Quebec Premier François Legault is expected to offer details on how the province will respond to increasing COVID-19 cases and increasing strain on the health-care system later Wednesday.
The province, which has seen more cases and deaths than any other during the pandemic, reported 2,508 new cases of COVID-19 and 62 additional deaths on Tuesday. Hospitalizations increased to 1,317, with 194 COVID-19 patients in the province’s intensive care units.
Sources told Radio-Canada that Legault has been asked to consider a range of measures, including extended school closures, limits on non-essential construction and manufacturing, and a curfew.
Dr. Matthew Oughton, an infectious disease physician at Jewish General Hospital in Montreal and an assistant professor at McGill’s department of medicine, told CBC News Network that given the rates of community transmission and hospitalizations in Quebec, something needs to be done to reduce the number of “face-to-face contacts the average citizen is having.”
Ontario, which reported 3,266 new cases of COVID-19 and 37 additional deaths on Wednesday, is also dealing with increased stress on the health-care system. Health Minister Christine Elliott said in a tweet on Wednesday there were 805 new cases in Toronto, 523 new cases in Peel Region, 349 in York Region, 208 in Windsor-Essex and 206 in Waterloo.
Hospitalizations in Ontario increased to 1,463, with 361 COVID-19 patients in the province’s ICUs, the province said in data released Wednesday.
Premier Doug Ford, who is set to hold a news conference at 1 p.m. ET, is expected to face questions about the province’s vaccine rollout and his former finance minister’s recent trip to the Caribbean.
In southern Ontario, the Windsor Regional Hospital said in a statement Tuesday that a “high volume of patients” with COVID-19 who needed to be admitted to hospital has forced the facility to begin moving some patients to other area hospitals “in order to create bed capacity at our two Windsor campuses.”
Meanwhile in the Hamilton, Ont., area, a hospital network CEO is the latest leader to face criticism over holiday travel. Dr. Tom Stewart, CEO of St. Joseph’s Health System and Niagara Health, travelled to the Dominican Republic in December. Stewart, who apologized in a statement and expressed regret over the trip, has resigned from groups that advise the province about COVID-19.
WATCH | COVID-19 surge stretches Ontario’s hospitals to their limits:
A surge of COVID-19 patients has pushed Ontario past the threshold where hospitals warned surgeries would be delayed or cancelled. ICUs are stretched to the limit and some hospitals have had to find room for patients, and bodies, elsewhere. 2:06
As of 10:40 a.m. ET on Wednesday, Canada’s COVID-19 case count stood at 621,912, with 79,073 of those cases considered active. A CBC News tally of deaths stood at 16,270.
In Atlantic Canada, New Brunswick is stepping up restrictions as it deals with rising COVID-19 case numbers. Health officials reported 27 new cases on Tuesday, a record high in the province.
“Given our current path, we could see hundreds of new active cases daily in our province,” Premier Blaine Higgs said Tuesday. “To say this would be devastating is an understatement.”
Nova Scotia reported three new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, while health officials in both Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island reported one new case.
In the Prairie provinces, Manitoba reported 130 new cases of COVID-19 and seven additional deaths. Saskatchewan reported 153 new cases of COVID-19 and five additional deaths, while Alberta reported 843 new cases of COVID-19 and 26 additional deaths.
In British Columbia, health officials reported 428 new cases of COVID-19 and eight additional deaths.
The province extended its state of emergency again on Tuesday in response to the COVID-19 pandemic nearly 10 months after it was first declared. Premier John Horgan said in a statement there’s hope with the provincial immunization program getting underway, but it’s too early to ease restrictions in the pandemic that has claimed 954 lives in B.C.
-From CBC News and The Canadian Press, last updated at 10:50 a.m. ET
What’s happening in the U.S.
WATCH | COVID-19 cases overwhelm California hospitals:
COVID-19 is hitting California so hard that hospitals and funeral homes are overwhelmed. Health officials in Los Angeles County say someone is dying there every 15 minutes and paramedics are being told not to bring people to hospitals if it doesn’t seem likely they’ll survive. 1:50
Hospitals in California are so swamped by the coronavirus pandemic that the state has ordered those with room to accept patients from others that are out of intensive care beds.
