The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world Friday. This file will be updated throughout the day. Web links to longer stories if available.
4:44 p.m. Ontarians are being urged to keep gatherings small for the holiday season with the more contagious Omicron variant of COVID-19 rapidly spreading, the Star’s Rob Ferguson.
After just arriving in November, Omicron could completely replace the dominant Delta strain in Ontario “by the beginning of January” and already comprises 10 per cent of cases, chief medical officer, Dr. Kieran Moore, revealed Friday.
But he did not issue any orders to shrink gathering limits — now set at 25 inside and 100 outside — or impose any new restrictions as he announced Ontarians 18 and older will become eligible for booster shots Jan. 4, in addition to those 50 and older on Monday.
As the Star reported previously, the province is also extending the proof-of-vaccination system indefinitely and clamping down on questionable medical exemptions for shots.
“The smaller the better,” Moore said when asked about the size of social gatherings.
“I know many already had plans,” he added, urging families to be cautious and assess the risks for friends and loved ones.
“Even with vaccination, it appears with Omicron that you can still transmit it with two doses vaccinated. I would ensure even in those venues going forward that we’d have to be masked in those social settings to best protect our elderly, our frail, and anyone immune-suppressed.”
The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said this week the jury is still out on whether Omicron is more dangerous than Delta.
“Emerging data from South Africa suggests increased risk of reinfection with Omicron,” he said Wednesday, stressing “there is also some evidence that Omicron causes milder disease than Delta.”
Moore shot down rumours circulating on Twitter that schools will shut down early for an extended Christmas break because of Omicron’s trend toward dominance.
“That may change our approach, but at present we’re not contemplating any early closure or delayed opening of the school system.”
Health Minister Christine Elliott said Omicron increases the importance for Ontarians to get their first, second or booster shots “to reduce the risk of transmission” and protect the capacity of hospitals to provide a wide range of medical services.
While the province is administering about 70,000 shots a day, the goal is to reach 120,000 soon “given how quickly this is moving,” added Moore, who hinted at getting more medical professionals involved.
The accelerated boosters are a change of heart for Moore and the science table of health advisors, who had resisted a broader booster shot program last summer over concerns Ontario was hoarding precious vaccines that could be shared with the developing world.
The Verify Ontario QR code system for proof of vaccination, already used by more than 10 million Ontarians, will be beefed up, forcing those with a doctor’s note excusing them from getting a COVID-19 shot to take it to a local public health unit for verification.
That information would then be included on a QR code on their phone or on a printout so they could access services, such as indoor dining in restaurants, theatres or sports arenas. Moore said businesses will be required to use a scanner and enforcement of that will increase.
The changes come as Ontario hit a six-month high with 1,453 new infections on Friday, although intensive care unit hospitalizations remain stable with 151 COVID-19 patients, 90 of whom are on ventilators.
3:14 p.m. Prince Edward Island’s chief medical officer is asking residents to limit their trips off the Island, citing the province’s growing number of COVID-19 cases related to travel, reports The Canadian Press.
Dr. Heather Morrison confirmed today the province had detected seven new cases, five of which were related to travel, according to CP.
As well, she said health officials were concerned by the fact that the province had recorded 30 new cases in the past three weeks, which has prompted discussions about placing new restrictions on holiday social gatherings.
Morrison confirmed public resources have been stretched, but she also said that health officials recognize how important it is for Islanders to see their friends and relatives during the holiday season.
She urged residents to keep gatherings as small as possible and in general to limit their social contacts.
Morrison also said Islanders should think twice about attending large gatherings, such as organized New Year’s Eve celebrations.
3:10 p.m. Health officials in Newfoundland and Labrador are reporting two new cases of COVID-19 over the past two days, reports The Canadian Press.
They say the new infections were identified in the western region of the province and they involve one person in their 50s and another in their 60s, according to CP.
Both people are contacts of previously known cases.
Officials say there are now 13 active reported COVID-19 cases across the province.
Online data shows nearly 30 per cent of children between the ages of five and 11 have received a first dose of vaccine and over 91 per cent of residents 12 and older are fully vaccinated.
Bell Island in Conception Bay west of St. John’s has the province’s lowest vaccination rate, with 80 per cent of those 12 and over fully vaccinated.
2:56 p.m. COVID-19 infections are rising across Canada thanks to surges in Ontario and Quebec and the national situation will quickly worsen if the new Omicron variant becomes the dominant strain of the coronavirus, federal health officials reported Friday.
