Today’s coronavirus news: Manitoba to reveal new set of COVID-19 rules as vaccinations continue to rise; China orders mass coronavirus testing for Wuhan – Toronto Star
The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world Tuesday. This file will be updated throughout the day. Web links to longer stories if available.
8 a.m. The Greek Olympic team says the outbreak of COVID-19 cases among its artistic swimmers has ruled them out of competing at the Tokyo Games.
Three new cases were reported Tuesday and the entire artistic swimming squad was asked to leave the Olympic Village. Only one case had been previously confirmed.
The Greek team says they are all staying at a quarantine hotel. Greece was due to compete in the duet and team events.
7:40 a.m. The quickly approaching fall semester has America’s colleges under pressure to decide how far they should go to guard their campuses against COVID-19 while navigating legal and political questions and rising infection rates.
Hundreds of colleges nationwide have told students in recent months they must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 before classes begin.
California State University, the country’s largest four-year public university system, joined the list last week, along with Michigan State University and the University of Michigan. Their announcements cited concerns about the highly contagious delta variant and came as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued updated mask guidelines based on new research regarding its spread.
CSU Chancellor Joseph I. Castro called case surges linked to the variant an “alarming new factor that we must consider as we look to maintain the health and well-being of students, employees and visitors.”
Yet many more colleges have held off on vaccine mandates in a reflection of the limits school leaders face in adopting safety requirements for in-person classes.
In many Republican-led states, governments have banned vaccine mandates, or school leaders face political pressure to limit their anti-virus actions even among students who live in packed residence halls. Opponents say the requirements tread on personal freedoms.
Some campuses have sidestepped pushback by instead offering enticements, such as prize drawings for free tuition and computers, as they seek to boost student vaccination rates to 80 per cent or higher.
And a few have gone against the grain of their GOP-led states, such as Nova Southeastern in Florida requiring employees to get the shots and Nebraska Wesleyan mandating vaccinations for its 2,000 students.
Private colleges like these have more legal leeway regarding coronavirus rules, experts say. Prominent private universities mandating student vaccinations include Harvard, Yale, Notre Dame, Northwestern, Duke and Stanford.
6:40 a.m. Barack Obama is turning 60 on Wednesday and he’s marking the milestone with a celebration.
The Obamas are hosting an outdoor party in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, to celebrate the former president’s birthday with friends, family and former staff members, a person familiar with the situation but not authorized to speak publicly told USA TODAY. In order to promote safety, guests are required to adhere to all Centers for Disease Control and Prevention public health protocols, including a testing regimen managed by a COVID-19 coordinator.
Concerns about COVID-19 transmission reignited after the delta coronavirus variant caused a sharp spike in cases around the country in recent weeks. For the first time in more than three months, cases in the U.S. average more than 60,000 per day, according to USA TODAY analysis of Johns Hopkins University data.
The Obamas have been strong advocates for the vaccine, emphasizing “the need and the urgency of our communities getting vaccinated” in a video with Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley in April and getting vaccinated themselves one month earlier.
6:25 a.m. Tokyo is experiencing a record surge in COVID-19 cases during the Olympic Games as the more infectious Delta variant rips through Japan, though contagion among those linked to the event appears to be relatively contained so far.
To date, organizers have announced 294 positive cases among people connected to the Olympics, including 25 athletes out of the more than 11,000 who are expected to participate. Of over 400,000 tests conducted so far on athletes and stakeholders, the positivity rate has been only 0.02 per cent, organizers said on Tuesday.
“There is a separation between the athletes and the various stakeholders, and the general population,” Mark Adams, International Olympic Committee spokesperson, told reporters Monday. “You can’t reduce the risk to zero, but we have with the playbooks pretty well covered the ability to reduce that risk as far as we can.”
The so-called playbooks set out COVID-prevention measures and rules for each Olympics participant including athletes, officials and media.