The public health order issued Tuesday night could result in patients being shipped to Northern California from Southern California and the agricultural San Joaquin Valley, where 14 counties were immediately ordered to delay non-essential “and non-life-threatening” surgeries in order to provide beds. The order, which will last at least three weeks, will also apply to any county where ICU capacity to treat COVID-19 patients is bottoming out.
“If we continue to see an alarming increase of COVID-19 patient admissions at hospitals statewide, some facilities may not be able to provide the critical and necessary care Californians need, whether those patients have COVID-19 or another medical condition,” said Dr. Tomas J. Aragon, the state’s public health officer.
The order could be a bellwether for California, where officials have warned some hospitals may have to start rationing care if an expected post-holiday surge in COVID-19 cases overwhelms the health-care system.
For much of the year, the nation’s most populous state did the right things to avoid a catastrophe. But now the virus is raging and California remains at or near the top of the list of states with the most newly confirmed cases per capita. Even with vaccines now being administered, albeit slowly, it is expected to take many more weeks to quell the contagion.
Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in Los Angeles, where patients are being housed in its former gift shop, a chapel, tents and hallways, had more COVID-19 patients on Tuesday than its total capacity. The hospital, which serves a largely Black and Latino population in the south part of the city, has a capacity of 131 patients but was treating 215 patients, 135 of them with COVID-19, said Jeff Stout, the interim chief nursing and operating officer.
The hospital was emblematic of the worsening situation in Los Angeles County, the nation’s most populous with about 10 million residents. A COVID-19 surge has created a shortage of oxygen and led to a directive to ambulance crews in the county to stop transporting patients they can’t revive in the field.
Clinicians care for a COVID-19 patient in an isolation area at Providence St. Mary Medical Center amid a surge in coronavirus patients in Southern California on Tuesday in Apple Valley, Calif. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Dr. Marc Eckstein, medical director and emergency medical services commander of the Los Angeles Fire Department, said transporting someone without a pulse gives families false hope, takes the ambulance out of service, exposes workers to COVID-19 and requires decontaminating the vehicle.
“To be clear, we’re not asking first responders to decide who lives and who dies,” Eckstein said. “These are people who are clinically dead.”
Los Angeles continues to see hospitalizations rise day after day, setting a new record Tuesday with almost 8,000 hospitalized and more than a fifth of those in ICU. The county, which accounts for a quarter of California’s 40 million residents, has more than 40 per cent of the state’s 27,000 coronavirus deaths.
Some hospitals have had to close their doors at times because they’ve become so overwhelmed, leaving ambulances waiting up to eight hours and diverting others to different emergency rooms.
Stout said Martin Luther King hospital was finalizing its crisis standards of care, which are guidelines for rationing treatment when staff, medicine and equipment are in short supply.
“We’re not there yet,” Stout said. “Every day, every hour we’re trying to avoid going into crisis care. The ultimate goal with crisis care is never to get there.”
The state on Tuesday formally requested that 500 federal medical personnel be deployed in California to help staff hospitals and skilled nursing homes after learning that the USNS Mercy Hospital ship, which docked off Los Angeles earlier in the year for overflow patients, was in dry dock and would not be returning.
-From The Associated Press, last updated at 7 a.m. ET
What’s happening around the world
A row of ambulances is seen outside the Royal London Hospital on Tuesday in London, England. (Leon Neal/Getty Images)
As of early Wednesday morning, there were more than 86.5 million cases of COVID-19 worldwide, with more than 48.5 million of those cases considered recovered or resolved, according to a tracking tool maintained by Johns Hopkins University. The global death toll stood at more than 1.8 million.
In Africa, Nigeria hopes to get 42 million COVID-19 vaccines to cover one-fifth of its population through the global COVAX scheme.
In Europe, the European Union’s medicines agency has given approval to Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine.
