Germany has recorded nearly 20,000 new coronavirus cases in one day, its highest level yet.
The national disease control centre, the Robert Koch Institute, on Thursday said 19,990 infections had been confirmed in the past 24 hours. That tops the previous record of 19,059 set on Saturday. It brought the total case tally in Germany, a nation of 83 million people, since the pandemic began to 597,583. Another 118 deaths raised the total to 10,930.
Like other countries in Europe, Germany has seen a sharp rise in infections in recent weeks. A four-week partial shutdown took effect on Monday, with bars, restaurants, leisure and sports facilities being closed and new contact restrictions imposed. Shops and schools remain open.
Although Germany’s situation is alarming officials, many other European countries are in worse shape. The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control said Wednesday that Germany has 237 new cases per 100,000 residents over 14 days — some seven times lower than in Belgium.
Four regions in Italy are being put under severe lockdown, forbidding people to leave their homes except for essential reasons, in an effort to slow surging COVID-19 infections and prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed.
Premier Giuseppe Conte on Wednesday night announced what he described as “very stringent” restrictions on the so-called “red zone” regions of high risk: Lombardy, Piedmont, Valle d’Aosta in the north and Calabria, the region forming the “toe” in the south of the Italian peninsula.
Except for few circumstances, no one will be allowed to enter or leave “red zone” regions or even travel between their towns, although people can exercise by themselves and while wearing masks near home. Non-essential stores will be closed, although barber shops and hair salons can stay open, and only nursery, elementary and the first year of middle school will have in-class instruction.
Conte said the lockdown will begin Friday to allow time to organize. Designations will be reviewed every two weeks.
A member of the medical staff transports a stretcher past a medical tent used for COVID-19 testing near a hospital in Warsaw on Wednesday. Poland hit a daily high of nearly 24,700 coronavirus cases as the government introduced new restrictions in shops, schools and culture institutions through November. (Czarek Sokolowski/The Associated Press)
Poland reported a record 27,143 new coronavirus infections on Thursday, approaching a threshold at which the government has said it could be forced to impose a nationwide lockdown. On Wednesday, the government announced new restrictions to curb the COVID-19 pandemic and said it would impose a full lockdown if cases continue to surge.
Meanwhile, in England, a four-week lockdown began Thursday that will shut all shops selling items deemed non-essential, such as books and clothes. The other nations of the U.K. — Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — have also announced wide-ranging restrictions on economic activity.
What’s happening in Canada
As of 7:30 a.m. ET on Wednesday, provinces and territories in Canada had reported a cumulative total of 248,218 confirmed or presumptive coronavirus cases. Provinces and territories listed 206,037 as recovered or resolved. A CBC News tally of deaths based on provincial reports, regional health information and CBC’s reporting stood at 10,336.
In Manitoba, the province’s top doctor is urging people to help “turn the tide on the transmission of this virus” as case numbers rise. Hospitals in the province were working to make space as health officials on Wednesday reported 374 new cases of COVID-19, its second highest daily tally. The province had 140 people in hospital, with 21 in intensive care.
“We announced 21 deaths in the last week alone. We had 21 deaths related to the flu last year in total,” Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Brent Roussin said Wednesday.
“We’ve learned a lot over time from this virus, but what we always knew is that this is not simply the flu.”
WATCH | COVID-19 more dangerous than the flu, warns Manitoba’s top doctor:
Manitoba has had 87 COVID-19-related deaths so far, with 21 announced in the last week alone, Dr. Brent Roussin said at a news conference Wednesday. That compares to a total of 21 deaths related to the flu in all of last year, he said. 0:50
In Ontario, Premier Doug Ford’s government is set to unveil its first pandemic-era budget, which is expected to lay out the details of the next stage of its COVID-19 response.
On Thursday, the province reported 998 new cases. Updated hospitalization data was not yet available, but as of Wednesday, the province had reported 367 hospitalizations, with 75 in ICU.
Ontario is reporting 998 cases of <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#COVID19</a>. Locally, there are 350 new cases in Toronto, 269 in Peel and 71 in York Region. There are 948 more resolved cases and nearly 35,800 tests completed.
In Quebec, Premier François Legault is slated to give a COVID-19 update Thursday afternoon. The province reported 1,029 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday and 33 more deaths attributed to the novel coronavirus, including eight in the past 24 hours.