Breaking down the category of people with positive test results, the largest numbers are among Tokyo 2020 contractors — third-party personnel who are contracted to the games to provide various services — and games-concerned people, who include those affiliated with the IOC, National Olympic Committees and Olympic Broadcasting Services. There have been a cumulative 153 and 89 cases in those categories, respectively.
While athletes in the Olympic Village are required to test daily, requirements are less strict for volunteers who have less contact with athletes. The rules are also harsher for those flying in from overseas, compared to Japanese residents.
5:55 a.m. The United States on Monday finally reached President Joe Biden’s goal of having 70 per cent of eligible adults at least partly vaccinated.
The milestone came a month later than Biden had hoped as the country faced the rapid spread of the highly contagious Delta variant.
There was no celebration at the White House. The announcement was made on Twitter by Cyrus Shahpar, the COVID-19 data director for the Biden administration. “Let’s continue working to get more eligible vaccinated!” Shahpar wrote.
The White House had hoped to announce the 70 per cent vaccination bench mark four weeks ago. Biden initially used Independence Day to declare a victory of sorts over the pandemic and some kind of return to normal life.
But that goal evaporated in recent weeks as the Delta variant spread rapidly, putting pressure on hospitals in regions with low vaccination rates, including many politically conservative areas in the south. Southern Missouri and northern Arkansas, for instance, have been hard hit, swamping hospitals.
In recent weeks, there has been an uptick in the vaccination rate in some states where cases have crested. Arkansas, Missouri, Louisiana and Florida have seen steady increases.
5:45 a.m. Florida leads the U.S. in another alarming coronavirus statistic: kids hospitalized with COVID-19.
Florida had 32 pediatric COVID-19 hospitalizations per day between July 24 and 30, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Adjusted for population, that’s 0.76 kids hospitalized per 100,000 residents, the highest rate in the country.
The Florida Department of Health reported 10,785 new COVID-19 infections among children under 12 between July 23 and 29. That’s an average of 1,540 new cases per day.
The surge is worse for children who are eligible for the vaccine — 11,048 new cases among those ages 12 to 19 in the same week.
Last Friday’s state data shows seven deaths among children under 16 since the start of the pandemic in March 2020. Florida stopped reporting COVID-19 deaths by age group to the CDC on July 17.
Dr. Claudia Espinosa, pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of South Florida, said that she is deeply concerned about cases spiking when kids return to school this month. Hundreds of thousands of kids across the state will soon pack themselves into school buses, classrooms and cafeterias.
“I’m terrified of what’s going to happen,” she said.
Pediatric hospitalizations are the latest sign of the resurgent pandemic’s hold on Florida. Last week, the state accounted for nearly one out of every four new infections and hospitalizations in the nation, according to the CDC. State data shows Florida averaged more than 15,780 infections a day over the most recent seven-day period.
Tampa Bay pediatric hospitals are seeing those higher admissions themselves. Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg diagnosed 113 COVID-19 cases in the first three and a half weeks of July, while the hospital only had 11 infections in the entire month of June, said Dr. Joseph Perno, the hospital’s vice president of medical affairs.
Every week in July set a new weekly record for the most cases the hospital has seen during the pandemic, Perno said.
The age range of infected patients is evenly spread between young children and teenagers. And the vast majority of them are unvaccinated, said Dr. Allison Messina, the hospital’s chairman of the Division of Infectious Disease. Children 11 and under cannot yet get the vaccine.
Pediatric COVID-19 patients in BayCare’s 15 Florida hospitals doubled in July compared to June, after two months of declining case numbers, said hospital system spokesperson Lisa Razler.
The vast majority of infected pediatric patients are hospitalized at St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital in Tampa, Razler said, one of the six BayCare facilities that paused elective surgeries requiring overnight stays to make more beds available for COVID-19 patients.
While infected children are at less risk of serious illness then adults, Messina said they can still develop serious long-term complications, Messina said.
Multisystem inflammatory syndrome is an autoimmune disease that targets school-aged children and can occur two to six weeks after a coronavirus infection. Symptoms include fever, rashes, red eye, and diarrhea and vomiting. If left untreated, Messina said, the illness can be fatal or cause permanent heart damage.