The decision Wednesday gives the 27-nation bloc a second vaccine to use against the coronavirus rampaging across the continent. The approval recommendation by the European Medicines Agency’s human medicines committee, which must be OK’d by the EU’s executive commission, comes amid high rates of infection in many EU countries.
There’s also been strong criticism of the slow pace of vaccinations across the region of some 450 million people
Portugal’s President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said on Wednesday he would self-isolate after being in contact with someone who tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
The 72-year-old is campaigning to win a second term as the country’s president in an election on Jan. 24. He has several presidential debates scheduled before then.
Germany can hold out through a shutdown for a long time, German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said, noting that he expected lower levels of government debt than after the financial crisis of 2008.
Coronavirus infections in the Czech Republic are continuing to surge, hitting a new all-time high. The Health Ministry says the day-to-day increase reached 17,278 cases on Tuesday. The previous record of 17,045 was set on Dec 30. New infections started to surge again this week after slowing down during the New Year holidays.
In the Asia-Pacific region, authorities in Thailand say they plan to expand coronavirus testing to thousands of factories in a province near Bangkok as they reported 365 new cases around the country and one new death.
An employee of the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority sprays water as part of cleaning and disinfection activities at the Yodpiman Flower Market in Bangkok on Wednesday, after the government imposed further restrictions due to the recent COVID-19 outbreak. (Mladen Antonov/AFP/Getty Images)
South Korea rolled out mass testing for 52 prisons in the country after a massive prison outbreak and may extend flight suspensions from Britain, the health minister said.
Chinese authorities imposed travel restrictions and banned gatherings in the capital city of Hebei province, which surrounds Beijing, to stave off another coronavirus wave.
The Philippines is negotiating with seven vaccine manufacturers to procure at least 148 million COVID-19 shots as it seeks to inoculate close to two-thirds of its population this year, a senior official said on Wednesday.
Carlito Galvez, a former general in charge of the country’s strategy to fight the coronavirus, said the government hopes to close deals with Novavax, Moderna, AstraZeneca , Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Sinovac Biotech and the Gamaleya Institute this month, although availability could be a challenge amid stiff competition.
In the Americas, Brazil’s syringe manufacturers said they will supply 30 million syringes and needles for the country’s vaccination program after the government said it would requisition surplus supplies.
A bird sits on a cross in an area reserved for the burial of COVID-19 victims at the Nossa Senhora Aparecida cemetery, in Manaus, Brazil, on Tuesday. (Michael Dantas/AFP/Getty Images)
Brazil has seen more than 7.8 million cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began, according to Johns Hopkins, with more than 197,000 deaths.
In the Middle East, Iran and Oman have now registered their first two cases of a highly contagious coronavirus variant that emerged in Britain.
-From The Associated Press and Reuters, last updated at 8:45 a.m. ET
ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Rookie Wyatt Langford homered, doubled twice and became the first Texas player this season to reach base five times, struggling Jonah Heim delivered a two-run single to break a sixth-inning tie and the Rangers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 13-8 on Tuesday night.
Leody Taveras also had a homer among his three hits for the Rangers.
Langford, who also walked twice, has 12 homers and 25 doubles this season. He is hitting .345 in September.
“I think it’s really important to finish on a strong note,” Langford said. “I’m just going to keep trying to do that.”
Heim was 1-for-34 in September before he lined a single to right field off Tommy Nance (0-2) to score Adolis García and Nathaniel Lowe, giving Texas a 9-7 lead. Heim went to the plate hitting .212 with 53 RBIs after being voted an All-Star starter last season with a career-best 95 RBIs. He added a double in the eighth ahead of Taveras’ homer during a three-run inning.
Texas had 13 hits and left 13 men on. It was the Rangers’ highest-scoring game since a 15-8 win at Oakland on May 7.
Matt Festa (5-1) pitched 1 1/3 scoreless innings to earn the win, giving him a 5-0 record in 13 appearances with the Rangers after being granted free agency by the New York Mets on July 7.
