KEY FACTS1 p.m.: Federal government plans to require air travellers to test negative for COVID-19 before landing in Canada
12:15 p.m.: New workplace restrictions coming to Toronto next week as city reports 1,069 new cases
10:15 a.m.: Ontario reports record-high 2,923 cases and 19 deaths
10 a.m.: U.K. authorizes COVID-19 vaccine from Oxford University and AstraZeneca
The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world Wednesday. This file will be updated throughout the day. Web links to longer stories if available.
4:52 p.m.: Canada will soon require air travellers to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test before entering the country, federal ministers announced Wednesday — as they pleaded with Canadians not to travel for non-essential reasons.
Wednesday’s announcement in Ottawa came one day after it was revealed that Ontario Finance Minister Rod Phillips has been vacationing this month in St. Barts — a decision for which Phillips has apologized and led Premier Doug Ford to say he was “extremely disappointed.”
The federal government’s advice against non-essential travel has been in place since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in March.
“We want to reinforce a very simple but important message: We strongly advise against travel unless it is absolutely necessary,” said Public Safety Minister Bill Blair, pointing out that the government can’t actually prevent people from travelling.
Read Jacques Gallant’s full report.
4:43 p.m.: California Gov. Gavin Newsom has announced the first known case of the new and apparently more contagious variant of the coronavirus in the nation's most populated state, following the first reported U.S. case in Colorado.
Newsom said he had just learned of the finding in a Southern California case Wednesday. He announced it during an online conversation with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious-disease expert.
Fauci said: “I don’t think Californians should think that this is odd, it’s to be expected."
Newsom did not provide any other details about the person who was infected.
The Colorado and California cases have triggered a host of questions about how the mutant version circulating in England arrived in the U.S. and whether it is too late to stop it now, with top experts saying it is probably already spreading elsewhere in the United States.
3:48 p.m.: The Columbian Centre seniors living complex in Prince Albert was recently declared under lockdown after public health detected five cases of COVID-19 among residents of the building.
According to facility manager Rob Fahlman after an initial positive test was confirmed on Dec. 23 public health informed Columbian Centre that seniors are not allowed to leave their rooms and visitors are not permitted.
“People were just getting ready to leave for their families. So they dropped everything and just stayed the course,” Fahlman said.
A letter displayed on the building’s entrance states that home care staff are allowed to enter with the proper personal protective equipment. The letter was given to Fahlman by public health after the initial positive case on Dec. 23.
“I am most concerned about the ones that have tested positive and it just makes me feel more at ease that they are comfortable. Some of them have symptoms but for the most part they are doing very well isolating in their own suites,” he explained.
3:47 p.m.: Manitoba expects to receive 40,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses in January and will be changing its distribution plans.
Premier Brian Pallister says Manitoba will follow the lead of other provinces that are no longer holding back a stockpile for a second dose of vaccine, as supply chains have proven to be largely successful.
Both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines require a second dosage.
The premier says the province will keep a smaller stockpile in case of supply-chain disruptions.
Front-line health-workers will still be the main priority for vaccinations in the first month of the new year.
Manitoba has reported 130 new cases of the virus and two additional deaths.
The five-day provincial COVID-19 test positivity rate is 12.6 per cent.
Pallister says Manitobans need to remain vigilant and the next 90 days are critical to lessening the spread of the novel coronavirus.
“As we move into the new year, these vaccines are only going to be hitting a small percentage of the population,” Pallister said Wednesday.
3:46 p.m.: Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he found out his finance minister was travelling abroad roughly two week ago, and should have pushed then for his immediate return.
Ford says Rod Phillips “never told anyone” he was going to St. Barts on Dec. 13, but the premier learned of the trip shortly after it began.
“I did call him shortly after he arrived and I talked to him and asked where he was. He said he was away,” the premier said Wednesday.
“My mistake. I take full responsibility. At that time, I should have said, ‘get your backside back to Ontario,’ and I didn’t do that.”
Ford said he will have a serious conversation with Phillips on Thursday upon the minister’s return.
The premier’s comments come as Opposition legislators are calling for Phillips to be removed from cabinet over his international vacation.
They say the minister contravened the government’s own health guidelines by travelling abroad, and it’s not believable he would do so without telling the premier.