5:33 a.m. Chinese authorities have announced mass coronavirus testing in Wuhan as an unusually wide series of COVID-19 outbreaks reached the city where the disease was first detected in late 2019.
The provincial capital of 11 million people in central China is the latest city to undergo city-wide testing. Three cases were confirmed in Wuhan on Monday, its first non-imported cases in more than a year.
China has largely curbed COVID-19 at home after the initial outbreak that devastated Wuhan and spread globally. Since then, authorities have tamped down and controlled the disease whenever it pops up with quick lockdowns and mass testing.
The current outbreaks are still in the hundreds of cases in total, but have spread much more widely than previous ones. Many of the cases have been identified as the highly contagious delta variant.
The National Health Commission said Tuesday that 90 new cases had been confirmed the previous day.
5 a.m. Ontario’s back-to-school plan will be front and centre this week as the province announces what protocols will be in place so boards can get ready to welcome kids back to in-person learning in just five weeks.
With the government set to announce details as early as Tuesday, questions remain as to what the school year will look like, if the province has taken the advice of pediatric experts — and what has taken so long for the plan to be released.
While most of Ontario’s two million students are set to resume classes in person after Labour Day, some schools, on a modified calendar such as Peel’s Roberta Bondar elementary and York’s Bill Crothers secondary, are returning this week.
Tuesday 4 a.m. The Manitoba government is to announce changes Tuesday to its COVID-19 restrictions.
Premier Brian Pallister and the province’s chief public health officer are scheduled to hold a news conference on the updated orders.
Manitoba is running ahead of its vaccination targets, with roughly 80 per cent of people ages 12 and up having at least one dose and more than 70 per cent having two.
The current rules include a 50 per cent capacity limit at stores, museums, restaurants and gyms.
Casinos, bingo halls, movie theatres and some other facilities are open only to people who are fully vaccinated.
Household visits are also capped at five people in addition to residents of a home.
Monday 7 p.m. U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina tweeted Monday he has tested positive for coronavirus, months after he was vaccinated.
The Republican senator said he started having flu-like symptoms Saturday night and went to the doctor Monday to be tested.
Graham described his symptoms as “mild,” and said his symptoms feel like he has a sinus infection.
He tweeted he will quarantine for the next 10 days, and, despite his diagnosis, is glad he was vaccinated.
“I was just informed by the House physician I have tested positive for #COVID19 even after being vaccinated. I started having flu-like symptoms Saturday night and went to the doctor this morning,” Graham tweeted. “I feel like I have a sinus infection and at present time I have mild symptoms. I will be quarantining for ten days. I am very glad I was vaccinated because without vaccination I am certain I would not feel as well as I do now. My symptoms would be far worse.”
Graham’s diagnosis is among the rising breakthrough cases reported across the country where vaccinated people are testing positive for the virus due to the rise in the delta variant.
South Carolina has also has reported a spike in cases during the past few weeks, seeing its most cases since February.
Monday 6:30 p.m. The positivity rate for COVID-19 testing in Quebec reached 1.4 per cent on Sunday — the highest it’s been since late May.
New COVID-19 infections are also on the rise, according to the Health Department. Officials reported 154 new cases of COVID-19 Monday and 347 new infections identified on Friday and Saturday. Quebec has reported an average of 139 new cases a day over the past seven days, up from an average of 57 a week prior.
Dr. Donald Vinh, an infectious disease specialist at the McGill University Health Centre, says the trends are concerning. The rising positivity rate in the province “means that there is still ongoing community transmission,” he said in an interview Monday.
He is also concerned because Quebec’s rate on Sunday reflected fewer overall tests compared with late May. On May 31, Quebec recorded a test positivity rate of 1.5 per cent based on 15,783 tests. On Sunday, Quebec analyzed 11,202 tests.
