The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world Saturday. This file will be updated throughout the day. Web links to longer stories if available.
2:47 p.m. The Greater Toronto Hockey League will remove its COVID-19 vaccination policy for participants registering for the upcoming 2022-23 season.
The decision was made by the board of directors after consulting public health experts.
The cancellation will come into effect beginning at the start of AAA tryouts on April 25. However, masking will be required inside locker rooms and for coaches on the bench throughout the tryouts for all levels in April and May.
Meanwhile, for the 2021-22 season, GTHL’s vaccine policy will remain in effect.
1:47 p.m. Quebecers are being urged to avoid crowded emergency rooms if possible and be careful with gatherings this holiday weekend as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc on hospital staffing levels.
The health authorities in Montreal and the surrounding Montérégie and Laval areas have all posted messages on their social media accounts asking people to consult a pharmacist or call the province’s 811 health hotline for minor health problems instead of heading to a hospital.
Quebec’s health minister has said hospitals are grappling with the dual challenges of COVID-19 and influenza at a time when some 13,000 health workers are off the job for reasons related to the virus.
12:11 p.m. Ontario is reporting 185 people in ICU due to COVID-19 and 1,130 in hospital overall testing positive for COVID-19, according to its latest report released Saturday morning.
Of the people hospitalized, 48 per cent were admitted for COVID-19 and 52 per cent were admitted for other reasons but have since tested positive. For the ICU numbers, 62 per cent were admitted for COVID-19 and 38 per cent were admitted for other reasons but have since tested positive.
The numbers represent a two per cent decrease in the ICU COVID-19 count and a three per cent decrease in hospitalizations overall. Thirty per cent of the province’s 2,343 adult ICU beds remain available for new patients.
Given new provincial regulations around testing that took effect Dec. 31, 2021, case counts — reported at 4,201 on Saturday — are also not considered an accurate assessment of how widespread COVID-19 is right now. In the latest numbers, Ontario reported 10 new deaths on Saturday and 13 on Friday. Due to the statutory holiday on Friday, Ontario didn’t update its numbers since Thursday.
Read the full story from the Star’s Ashima Agnihotri here.
8:42 a.m. The sixth wave has brought an explosion of COVID in some Ontario communities, including Toronto, with for many, more friends and family members getting sick than ever before in the pandemic.
But for every story of someone out with the virus, it seems like there’s another of someone who was spared, despite an exposure, or even living in the same house as multiple people who tested positive. If you’ve sidestepped COVID so far, you probably have vaccines, masks, and luck on your side, experts say.
There is, however, a very small group of people who appear to have innate immunity to the virus. There’s actually a precedent for this with other diseases, and Canadian researchers hope that unlocking the mystery of these “COVID resistors” can help develop more effective treatments and vaccines.
Read the full story from the Star’s May Warren.
8:40 a.m. Shanghai’s coronavirus outbreak continued unabated with more than 23,500 new cases, while the northwestern Chinese city of Xian said it will temporarily impose a partial lockdown after reporting dozens of infections this month.
China reported 24,680 new daily infections for Friday, according to the National Health Commission. More than 80% of Shanghai’s cases were asymptomatic as the virus continues to disrupt spread despite the weeks-long lockdown of 25 million people in the financial hub.
Xian said on Friday that it will act to reduce movements of its residents for four days till April 19. People are advised to stay at home and refrain from unnecessary out-of-home activities, while major entertainment businesses including cinemas, bars, museums and hotels are temporarily closed. Restaurants are required to only provide takeaway services.
As infections pop up in more and more cities, lockdown measures are hitting Chinese consumption, industrial output and supply chains, and taking a toll on the world’s second-largest economy.
The lockdown in Shanghai has spawned some of the most anti-government criticism in years on the country’s tightly controlled social media, Bloomberg News reported this week. While food shortages have eased in some places, residents of a Shanghai area that hosts research centres for major tech firms fought with police over plans to open quarantine facilities near them, underscoring burgeoning anger over the Chinese government’s handling of its worst COVID outbreak since Wuhan in early 2020.
President Xi Jinping reiterated earlier this week that China will adhere to the COVID Zero policy despite the hardships it is causing, with the government adamant it is less damaging than allowing the virus to spread unconstrained across the country.
8:40 a.m. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has tested positive for COVID-19.
The 75-year-old Republican said in an announcement late Friday he was diagnosed by his personal physician after experiencing mild symptoms such as a runny nose, head ache, body aches and a sore throat.
DeWine was administered a monoclonal antibody treatment, which is designed to fight the infection. He said he is following the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention protocol and quarantining.
The governor’s office said first lady Fran DeWine was experiencing no symptoms and has tested negative. Both the governor and his wife have received two coronavirus vaccines and a booster.
DeWine’s diagnosis comes just 18 days before Ohio’s May 3 primary, in which he faces two Republican challengers, and just eight days before former president Donald Trump plans an Ohio rally.
8:30 a.m. Three Chinese inactivated vaccines that target the Omicron variant of coronavirus have won approval to start clinical trials in Hong Kong, according to developers of the shots.
China National Biotec Group Company Ltd., a vaccine-developing subsidiary of state-owned China National Pharmaceutical Group Co. also known as Sinopharm, announced the news on its WeChat account on Saturday. The trials will look at the safety of the inoculations and their ability to stimulate an immune response in adults who have received two or three doses.
The vaccines were jointly developed by China National Biotec and the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products Co.
Separately, an inactivated vaccine developed by Sinovac Biotech Ltd. targeting the highly contagious variant has also got the green-light for testing in the city, according to a company statement. The firm started applying with multiple countries and regions for trials of the shot in February, and the Hong Kong government is the first to give the nod, it added.
Sinopharm said in a recent release that its second-generation recombinant protein COVID-19 vaccines had received approval from Beijing for clinical trials. The improved version has already been accepted by the United Arab Emirates as a booster shot and enhances the immune response to the coronavirus, Bloomberg News reported earlier this month.
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