Phillips said in a statement Tuesday that he left on a trip to St. Barts after the end of the legislative session.
The minister said he made the decision to travel not knowing the province would be placed under lockdown on Boxing Day, and “deeply regrets” the move.
3:45 p.m.: Sun Peaks agencies have taken swift action in order to stop the spread of COVID-19, after recent testing diagnosed four people in the community with the contagious virus. All four are staff members at the Sun Peaks Grand Hotel, which is owned and operated by Sun Peaks Resort LLP (SPR).
Local testing results from Monday, Dec. 28, were promising, with 19 tests all registering negative for the virus.
Sun Peaks physician Dr. Shane Barclay has taken a leading role in the community’s response to the virus and is urging the community to stay vigilant about following social distancing protocols.
Upon learning of four positive cases (one on Dec. 24 and three on Dec. 25), Barclay sent out a letter to the public letting them know of the positive diagnoses. He also worked closely with community stakeholders to carry out contract tracing.
“I just thought, let’s make this real for people,” said Barclay, explaining his decision to get the letter out.
3:45 p.m.: Florida’s Department of Health on Wednesday confirmed 13,871 additional cases of COVID-19, the most reported since July. The state has now confirmed a total of 1,306,123 cases.
Also, 137 new resident deaths were announced, bringing the resident toll to 21,546. Two new non-resident deaths were also announced, bringing the non-resident toll to 311.
Wednesday’s single-day case count is the most recorded since July 16, when 13,965 cases were added. That is if you exclude Nov. 27 and Dec. 26, when the state reported more than 17,000 cases because no reports were issued on Thanksgiving or Christmas. Testing information was not immediately available.
Following the highest spike in coronavirus per cent positivity reaching the state’s peak, positivity plummeted to 8.72 per cent from 22.81 per cent, returning to the two-week trend of daily positivity ranging from 8.03 per cent to 11.11 per cent.
This in part has do to 180,183 people being tested Tuesday, which is nearly triple the amount tested when the spike occurred, and comes in as the second highest day of testing in the last two weeks.
This sudden drop in positivity and increase in testing also occurred in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, lowering the counties’ per cent positivities as well.
3:44 p.m.: The Cuban government has announced it will cut down on the number of travellers allowed into the island from the U.S. and five other countries as of Jan. 1 to avoid an increase in the number of coronavirus infections.
It is not clear how the authorities plan to implement the measure, but a government statement alludes to a reduction in the number of flights. “The Civil Aeronautics authorities of Cuba are dealing with the airlines on the necessary details,” the statement said.
Several owners of Miami agencies that deal with travel to the island told el Nuevo Herald that Cuba will possibly restrict the number of flights to “a single flight per day for each charter” airline.
“They also reduced the frequency of [commercial] airlines,” said an executive who asked to remain anonymous to avoid reprisals from the Cuban government. “The availability of tickets and prices will be affected by this measure. Prices go up when there is no supply. It is the law of the market.”
Another manager at a charter agency told el Nuevo Herald that Cuban officials had raised the idea of limiting Cuban-American travel to only those who wish to spend more than 10 days on the island.
2:45 p.m.: Britain became the first country to authorize AstraZeneca’s inexpensive, easy-to-handle COVID-19 vaccine Wednesday, gaining another weapon against the virus amid a resurgence so severe that the government extended lockdowns to three-quarters of England’s population.
The country also changed course by deciding to dispense the first dose of its vaccines to as many people as possible right away, to give them at least some protection. Until now, authorities have been holding large amounts of vaccine in reserve, to make sure those who receive the first dose get the required second one on time.
The vaccine developed by the drugmaker and Oxford University could hold great appeal in less developed parts of the world because of its low cost and the fact that it can be kept in refrigerators rather than at the ultracold or freezer temperatures some other vaccines require.
“This wonderful news brings renewed hope at a time of rising infections and unprecedented pressure on health services in the U.K. and beyond. It is now critical that this hope can be shared by all nations,” said Anna Marriot, health policy manager at the Oxfam aid agency.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson hailed the “fantastic achievement for British science, which will allow us to vaccinate more people and also vaccinate them more quickly.”
2:44 p.m.: Nova Scotia reported three new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday.