The big question, Vinh said, is whether the jump in the positivity rate is a sign Quebecers should expect cases to rise even more in late August and September, when classes at schools, junior colleges and universities resume. “If it’s already increased when we are in the ‘safe’ outdoors, what’s going to happen when we’re in the indoors? That’s where the concern is,” he said.
Despite the rise in cases, deaths and hospitalizations linked to the novel coronavirus haven’t followed suit.
The Health Department, which no longer provides COVID-19 updates on weekends, said no deaths attributed to the novel coronavirus have been reported in the province since Thursday. It said the number of those hospitalized increased by one since its last report, to 61, and 17 people were in intensive care — unchanged since Friday’s update.
Health officials said 38,247 doses of COVID-19 vaccine were administered Sunday and Quebec’s public health institute reported that 84.6 per cent of residents 12 and up have received at least one dose of vaccine while 68 per cent are adequately vaccinated.
Dr. André Veillette, an immunologist at the Montreal Clinical Research Institute and member of the federal government’s COVID-19 vaccine task force, said it’s likely the number of active COVID-19 cases in the province is higher than testing data suggests.
“I think we should be worried, but I think that what we should be even more worried about is that we’re not worried enough,” Veillette said. “We’ve all become a little bit complacent.”
Veillette said the rise in cases in the province is likely the result of the more contagious Delta variant of the virus.
Data from Quebec’s public health institute on Monday, however, indicates the percentage of positive COVID-19 cases involving variants dropped the week ending July 24, compared with the prior week. But Judith Fafard, a medical microbiologist at the Institut national de santé publique du Québec, said that data is incomplete.
It takes time, she explained, for results to be gathered and processed from the province’s decentralized laboratory network. The most reliable data on variants comes from the week ending July 17, which showed a rise in the percentage of cases involving the Delta variant from the prior week.
The percentage of cases involving the Alpha variant — which accounted for more than 80 per cent of all COVID-19 cases in Quebec in mid-May — has also been dropping since the last week of that month, she said.
“It would be surprising if we were any different from England, the other provinces and the United States, so what’s replacing Alpha is probably the Delta variant,” she said.
“We know that the Delta variant is in Quebec and that it is growing.”
Skinstitut Holiday Gift Kits take the stress out of gifting
Toronto, October 31, 2024 – Beauty gifts are at the top of holiday wish lists this year, and Laser Clinics Canada, a leader in advanced beauty treatments and skincare, is taking the pressure out of seasonal shopping. Today, Laser Clincs Canada announces the arrival of its 2024 Holiday Gift Kits, courtesy of Skinstitut, the exclusive skincare line of Laser Clinics Group.
In time for the busy shopping season, the limited-edition Holiday Gifts Kits are available in Laser Clinics locations in the GTA and Ottawa. Clinics are conveniently located in popular shopping centers, including Hillcrest Mall, Square One, CF Sherway Gardens, Scarborough Town Centre, Rideau Centre, Union Station and CF Markville. These limited-edition Kits are available on a first come, first served basis.
“These kits combine our best-selling products, bundled to address the most relevant skin concerns we’re seeing among our clients,” says Christina Ho, Senior Brand & LAM Manager at Laser Clinics Canada. “With several price points available, the kits offer excellent value and suit a variety of gift-giving needs, from those new to cosmeceuticals to those looking to level up their skincare routine. What’s more, these kits are priced with a savings of up to 33 per cent so gift givers can save during the holiday season.
There are two kits to select from, each designed to address key skin concerns and each with a unique theme — Brightening Basics and Hydration Heroes.
Brightening Basics is a mix of everyday essentials for glowing skin for all skin types. The bundle comes in a sleek pink, reusable case and includes three full-sized products: 200ml gentle cleanser, 50ml Moisture Defence (normal skin) and 30ml1% Hyaluronic Complex Serum. The Brightening Basics kit is available at $129, a saving of 33 per cent.