Canada’s two largest provinces are already on pace for a strong “resurgence” of COVID-19 that could see daily infections roughly double over the coming weeks — and both provinces will see the situation exacerbated if Omicron spreads further within the country, according to new data published by Health Canada.
This could send new daily infections across Canada skyrocketing to more than 12,000 — from around 3,300 now — by the end of December, assuming Omicron is three time more transmissible than the Delta variant that is currently dominant, the data showed.
Ontario responded to the situation Friday by scheduling the availability of third dose booster shots to all residents above 18 years old as of Jan. 4. The boosters will be available to anyone aged 50 and over until then.
Read the full story from the Star’s Alex Balingall.
2:56 p.m. New Brunswick’s chief medical officer says she doesn’t see a need for further health restrictions despite continuing high daily COVID-19 case numbers, reports The Canadian Press.
But Dr. Jennifer Russell says she is concerned by the high numbers — the 174 cases reported Thursday was the highest daily number since the pandemic began, according to CP.
She says the 143 new cases today is the second highest daily case count.
Russell also reported one additional death from COVID-19 involving a person in their 70s in the Miramichi region.
There are now 971 active cases in the province, and 36 people are hospitalized, including 12 in intensive care.
Russell says there were lockdowns in New Brunswick last winter with fewer cases, but the difference now is the high percentage of residents who have been vaccinated.
2:00 p.m. Ontario is expanding the COVID-19 booster shot program to everyone 18 and up as of Jan. 4 in a bid to curb the spread of the Omicron variant.
Dr. Kieran Moore, the chief medical officer of health, announced further details of the booster as those aged 50 and up become eligible for third shots as of Monday.
That’s a change of heart for Moore and the “science table” of health advisers, who had resisted a broader booster shot program last summer out of concerns Ontario was hoarding precious vaccines that could be shared with the developing world.
Moore says says Omicron represents 10 per cent of Ontario’s positive cases.
Read the full story by the Star’s Rob Ferguson and Robert Benzie.
1:09 p.m. U.K. health officials expect omicron to become the dominant variant by the middle of December but said early data show boosters can “considerably improve effectiveness” against the new strain.
Evidence shows that omicron is growing much faster than delta in England and covid cases caused by omicron are expected to make up about half of new infections by the middle of the month, officials said.
An early study of vaccine effectiveness showed that shots from AstraZeneca Plc and Pfizer-BioNTech provided much lower levels of protection against symptomatic infection than they provide against the delta strain. However, preliminary data suggests that effectiveness against the new variants appears to increase considerably in the early period after a booster dose, providing around 70% to 75% protection against symptomatic infection.
The analysis only included a very small number of cases however.
Effectiveness against severe disease is still unknown but expected to be higher, the government said on Friday.
The U.K. has moved to reimpose some measures, including indoor mask-wearing and work-from-home guidance, as omicron spreads rapidly through the country. The new strain may be spreading faster in England than in South Africa and U.K. cases of the variant could top 60,000 a day by Christmas, according to epidemiologist John Edmunds.
Early indications of vaccine effectiveness against omicron have given a mixed picture, with Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE saying initial lab studies show a third dose may be needed to neutralize it. Researchers in South Africa have also found a drop-off in the level of antibody protection from that vaccine versus the new strain, though so-called T-cells may still offer an immune defense against severe disease.
12:25 p.m. Chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam says a resurgence of COVID-19 is forecast for Canada and it could speed up even more if the Omicron variant replaces Delta.
New federal modelling shows that if Omicron does not predominate over Delta, Canada could see between 2,900 and 15,000 daily cases by mid-January, depending on the effect of public health measures.
Tam says if it’s assumed the Omicron variant is three times more transmissible than Delta and becomes dominant, then Canada could see 26,600 daily cases by then.
Over the past week, there was an average of over 3,300 new cases being reported daily across Canada, and Tam is urging a high degree of caution during the coming holiday season.
Meanwhile, Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos says Canada’s capacity to test all non-U.S. international travellers at airports has increased but remains limited.
He says as of Nov. 30, airports could administer 11,000 tests per day and that number has risen to 17,000 a day.
Full capacity would be 23,000 daily tests and Duclos did not say when that would happen.
Duclos also announced that 35 million rapid tests will be delivered to provinces and territories this month.
11:47 a.m. Ontario has administered 78,390 vaccine doses since its last daily update, with 24,304,272 vaccines given in total as of 8 p.m. the previous night.
According to the Star’s vaccine tracker, 11,953,275 people in Ontario have received at least one shot. That works out to approximately 85.3 per cent of the eligible population five years and older and the equivalent of 80.4 per cent of the total population, including those not yet eligible for the vaccine.