All of the new cases were in the Halifax area and involved close contacts of previously reported cases.
Health officials said two of the cases were connected with two schools in Dartmouth — Prince Andrew High School and Eric Graves Memorial Junior High School.
The schools are closed for the holiday break and are scheduled to be cleaned before staff return on Monday.
Officials said contact tracing for all three cases was underway.
The province said it had a total of 25 active reported cases of COVID-19, and one person was currently in hospital with the disease.
2:24 p.m.: The newly discovered, more contagious variant of the coronavirus — first seen in Britain — may have been found in a second person in Colorado, state officials said Wednesday.
The first known case of the variant in the United States was reported there on Tuesday. The second case has not yet been confirmed but is “highly suspicious,” Emily Travanty, interim director of the state public health laboratory, said Wednesday in a conference call with reporters and Gov. Jared Polis.
Both cases involve members of the Colorado National Guard who were sent to Simla, Colorado, to help staff the Good Samaritan nursing home, which has had a severe virus outbreak recently, Dr. Rachel Herlihy, the Colorado state public health researcher , said on the call. Simla is a small town in Elbert County, about 80 miles southeast of Denver.
It was not clear whether the two National Guard members were infected at the nursing home or had picked up the virus before they went to Simla. They arrived Dec. 23, after most of the cases at the facility had occurred, Herlihy said. They were tested the next day as part of routine testing of National Guard members, and both tests came back positive, she said.
1:35 p.m.: Alberta has reported 112 more people have died from COVID-19.
The grim figure, issued Monday afternoon following a five-day break, brings the total Albertans who have died from the virus to 1,002 so far. The latest deaths may have occurred up to two weeks before they were reported.
Throughout the holidays, daily COVID-19 case numbers in Alberta slowed, but Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Hinshaw said that is due in part to fewer tests being conducted.
Over this five-day period, the daily rate of people testing positive for COVID-19 ranged from 6.4 per cent to 9.6 per cent.
There are currently 15,487 active cases of COVID-19 reported by Alberta Health in the province.
1:20 p.m.: Come Jan. 1, Canada Pension Plan contributions are going up again, although higher than originally planned.
The reason is largely because of the pandemic’s effect on the labour market, which has some groups noting the impact will be felt by some workers more than others.
The planned increase on Jan. 1 is part of a multi-year plan approved by provinces and the federal government four years ago to boost retirement benefits through the public plan by increasing contributions over time.
The first premium bump was in 2019, another was earlier this year and the next is due at the beginning of 2021.
A KPMG note in November said the maximum employer and employee contributions will hit $3,166 each in 2021, an increase from the $2,898 this year. For self-employed contributions, the maximum amount will be $6,332, up from $5,796.
1 p.m.: The federal government says it plans to require air travellers to test negative for COVID-19 before landing in Canada.
Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc says cabinet ministers decided this morning to quickly enact the new requirement.
All passengers on flights entering Canada will require a negative PCR test three days before their arrival. LeBlanc didn’t say when the requirement will be in place.
The announcement follows criticism that federal travel restrictions and quarantine rules have been too lax.
It also comes as Ontario’s finance minister finds himself in hot water over travelling out of the country despite Canadians being asked to avoid such trips.
12:50 p.m.: Quebec is reporting a record-high 2,511 new COVID-19 cases today as well as an 80-patient jump in hospitalizations.
Another 41 people died from the virus, including 10 in the past 24 hours.
Health Minister Christian Dube noted on Twitter that all the province’s pandemic-related indicators are up, including hospitalizations, which broke the 1,200 mark.
Of those in hospital with the disease, four more people were in intensive care compared with the prior day, for a total of 152.
The province administered 2,739 vaccine doses Tuesday, for a total of 25,315.
12:45 p.m.: Ontario’s Opposition is calling for the finance minister to be removed from cabinet over his decision to vacation abroad as the COVID-19 pandemic tightened its grip on the province.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath says Rod Phillips ignored the province’s own public health guidelines by travelling to St. Barts this month, even as the government urged residents to stay home.
She says it’s “not believable” that a senior member of cabinet would leave the country for weeks at the height of a health crisis without telling the premier.
If Phillips did in fact keep it a secret, she says, that alone would be a reason to demote him.