Nathan Eovaldi, a star of Texas’ 2023 run to the franchise’s first World Series championship, had his worst start of the year in what could have been his final home start with the Rangers. Eovaldi, who will be a free agent next season, allowed 11 hits (the most of his two seasons with Texas) and seven runs (tied for the most).
“I felt like early in the game they just had a few hits that found the holes, a few first-pitch base hits,” said Eovaldi, who is vested for a $20 million player option with Texas for 2025. “I think at the end of the day I just need to do a better job of executing my pitches.”
Eovaldi took a 7-3 lead into the fifth inning after the Rangers scored five unearned runs in the fourth. The Jays then scored four runs to knock out Eovaldi after 4 2/3 innings.
Six of the seven runs scored against Toronto starter Chris Bassitt in 3 2/3 innings were unearned. Bassitt had a throwing error during Texas’ two-run third inning.
“We didn’t help ourselves defensively, taking care of the ball to secure some outs,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said.
The Blue Jays’ Vladimir Guerrero Jr. had a double and two singles, his most hits in a game since having four on Sept. 3. Guerrero is hitting .384 since the All-Star break.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Blue Jays: SS Bo Bichette (calf) was activated and played for the first time since July 19, going 2 for 5 with an RBI. … OF Daulton Varsho (shoulder) was placed on the 10-day injured list and will have rotator cuff surgery … INF Will Wagner (knee inflammation) was placed on the 60-day list.
UP NEXT
Rangers: LHP Chad Bradford (5-3, 3.97 ERA) will pitch Wednesday night’s game on extended five days’ rest after allowing career highs in hits (nine), runs (eight) and home runs (three) in 3 2/3 innings losing at Arizona on Sept. 14.
Blue Jays: RHP Bowden Francis (8-4, 3.50) has had two no-hitters get away in the ninth inning this season, including in his previous start against the New York Mets on Sept. 11. Francis is the first major-leaguer to have that happen since Rangers Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan in 1989.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Billie Jean King will become the first individual female athlete to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.
Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey announced Tuesday that their bipartisan legislation had passed the House of Representatives and would be sent to President Joe Biden for his signature.
The bill to honor King, the tennis Hall of Famer and activist, had already passed unanimously in the Senate.
Sherrill, a Democrat, said in a statement that King’s “lifetime of advocacy and hard work changed the landscape for women and girls on the court, in the classroom, and the workplace.”
The bill was introduced last September on the 50th anniversary of King’s victory over Bobby Riggs in the “Battle of the Sexes,” still the most-watched tennis match of all-time. The medal, awarded by Congress for distinguished achievements and contributions to society, has previously been given to athletes including baseball players Jackie Robinson and Roberto Clemente, and golfers Jack Nicklaus, Byron Nelson and Arnold Palmer.
King had already been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. Fitzpatrick, a Republican, says she has “broken barriers, led uncharted paths, and inspired countless people to stand proudly with courage and conviction in the fight for what is right.”
SURREY, B.C. – Premier David Eby says new account control measures for young Instagram users introduced Tuesday by social media giant Meta are the “minimum” expected of tech companies to keep kids safe online.
The parent company of Instagram says users in Canada and elsewhere under 18 will have their accounts set to private by default starting Tuesday, restricting who can send messages, among other parental controls and settings.
Speaking at an unrelated event Tuesday, Eby says the province began talks with social media companies after threatening legislation that would put big tech companies on the hook for “significant potential damages” if they were found negligent in failing to keep kids safe from online predators.
Eby says the case of Carson Cleland, a 12-year-old from Prince George, B.C., who took his own life last year after being targeted by a predator on Snapchat, was “horrific and totally preventable.”
He says social media apps are “nothing special,” and should be held to the same child safety standards as anyone who operates a place that invites young people, whether it’s an amusement park, a playground or an online platform.
In a progress report released Tuesday about the province’s engagement with big tech companies including Google, Meta, TikTok, Spapchat and X, formerly known as Twitter, the provincial government says the companies are implementing changes, including a “trusted flagger” option to quickly remove intimate images.
— With files from The Associated Press
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024