Hydration Heroes is a mix of hydration essentials and active heroes that cater to a wide variety of clients. A perfect stocking stuffer, this bundle includes four deluxe products: Moisture 15 15 ml Defence for normal skin, 10 ml 1% Hyaluronic Complex Serum, 10 ml Retinol Serum and 50 ml Expert Squalane Cleansing Oil. The kit retails at $59.
In addition to the 2024 Holiday Gifts Kits, gift givers can easily add a Laser Clinic Canada gift card to the mix. Offering flexibility, recipients can choose from a wide range of treatments offered by Laser Clinics Canada, or they can expand their collection of exclusive Skinstitut products.
Brightening Basics 2024 Holiday Gift Kit by Skinstitut, available exclusively at Laser Clincs Canada clinics and online at skinstitut.ca.
Hydration Heroes 2024 Holiday Gift Kit by Skinstitut – available exclusively at Laser Clincs Canada clinics and online at skinstitut.ca.
LONDON (AP) — Most people have accumulated a pile of data — selfies, emails, videos and more — on their social media and digital accounts over their lifetimes. What happens to it when we die?
It’s wise to draft a will spelling out who inherits your physical assets after you’re gone, but don’t forget to take care of your digital estate too. Friends and family might treasure files and posts you’ve left behind, but they could get lost in digital purgatory after you pass away unless you take some simple steps.
Here’s how you can prepare your digital life for your survivors:
Apple
The iPhone maker lets you nominate a “ legacy contact ” who can access your Apple account’s data after you die. The company says it’s a secure way to give trusted people access to photos, files and messages. To set it up you’ll need an Apple device with a fairly recent operating system — iPhones and iPads need iOS or iPadOS 15.2 and MacBooks needs macOS Monterey 12.1.
For iPhones, go to settings, tap Sign-in & Security and then Legacy Contact. You can name one or more people, and they don’t need an Apple ID or device.
You’ll have to share an access key with your contact. It can be a digital version sent electronically, or you can print a copy or save it as a screenshot or PDF.
Take note that there are some types of files you won’t be able to pass on — including digital rights-protected music, movies and passwords stored in Apple’s password manager. Legacy contacts can only access a deceased user’s account for three years before Apple deletes the account.
Google
Google takes a different approach with its Inactive Account Manager, which allows you to share your data with someone if it notices that you’ve stopped using your account.
When setting it up, you need to decide how long Google should wait — from three to 18 months — before considering your account inactive. Once that time is up, Google can notify up to 10 people.
You can write a message informing them you’ve stopped using the account, and, optionally, include a link to download your data. You can choose what types of data they can access — including emails, photos, calendar entries and YouTube videos.
There’s also an option to automatically delete your account after three months of inactivity, so your contacts will have to download any data before that deadline.
Facebook and Instagram
Some social media platforms can preserve accounts for people who have died so that friends and family can honor their memories.
When users of Facebook or Instagram die, parent company Meta says it can memorialize the account if it gets a “valid request” from a friend or family member. Requests can be submitted through an online form.
The social media company strongly recommends Facebook users add a legacy contact to look after their memorial accounts. Legacy contacts can do things like respond to new friend requests and update pinned posts, but they can’t read private messages or remove or alter previous posts. You can only choose one person, who also has to have a Facebook account.
You can also ask Facebook or Instagram to delete a deceased user’s account if you’re a close family member or an executor. You’ll need to send in documents like a death certificate.
TikTok
The video-sharing platform says that if a user has died, people can submit a request to memorialize the account through the settings menu. Go to the Report a Problem section, then Account and profile, then Manage account, where you can report a deceased user.
Once an account has been memorialized, it will be labeled “Remembering.” No one will be able to log into the account, which prevents anyone from editing the profile or using the account to post new content or send messages.
X
It’s not possible to nominate a legacy contact on Elon Musk’s social media site. But family members or an authorized person can submit a request to deactivate a deceased user’s account.