Last night, Premier Doug Ford said he told Phillips to return immediately, adding he is “extremely disappointed” by the minister’s decision to travel.
12:15 p.m. (Updated): Seventy-eight Torontonians have died of COVID-19 since Christmas Eve, city officials Wednesday, announcing that local cases had hit a record high for the second day in a row and hinting at new workplace restrictions coming next week.
Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Eileen de Villa, said at a press conference that Toronto is reporting another 1,069 new cases, with 345 patients in hospital and 92 in intensive care. That’s a record high for the second day in a row, after the 957 cases on Tuesday.
While progress on vaccines is encouraging, that doesn’t mean we can let our guard down, she told reporters.
“We must be active, we must be vigilant, determined and patient while we wait our turn” for the shot, she said. It’s time to “double down,” on masks and stay apart from people you don’t live with.
Early next week, Toronto Public Health will announce additional actions to reduce risk in workplaces, de Villa added, without mentioning what exactly what they will be.
Read the full story from May Warren here.
11:40 a.m.: Work has resumed at a Guelph, Ont., meat-processing plant that temporarily shut down this month during a COVID-19 outbreak.
Cargill says operations resumed Tuesday morning and continued Wednesday after a deep cleaning of the facility.
As of Tuesday, the local public health unit had confirmed 143 people infected with COVID-19 in the outbreak.
Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health said 55 of the cases were still considered active.
At least 82 workers at the plant were infected with COVID-19 on Dec. 17 when the plant was temporarily idled.
11:30 a.m.: Luke Letlow, Louisiana’s incoming Republican member of the U.S. House, has died from complications related to COVID-19 only days before he would have been sworn into office. He was 41.
The congressman-elect died at Ochsner-LSU Health Shreveport on Tuesday, according to his spokesman Andrew Bautsch.
Letlow is one of more than 7,000 people in Louisiana who have died from COVID-19 since March, according to data from the state health department.
10:44 a.m.: Toronto Mayor John Tory announced Wednesday morning that, pending provincial approval, the city will provide emergency child-care services to essential workers with school-aged children at three locations during the first week in January when schools will participate in remote learning.
Eligible people include health-care workers, emergency service providers and other workers who cannot work from home. The full list of eligible workers is posted on the province’s website.
The province announced earlier this month that schools will remain closed and will move to remote learning during the week of Jan. 4 to 8.
The three city-run child-care centres open for essential workers will be:
- Shoreham Early Learning and Child Care Centre
- Taylor Creek Early Learning and Child Care Centre
- O’Connor Satellite Early Learning and Child Care Centre
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Read the full story from Brendan Kennedy here.
10:40 a.m.: Toronto’s medical officer of health says the city is reporting its second record day in a row for new COVID-19 infections, writes Star reporter May Warren.
At a Wednesday-morning news conference, Dr. Eileen de Villa said the city is reporting 1,069 new cases, up from 957 Tuesday. The city is also reporting four more deaths, she said, with 345 people currently hospitalized and 92 in intensive care.
More than 60,000 people have been infected in the city over the course of the pandemic, she said.
10:15 a.m.: In its daily morning update, the province confirmed a record 2,923 cases for the second day in a row, following the 2,553 cases reported Tuesday, reports the Star’s Ed Tubb.
The high totals follow a holiday weekend in which several local health units took time off from daily cases reporting. The provincewide totals reported over the weekend were relatively low.
Still, the province’s long-term average for cases is once again at a new high. Ontario is now averaging 2,310 cases daily over the last seven days, up from the previous high recorded on Christmas Eve. Adjusted for population, the provincial average works out to 111 cases weekly per 100,000.
The province is also reporting new highs in hospitalizations. The total of 1,117 currently hospitalized COVID-19 patients is most ever for the entire pandemic, as is the roster of 323 patients in intensive care.
The province reported 19 new deaths Wednesday. A total of 4,474 people have died of COVID-19 in Ontario.
Locally, there are 998 new cases in Toronto, 441 in Peel, 408 in York Region, 158 in Durham and 144 in Windsor-Essex County.
Retired Gen. Rick Hillier, who is leading the province’s COVID-19 vaccination program, says the drug will be distributed to long-term care and retirement homes.
He says immunizations are slated to start there within days of the delivery.