The province says 11,316,878 people have completed their vaccinations, which means they’ve had both doses. That works out to approximately 80.8 per cent of the eligible population five years and older, and the equivalent of 76.1 per cent of the total population, including those not yet eligible for the vaccine.
Read more on Ontario’s daily COVID-19 data from the Star’s Urbi Khan.
11:40 a.m. (updated) As Quebec reported more than 2,000 new COVID-19 infections for the first time in nearly 11 months, public health officials in Montreal said Friday they suspect the Omicron variant has spread in the city.
Montreal public health said 14 cases of the COVID-19 variant have now been detected in Montreal — only five of which are associated with travel outside the country.
“The others acquired it in Canada, which suggests limited local transmission,” the department said in a statement.
Montreal public health is encouraging people who visited a gym in the West Island suburb of Kirkland and a community centre in the Lachine borough to get tested for COVID-19, as they may have been exposed to the Omicron variant.
Earlier Friday, Quebec reported 2,013 new cases of COVID-19 and six deaths linked to the novel coronavirus.
It was the first time since January that the province had reported more than 2,000 new infections.
Read the full story here on the Star.
10:03 a.m. Facing a winter surge in COVID-19 infections, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Friday that masks will be required in all indoor public places unless the businesses or venues implement a vaccine requirement.
Hochul said the decision to impose a mask mandate was based on state’s weekly seven-day case rate, as well as increasing hospitalizations.
The mask mandate applies to both patrons and staff and will be in effect from Dec. 13 to Jan. 15, after which the state will reevaluate.
9:52 a.m. (updated) Ontario is reporting 1,453 new cases of COVID-19 and 11 deaths on Friday. 309 people are hospitalized and 151 are in the ICU.
The seven-day average is now 1,155 cases a day, up 29 per cent in a week. The province is also reporting 4.4 per cent positivity Friday, the highest figure since May.
8:50 a.m.: Nova Scotia has expanded its available appointments for COVID-19 booster shots.
Starting today front-line health care workers, designated caregivers and anyone 60 or older can get a third shot of vaccine.
Booster doses are administered at least 24 weeks after the primary series of shots, although health workers and designated caregivers are allowed to get a booster regardless of the interval.
Health officials say people under 30 who are eligible for a booster are encouraged to get the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine because the rare risk of heart inflammations associated with mRNA vaccines appears more common with the Moderna vaccine than with Pfizer.
Officials also say people who received two doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine or the one-dose Janssen vaccine are still eligible to schedule a booster dose of an mRNA vaccine.
Booster doses have been available for people 70 and older since Nov. 23, and the province says as of today 105,000 people age 60 and older are also eligible for a shot.
8:45 a.m.: The Ontario government is expected to announce today that it will extend its vaccine certificate rules and make changes to the program.
A senior government source says the rules requiring vaccine certificates won’t start to lift in January, as initially scheduled under the province’s plan.
Instead, the measures will stay in place as they are until further notice.
The province has previously said its timeline for loosening restrictions could be reviewed based on COVID-19 indicators.
Read the full story from the Star’s Rob Ferguson.
8:40 a.m.: The city of Toronto says 29 per cent of all kids aged 5 to 11 in the city have now received a first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. According to the press release, 67,300 pediatric doses have been administered since the vaccination campaign launched two weeks ago.
8:20 a.m.: The omicron strain may be spreading faster in England than in South Africa, according to John Edmunds, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
8:15 a.m.: Health officials in Japan have confirmed eight more cases of the new omicron variant of the coronavirus, bringing the country’s total to 12, the government said Friday.
The eight tested positive for the virus when they arrived at Japanese airports from late November to earlier this month, the health ministry said in a statement.
Two of them, a woman in her 30s and a boy, arrived from Namibia on Nov. 28 on the same flight as a Namibian diplomat who was Japan’s first confirmed case of the omicron variant, Chief Cabinet Secretary Seiji Kihara said.
Japan eased border controls last month as it gradually expanded social and economic activities, but has since restored a ban on foreign entrants and limited daily arrivals to 3,500 people. The transport ministry briefly asked international airlines to stop accepting new bookings on flights to Japan, but withdrew the measure after facing criticism that it was too strict.
The six others confirmed Friday arrived from the United States, Mozambique and Democratic Republic of the Congo earlier this week and have been isolated, the health ministry said.
Japan has stepped up quarantine requirements in response to the new variant, and the government has secured 10,000 hotel rooms.