Hospitalizations increased by 13 compared with the prior day, to 539, and 81 people were in intensive care, a decrease of four.
In Atlantic Canada, Nova Scotia reported four new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, New Brunswick reported three new cases and Newfoundland and Labrador reported one new case, bringing an end to an eight-day run with no new cases in that province. Prince Edward Island has no active cases of the novel coronavirus.
Across the North, there were no new cases in Yukon, the Northwest Territories or Nunavut. But N.W.T.’s chief public health officer cautioned Wednesday that “more cases are inevitable” as cases mount across much of Canada.
British Columbia reported 335 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday and one additional death on Wednesday, bringing the death toll to 273. An update from provincial health officials said there were 92 people in hospital with 25 in intensive care.
WATCH | 3-layer masks now recommended for COVID-19:
Canada’s top public health doctor now recommends three-layer non-medical masks with a filter layer to prevent the spread of COVID-19, something the World Health Organization has been recommending for months. 1:55
In Saskatchewan, which reported 37 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, the provincial health authority is stepping up its staffing to allow for more contact tracing.
What’s happening around the world
An election worker takes ballots from a sorting machine at the King County Elections office in Renton, Wash., on Wednesday. Results of the U.S. presidential election were still being counted in some states on Thursday. (Jason Redmond/AFP/Getty Images)
As of Thursday morning, more than 48 million COVID-19 cases had been recorded worldwide, with nearly 32 million of those considered recovered, according to a case-tracking tool maintained by Johns Hopkins University. The U.S-based institution put the global death toll at more than 1.2 million.
In the Americas, the U.S. set another record for daily confirmed coronavirus cases as several states posted all-time highs Wednesday, underscoring the vexing issue confronting the winner of the presidential race.
The total U.S. death toll is already more than 232,000, and total confirmed U.S. cases have surpassed nine million. Those are the highest totals in the world, and new infections are increasing in nearly every state.
In Minnesota, hospitals are under pressure and ICU beds are nearing full capacity as coronavirus cases reach a new high and hospitalizations continue to surge.
Hospitals in hard-hit El Paso, Texas, are also under serious pressure, with 1,041 hospitalizations reported on Wednesday.
“Our hospitals are near breaking point, we need everyone to do their part to stop this virus,” said Dr. Hector Ocaranza, the health authority for the city and county.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is sending additional medical personnel and equipment to the city and local officials ordered a two-week shutdown of nonessential activities.
In Chile, President Sebastian Pinera said the country’s health regulator had given the go-ahead for clinical trials of AstraZeneca PLC’s COVID-19 vaccine.
In the Asia-Pacific region, mainland China has barred entry to some travelers from Britain and Belgium and set strict testing requirements on visitors from the United States, France and Germany, as it reimposed border restrictions in response to rising global cases.
Australia has agreed to purchase another 50 million doses of two more COVID-19 vaccines, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said, as Canberra aims to complete a mass inoculation program within months.
Registered Nurse Reem Jabbar conducts COVID-19 tests at the Bondi Beach testing clinic on Wednesday in Sydney, Australia. The testing clinic was expanded ahead of summer to increase testing capacity as health authorities encourage residents to remain vigilant for coronavirus symptoms as restrictions ease. (Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images)
India is reporting 50,209 new coronavirus cases for the previous 24 hours amid a surge in the capital of New Delhi, which officials now say is in its third wave of infections.
The Health Ministry on Thursday also reported 704 deaths from COVID-19 across the country, raising its toll for the pandemic to 124,315.
In South Africa, the hardest-hit country in Africa, health officials and cabinet are urging people to keep following guidelines aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19. With COVID-19 cases on the rise, President Cyril Ramaphosa is set to address the nation next week, according to local media. The country has more than 730,000 reported cases of COVID-19 and more than 19,500 reported deaths.
In the Middle East, Bahrain has granted emergency approval for the use of a Chinese vaccine candidate currently in Phase 3 trials on frontline workers, state news agency BNA said.
TORONTO – An Ontario judge says any outstanding issues regarding a proposed $32.5 billion settlement between three major tobacco companies and their creditors should be solvable in the coming months.
Ontario Superior Court Chief Justice Geoffrey Morawetz has released his reasons for approving a motion last week to have representatives for creditors review and vote on the proposal in December.