Passwords
Besides the major online services, you’ll probably have dozens if not hundreds of other digital accounts that your survivors might need to access. You could just write all your login credentials down in a notebook and put it somewhere safe. But making a physical copy presents its own vulnerabilities. What if you lose track of it? What if someone finds it?
Instead, consider a password manager that has an emergency access feature. Password managers are digital vaults that you can use to store all your credentials. Some, like Keeper,Bitwarden and NordPass, allow users to nominate one or more trusted contacts who can access their keys in case of an emergency such as a death.
But there are a few catches: Those contacts also need to use the same password manager and you might have to pay for the service.
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Is there a tech challenge you need help figuring out? Write to us at onetechtip@ap.org with your questions.
The Canadian Paediatric Society says doctors should regularly screen children for reading difficulties and dyslexia, calling low literacy a “serious public health concern” that can increase the risk of other problems including anxiety, low self-esteem and behavioural issues, with lifelong consequences.
New guidance issued Wednesday says family doctors, nurses, pediatricians and other medical professionals who care for school-aged kids are in a unique position to help struggling readers access educational and specialty supports, noting that identifying problems early couldhelp kids sooner — when it’s more effective — as well as reveal other possible learning or developmental issues.
The 10 recommendations include regular screening for kids aged four to seven, especially if they belong to groups at higher risk of low literacy, including newcomers to Canada, racialized Canadians and Indigenous Peoples. The society says this can be done in a two-to-three-minute office-based assessment.
Other tips encourage doctors to look for conditions often seen among poor readers such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder; to advocate for early literacy training for pediatric and family medicine residents; to liaise with schools on behalf of families seeking help; and to push provincial and territorial education ministries to integrate evidence-based phonics instruction into curriculums, starting in kindergarten.
Dr. Scott McLeod, one of the authors and chair of the society’s mental health and developmental disabilities committee, said a key goal is to catch kids who may be falling through the cracks and to better connect families to resources, including quicker targeted help from schools.
“Collaboration in this area is so key because we need to move away from the silos of: everything educational must exist within the educational portfolio,” McLeod said in an interview from Calgary, where he is a developmental pediatrician at Alberta Children’s Hospital.
“Reading, yes, it’s education, but it’s also health because we know that literacy impacts health. So I think that a statement like this opens the window to say: Yes, parents can come to their health-care provider to get advice, get recommendations, hopefully start a collaboration with school teachers.”
McLeod noted that pediatricians already look for signs of low literacy in young children by way of a commonly used tool known as the Rourke Baby Record, which offers a checklist of key topics, such as nutrition and developmental benchmarks, to cover in a well-child appointment.
But he said questions about reading could be “a standing item” in checkups and he hoped the society’s statement to medical professionals who care for children “enhances their confidence in being a strong advocate for the child” while spurring partnerships with others involved in a child’s life such as teachers and psychologists.
The guidance said pediatricians also play a key role in detecting and monitoring conditions that often coexist with difficulty reading such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, but McLeod noted that getting such specific diagnoses typically involves a referral to a specialist, during which time a child continues to struggle.
He also acknowledged that some schools can be slow to act without a specific diagnosis from a specialist, and even then a child may end up on a wait list for school interventions.
“Evidence-based reading instruction shouldn’t have to wait for some of that access to specialized assessments to occur,” he said.
“My hope is that (by) having an existing statement or document written by the Canadian Paediatric Society … we’re able to skip a few steps or have some of the early interventions present,” he said.
McLeod added that obtaining specific assessments from medical specialists is “definitely beneficial and advantageous” to know where a child is at, “but having that sort of clear, thorough assessment shouldn’t be a barrier to intervention starting.”
McLeod said the society was partly spurred to act by 2022’s “Right to Read Inquiry Report” from the Ontario Human Rights Commission, which made 157 recommendations to address inequities related to reading instruction in that province.
He called the new guidelines “a big reminder” to pediatric providers, family doctors, school teachers and psychologists of the importance of literacy.
“Early identification of reading difficulty can truly change the trajectory of a child’s life.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 23, 2024.