6:45 a.m.: Gone are the glitzy, black-tie affairs with 500 or 1,000 guests in a massive event space. Now, it’s smaller dinners, or cocktail evenings with trays of hors d’oeuvres in board rooms, offices or smaller rooms at restaurants. And don’t forget the vaccine QR codes.
While some businesses are still deciding to spread holiday cheer by sending employees meal kits or holding a virtual gathering as they did during the pandemic’s third wave last winter, for others, getting out and socializing face to face again almost two years into the pandemic is an itch that must be scratched.
Read the full story from the Star’s Josh Rubin.
6:40 a.m.: More than five million Ontarians will need a third COVID-19 vaccine by the end of December to boost their protection against Omicron, according to the scientific director of the province’s science advisory table, who warns a third-dose rollout at the scale and urgency of the summer mass clinics is needed to stay ahead of the new variant.
With millions of second doses administered during the summer, the number of adults needing a third shot to keep up immunity against the virus grows daily, prompting experts to call on the province to open up eligibility to more age groups.
Read the full story from the Star’s Kenyon Wallace, Megan Ogilvie and May Warren here.
6:38 a.m.: Nearly two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the origin of the virus tormenting the world remains shrouded in mystery.
Most scientists believe it emerged in the wild and jumped from bats to humans, either directly or through another animal. Others theorize it escaped from a Chinese lab.
Now, with the global COVID-19 death toll surpassing 5.2 million on the second anniversary of the earliest human cases, a growing chorus of scientists is trying to keep the focus on what they regard as the more plausible “zoonotic,” or animal-to-human, theory, in the hope that what’s learned will help humankind fend off new viruses and variants.
“The lab-leak scenario gets a lot of attention, you know, on places like Twitter,” but “there’s no evidence that this virus was in a lab,” said University of Utah scientist Stephen Goldstein, who with 20 others wrote an article in the journal Cell in August laying out evidence for animal origin.
Read the full story from the Associated Press.
6:37 a.m.: New coronavirus infections in South Korea exceeded 7,000 for the third consecutive day on Friday in a record-breaking surge that has crushed hospitals and threatens the country’s goals to weather the pandemic without lockdowns.
Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum said during a virus meeting that the country could be forced to take “extraordinary” measures if the virus doesn’t slow soon. Officials issued administrative orders requiring hospitals around the country to designate 2,000 more beds combined for COVID-19 treatment.
Kim said the government will also speed up the administration of booster shots by shortening the interval between the second and third vaccine injections from the current four or five months to three months starting next week.
Around 41.5 million people, or 81% of the population of over 51 million, have been fully vaccinated, but only 10% have received booster shots.
6:37 a.m.: Israel decided Friday to extend its tough travel restrictions including its entry ban on all foreign nationals for a further ten days, in a bid to stop further cases of the omicron variant of coronavirus entering the country.
In a statement issued by Israel’s Prime Minister, Neftali Bennett, and Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz, the restrictions on passengers arriving at Israel’s Ben-Gurion International Airport will run until at least the 22 of December.
Under the current requirements, all Israelis returning from abroad must self-quarantine until they receive confirmation of a negative coronavirus PCR test result, while those arriving from high-risk countries are required to isolate at a state-governed quarantine hotel until they receive a negative PCR test result.
6:35 a.m.: Tighter restrictions to curb the coronavirus came into force in Britain on Friday, as the government faced new allegations that officials flouted rules they had imposed on the nation with lockdown-breaking parties last Christmas.
Face masks are once again compulsory in indoor public spaces in England under the measures British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced this week to slow the spread of the new omicron virus variant. Vaccination passes will be needed for nightclubs and large events starting next week, and residents will be told to work from home, if possible.
The emergence of omicron, which is spreading quickly in Britain, has shaken the government’s hopes that vaccinations would be enough to keep the virus in check. British scientists and officials say omicron spreads more quickly than the currently dominant Delta variant and likely is more resistant to current vaccines. It is not yet clear whether it causes more severe, or milder, cases off COVID-19.
Along with the new restrictions, the British government is offering everyone 18 and up a third, booster dose of vaccine to try to slow the spread of the virus.
The return of restrictions is unwelcome for many, and revelations of apparent rule-breaking by government officials during tough lockdowns last winter have heightened opposition to the new measures.
The government has asked Britain’s most senior civil servant to investigate several gatherings, including a Dec. 18, 2020, event at the prime minister’s 10 Downing St. offices, where staff reportedly enjoyed wine, food, games and a festive gift exchange at a time when pandemic regulations banned most social gatherings.