One of the companies, JTI-Macdonald Corp., said last week it objects to the plan in its current form and asked the court to postpone scheduling the vote until several issues were resolved.
The other two companies, Rothmans, Benson & Hedges and Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd., didn’t oppose the motion but said they retained the right to contest the proposed plan down the line.
The proposal announced last month includes $24 billion for provinces and territories seeking to recover smoking-related health-care costs and about $6 billion for smokers across Canada and their loved ones.
If the proposed deal is accepted by a majority of creditors, it will then move on to the next step: a hearing to obtain the approval of the court, tentatively scheduled for early next year.
In a written decision released Monday, Morawetz said it was clear that not all issues had been resolved at this stage of the proceedings.
He pointed to “outstanding issues” between the companies regarding their respective shares of the total payout, as well as debate over the creditor status of one of JTI-Macdonald’s affiliate companies.
In order to have creditors vote on a proposal, the court must be satisfied the plan isn’t “doomed to fail” either at the creditors or court approval stages, court heard last week.
Lawyers representing plaintiffs in two Quebec class actions, those representing smokers in the rest of Canada, and 10 out of 13 provinces and territories have expressed their support for the proposal, the judge wrote in his ruling.
While JTI-Macdonald said its concerns have not been addressed, the company’s lawyer “acknowledged that the issues were solvable,” Morawetz wrote.
“At this stage, I am unable to conclude that the plans are doomed to fail,” he said.
“There are a number of outstanding issues as between the parties, but there are no issues that, in my view, cannot be solved,” he said.
The proposed settlement is the culmination of more than five years of negotiations in what Morawetz has called one of “the most complex insolvency proceedings in Canadian history.”
The companies sought creditor protection in Ontario in 2019 after Quebec’s top court upheld a landmark ruling ordering them to pay about $15 billion to plaintiffs in two class-action lawsuits.
All legal proceedings against the companies, including lawsuits filed by provincial governments, have been paused during the negotiations. That order has now been extended until the end of January 2025.
In total, the companies faced claims of more than $1 trillion, court documents show.
In October of last year, the court instructed the mediator in the case, former Chief Justice of Ontario Warren Winkler, and the monitors appointed to each company to develop a proposed plan for a global settlement, with input from the companies and creditors.
A year later, they proposed a plan that would involve upfront payments as well as annual ones based on the companies’ net after-tax income and any tax refunds, court documents show.
The monitors estimate it would take the companies about 20 years to pay the entire amount, the documents show.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
OTTAWA – The Federal Court of Appeal has dismissed a bid by the Prince Edward Island Potato Board to overturn a 2021 decision by the federal agriculture minister to declare the entire province as “a place infested with potato wart.”
That order prohibited the export of seed potatoes from the Island to prevent the spread of the soil-borne fungus, which deforms potatoes and makes them impossible to sell.
The board had argued in Federal Court that the decision was unreasonable because there was insufficient evidence to establish that P.E.I. was infested with the fungus.
In April 2023, the Federal Court dismissed the board’s application for a judicial review, saying the order was reasonable because the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said regulatory measures had failed to prevent the transmission of potato wart to unregulated fields.
On Tuesday, the Appeal Court dismissed the board’s appeal, saying the lower court had selected the correct reasonableness standard to review the minister’s order.
As well, it found the lower court was correct in accepting the minister’s view that the province was “infested” because the department had detected potato wart on 35 occasions in P.E.I.’s three counties since 2000.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
FREDERICTON – New Brunswick health officials are urging parents to get their children vaccinated against measles after the number of cases of the disease in a recent outbreak has more than doubled since Friday.
Sean Hatchard, spokesman for the Health Department, says measles cases in the Fredericton and the upper Saint John River Valley area have risen from five on Friday to 12 as of Tuesday morning.
Hatchard says other suspected cases are under investigation, but he did not say how and where the outbreak of the disease began.
He says data from the 2023-24 school year show that about 10 per cent of students were not completely immunized against the disease.
In response to the outbreak, Horizon Health Network is hosting measles vaccine clinics on Wednesday and Friday.
The measles virus is transmitted through the air or by direct contact with nasal or throat secretions of an infected person, and can be more severe in adults and infants.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
