U.K. speeds up vaccinations, hoping all adults get first jab by July 31.
Tam stresses need for Canadians to maintain precautions as variant cases mount.
Canada’s new air travel rules go into effect Monday for testing, hotel quarantine.
Almost half a million dead from COVID-19 in the United States.
Israel starts reopening economy after nearly half its population receives vaccine.
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The British government declared Sunday that every adult in the country should get a first coronavirus vaccine shot by July 31, at least a month earlier than its previous target, as it prepared to set out a “cautious” plan to ease the U.K.’s lockdown.
The new target also aims for everyone 50 and over and those with an underlying health condition to get their first of two vaccine shots by April 15, rather than the previous date of May 1.
The makers of the two vaccines that Britain is using, Pfizer and AstraZeneca, have both experienced supply problems in Europe. But U.K. Health Secretary Matt Hancock said Sunday that “we now think that we have the supplies” to speed up the vaccination campaign.
The early success of Britain’s vaccination effort is welcome good news for a country that has had more than 120,000 coronavirus deaths, the highest toll in Europe. More than 17.2 million people, a third of the country’s adults, have had at lease one vaccine shot since inoculations began on Dec. 8.
Britain is delaying giving second vaccine doses until 12 weeks after the first, rather than three to four weeks, in order to give more people partial protection quickly. The approach has been criticized in some countries — and by Pfizer, which says it does not have any data to support the interval — but it is backed by the U.K. government’s scientific advisers.
News of the new vaccine targets came as Prime Minister Boris Johnson met Sunday with senior ministers to finalize a “road map” out of the national lockdown that he plans to announce on Monday.
Canada’s chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, meanwhile, is urging Canadians to maintain COVID-19 precautions as the number of variant cases increases.
Public health officials have identified at least 704 cases of COVID-19 variants across Canada, Tam said on Saturday as she urged people to have “the fewest interactions with the fewest people, for the shortest time, at the greatest distance possible, while wearing the best-fitting face mask.”
Tam said overall daily case counts continued to trend downward, but cases of variants of concern could fuel a bigger resurgence of the pandemic.
Her warning came as a suspected case of a coronavirus variant forced Quebec City officials to close an elementary school on Saturday.
The Marguerite d’Youville school in Quebec City is seen here on Saturday. The school population of 283 students and more than 50 staff members will be tested. (Jean-Michel Cloutier/Radio-Canada)
Regional public health director Dr. André Dontigny said the school would remain closed until public health authorities had more information, including confirmation that the case in question is in fact linked to a variant of concern. All staff and students were asked to get tested for COVID-19 over the weekend.
Quebec authorities said there had been 22 confirmed cases of variants of concern provincewide and an additional 286 cases under investigation.
The vast majority of variants detected in Canada thus far are the strain that first emerged in the U.K., while there have been 39 cases of the variant first discovered in South Africa and one of the variant first traced to travellers from Brazil.
Starting Monday, air travellers arriving in Canada, unless they are exempt, will have to submit to a COVID-19 test upon arrival and quarantine in a government-approved hotel for up to three days while they await their results.
The federal government has provided a list of authorized hotels for passengers arriving in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal. The government says the list is incomplete and will be finalized in the coming days.
WATCH | Navigating Canada’s new restrictions on airline passengers:
From hotel quarantines to mandatory PCR testing, we hear from two panellists about how they are experiencing Ottawa’s latest and strictest travel measures. Rohan Jumani flew to India for his father’s funeral and now faces these new measures, and Richard Vanderlubbe is the president of the tripcentral.ca travel agency. 8:25
Travellers heading back to Canada might have to be patient while trying to book their quarantine hotels. It appears the reservation phone line is overloaded and some people are waiting up to three hours, while others have had to call back multiple times after being cut off after a long wait. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said that people should only call when they are within 48 hours of returning to Canada.
What’s happening in Canada
As of 8:30 a.m. ET on Sunday, Canada had reported 844,393 cases of COVID-19, with 31,764 cases considered active. A CBC News tally of deaths stood at 21,643.
Ontario reported 1,087 new cases of COVID-19 and 13 more deaths from the respiratory illness on Sunday. The numbers are down from 1,228 new cases and 28 more deaths reported Saturday.
In British Columbia, officials at an Abbotsford school had windows in the building either screwed shut or blocked from opening wider than a few inches after teachers began using them to compensate for poor ventilation, says the Abbotsford Teachers’ Union. The school district says the windows were shut to address safety concerns.
WATCH | Ontario reopens amid concern over new variants:
As Ontario plans to reopen some regions, CBC News medical contributor Dr. Peter Lin says people must continue to avoid others outside their household. 8:25
Newfoundland and Labrador reported 38 new cases, all within the Eastern Health region. Health officials in that region are recommending COVID-19 testing for anyone in the Mount Pearl Senior High School community, after an outbreak was declared there on Feb 7.
Nunavut confirmed six new cases in Arviat. It’s the eighth day in a row that new cases have been reported in the hard-hit community. With one recovery, Arviat now has 30 active cases.
The Northwest Territoriesannounced dozens of new clinic dates in communities across the territory where residents can receive their second dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine — or their first dose, if they missed the clinic’s first visit.
What’s happening around the world
As of Sunday morning, more than 111.1 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, with more than 62.7 million of those cases listed as recovered on a tracking site run by Johns Hopkins University. The global death toll stood at more than 2.4 million.
U.S. infectious diseases official Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Sunday that it’s possible Americans will still be wearing masks in 2022 but that measures to stop the spread of COVID-19 would be increasingly relaxed as more vaccines are administered.
Fauci made the comment during an interview on CNN as the United States came closer to recording 500,000 deaths attributed to COVID-19. The U.S. has the largest COVID-19 death count of any country in the world.
As of 10:30 a.m. ET, the U.S. had registered 497,670 deaths from the illness, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
In South Korea, health workers will begin administering the first of 117,000 doses of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine on Feb. 27, a day after the country begins its first vaccinations with AstraZeneca’s products, the prime minister announced on Sunday.
Police officers wearing face masks as a precaution against the coronavirus stand in downtown Seoul, South Korea, on Sunday. (Lee Jin-man/The Associated Press)
Plans call for about 10 million high-risk people, including health-care workers, staff, some residents of assisted care facilities and nursing homes, to be inoculated by July.
The authorities have said they will not use the AstraZeneca vaccine on people aged 65 and older until more efficacy data becomes available, reversing an earlier decision.
Aside from AstraZeneca and Pfizer, South Korea has also reached agreements with Moderna, Novavax Inc., Johnson & Johnson, and global vaccine-sharing scheme COVAX, for the supply of their vaccines.
A health worker administers the COVID-19 vaccine to an Israeli at a mobile clinic parked near a bar in the coastal city of Tel Aviv on Feb. 18. (Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP via Getty Images)
In Israel, retail stores, malls, gyms, museums, places of worship and other public services for limited crowd sizes will be resuming operations starting Sunday — but entrance to these places is only for those who have been vaccinated or have recovered from a COVID-19 infection.
Israel says it’s easing lockdown restrictions because of the success of its COVID-19 vaccination campaign. The country has the highest vaccination rate in the world. More than 49 per cent of Israelis have received at least one dose.
The country’s main international airport remains closed to nearly all air traffic because of concerns of foreign variants of the virus entering the country.
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