Multiple media outlets reported Friday that one of Johnson’s most senior advisers, Director of Communications Jack Doyle, attended the Dec. 18 party and gave awards to staff members. At the time, he was the deputy communications director.
6:35 a.m.: German lawmakers have overwhelmingly backed a bill that requires staff at hospitals and nursing homes to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Of the 689 votes cast in the lower house on the measure, 571 were in favour and 80 were against. Abstentions were recorded for 38 lawmakers.
The bill, which is being fast-tracked, still needs to be approved by the upper house, which is likely to happen later Friday.
6:35 a.m.: A mouse bite is at the centre of an investigation into a possible new COVID-19 outbreak in Taiwan, after a worker at a high-security laboratory was confirmed as the island’s first local case in more than a month.
The lab worker, a woman in her 20s, tested positive for COVID this week after coming into contact with the virus during her work at Academia Sinica, Taiwan’s top research institute, in mid-November, Health Minister Chen Shih-chung said at a quickly organized briefing Thursday evening. She had not travelled abroad recently and had received two doses of Moderna Inc.’s vaccine.
At the same briefing, another senior virus official confirmed local media reports that she had been bitten by a laboratory mouse infected with COVID, but said further investigation was need to determine whether the bite had been the source of the virus’s transmission. Taiwanese authorities believe she is likely infected with the delta variant.
The lab leak threatens to undo Taiwan’s hard-won success in stamping out COVID outbreaks, and underscores the difficulty of eliminating the pathogen, a goal some places — including mainland China and Hong Kong — are still aiming for.
6:34 a.m.: South African hospitalizations from the omicron coronavirus variant are rising at a slower rate than surging case numbers, while severe disease is limited and there’s only a small uptick in deaths.
Data presented by the government on Friday reinforces theories that while omicron spreads more rapidly than earlier strains, it exhibits less pathogenicity, or the ability to make people very ill.
Previous waves showed an increase in hospitalizations before a dramatic rise in case numbers, said Michelle Groome, the head of health surveillance for the country’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases. Now, “we first saw the increase in cases and then started seeing these hospitalizations, so early indications are that we may be starting to see a disconnect,” she said.
The findings will come as some relief for South Africa, the epicentre of the omicron outbreak, and the world as the mutation spreads to more than 50 countries. Case numbers in Africa’s most developed economy are nearing a record and the reproduction number, a gauge of how fast a virus spreads, is higher than it has been at any time during the pandemic.
But that’s not translating to overloaded hospital wards. While the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 is nearing 5,000, that’s about a quarter of its peak in the mid-year third wave.
6:32 a.m.: Hadley Phillipson-Webb didn’t know right away that the symptoms she began experiencing last December were those of an eating disorder.
She knew she was eating less, but she didn’t think much of it. Her mind was largely occupied with increasingly negative thoughts about her appearance as pandemic restrictions left her cut off from socializing with friends at school and at a karate studio where she taught and took classes.
“Not being able to see anyone or really kind of do anything just gave me more time to just think about myself,” she recalled. “As time went on, I was just less and less happy with my body and how I looked. So then I stopped eating.”
It’s a situation experts say many youth have found themselves in since COVID-19 hit – and a phenomenon hospitals in Ontario have been working hard to deal with.
In the last year, Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children said it has seen a 35 per cent annual increase in admissions to its eating disorder program, while its in-patient psychiatry and adolescent medicine unit has been consistently at or over capacity. A children’s hospital in Hamilton says it’s seen a 90 per cent spike in referrals to its eating disorder program.
Read the full story from the Canadian Press
6:30 a.m.: It’s one down and two to go with only a week left for the federal Liberal government to win parliamentary approval of priority legislation before an extended Christmas break.
The government has managed to win approval for one of three bills it wants to be passed before Parliament takes a six-week holiday break on Dec. 17.
But it’s uncertain the other two will make it through all the legislative hoops in time to meet the government’s self-imposed deadline.
The fate of Bill C-2 — which would create targeted support programs for sectors hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and a new lockdown benefit for individuals thrown out of work due to the pandemic — seems particularly iffy.
The minority Liberals appear to have a better shot at Bill C-3, which won unanimous approval in principle Thursday with support from all parties.
That two-pronged bill would create 10 days of paid sick leave for federally regulated employees and create new criminal offences aimed at cracking down on harassment or intimidation of health-care workers who have faced anti-vaccination or anti-abortion protests outside hospitals and clinics.
A third priority bill — banning the discredited practice of conversion therapy aimed at altering a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity — was fast-tracked without debate or votes through the House last week and through the Senate earlier this week. It received royal assent on Wednesday and is now the law of the land.
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