it unjustifiable for the pharmaceutical industry to continue using live primates for testing.
“The government should take a leadership role and help researchers and surely the private sector to pivot from using these unethical, and I would say old and outdated and unreliable animal models, and embrace these much more efficient and ethical approaches that are … exploding right now,” said Greener, who has done research on methods to replace animals in such experiments.
“It is grotesque,” he said of the animal use. “It is time that we change the page on this chapter of terrible research and commercial activities.”
Canada banned the use of animals for cosmetic testing last year, but it is still legal to use live primates for drug testing purposes.
The federal government said a draft strategy aimed at reducing and replacing the use of animals in drug testing was published in September and open to public consultations for 60 days.
The strategy, which will be revised based on input from researchers, experts and others, is expected to be published in June 2025, it said.
“The government of Canada is committed to advancing efforts to replace, reduce, or refine the use of vertebrate animals in toxicity testing where possible,” Environment and Climate Change Canada said in a statement Tuesday.
Charles River Laboratories previously told The Canadian Press that while it is also committed to reducing its use of live primates, global regulatory bodies require drugs to be tested on animals before they are evaluated in humans.
The company said the use of non-human primates has been vital in developing treatments for various diseases and that the standards it applies in its facilities are exceeding global norms.
Matthew Green, a New Democrat MP who had previously called on the federal government to halt the latest shipment of macaques, said he has “great concern” about importing this exotic animal.
“Generally in Canada, Canadians like to believe that our government has higher regulations and more stringent enforcement protocols when it comes to protecting endangered species, yet this is not the case in comparison to what the United States has done,” he said.
Green and two of his NDP colleagues wrote a letter to three federal ministers last month, demanding an “immediate attention” to the issue.
The Animal Alliance of Canada also sent a letter to the environment minister in August, urging the immediate suspension of monkey importation from Cambodia.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 13, 2024.