Hillier said Tuesday that more than half of Ontarians — about 8.5 million — should receive the vaccine by the end of July.
10 a.m.: Britain has authorized use of a second COVID-19 vaccine, becoming the first country to green light an easy-to-handle shot that its developers hope will become the “vaccine for the world.”
The government says the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency has made an emergency authorization for the vaccine developed by Oxford University and UK-based drugmaker AstraZeneca.
AstraZeneca chief executive Pascal Soriot says “today is an important day for millions of people in the U.K. who will get access to this new vaccine. It has been shown to be effective, well-tolerated, simple to administer and is supplied by AstraZeneca at no profit.”
9 a.m.: A Windsor, Ont., hospital is postponing all non-urgent elective surgeries starting next month as COVID-19 hospitalizations rise “at an alarming rate.”
Windsor Regional Hospital says the decision is difficult but necessary as rising COVID-19 admissions could mean a “critical shortage” of available acute care beds.
Earlier this month, the hospital announced elective surgeries requiring an overnight stay would be deferred, starting Jan. 4.
Now day surgeries will also be postponed indefinitely as of the same date.
A statement from the hospital says the total number of surgeries will be cut by about 50 per cent.
Surgeons are being asked to assess their elective cases booked after Jan. 4 and notify affected patients.
9 a.m.: Every winter, retirees from the Northeast and Midwest head to the warmth of Florida, occupying seasonal homes and condos. But 2021 isn’t like years past.
This year, “snowbirds” are weighing a new consideration when deciding whether to flee their cold-weather states: Where am I more likely to get a COVID-19 vaccine? So far, that’s a complicated question in Florida, with little clear direction from the state.
South Florida hospitals, which have been given considerable leeway in deciding how they deploy vaccine doses in the last few weeks, have just recently pivoted from vaccinating health care workers to prioritizing the shots for senior citizens in the general public.
7 a.m.: In a sterile hospital room, around 3 p.m. on Nov. 28, 2020, Toronto’s homeless population increased by one. A six-pound, 12-ounce infant with a shock of dark hair came into the world without a fixed address.
The baby’s mother — whom the Star is identifying only as Morgan — and 13-year-old sister have spent the past few months bouncing between temporary accommodations, from a homeless shelter to the single room where they’re now crashing with a friend.
Squeezing into one room is homelessness all the same, Morgan said. It’s a stopgap — a setup that’ll tide them over for now.
The baby girl born that November day is one of hundreds of infants birthed each year in Toronto by homeless and underhoused mothers.
Read the full story from Victoria Gibson here.
7 a.m.: Most manufacturing, assembly and distribution warehouses of Ontario are clustered in Peel. That includes one of the biggest national Amazon warehouses.
Peel Public Health has investigated over 1,500 workplace COVID-19 exposures and one out of three (33.6 per cent) of these outbreaks have been in manufacturing or industrial settings.
As one reads this, it’s not hard to extrapolate why COVID-19 cases continue to rise at an alarming rate in Peel, and why Peel has remained the region with one of the highest COVID-19 incidence rates in Ontario despite lockdown.
In fact, as the province had announced an Ontario-wide lockdown starting on Boxing Day, more and more people flocked to malls and e-commerce sites to make purchases. All of this was possible because workers continued to put their lives at risk in manufacturing, packaging and distributing various products and a significant proportion of these workers reside in Peel.
Read the full story here from contributors Dr. Amanpreet Brar, Dr. Maria Daniel, and Gurbaaz Sra: ‘I am scared to take a day off whether sick or not.’ The voiceless warehouse workers in Peel and how COVID-19 has silenced them even more
7 a.m.: It was near the end of June that Dr. Vivek Goel decided to give up his job as vice-president research at the University of Toronto to make whatever contribution he could as a public health physician.
The founding president and CEO of Public Health Ontario, created after the SARS outbreak in 2003, has since advised the university’s president on COVID-19 and served on the federal immunity task force.
In a year marked by COVID-19, where public health professionals were front-and-centre, it seems fitting that Goel would be among the 59 additions to the Order of Canada.
Among the names made public Wednesday by Rideau Hall are science journalist Yanick Villedieu; opera singer Daniel Taylor; philanthropist Sally Horsfall Eaton; Louise Mailhot, who was the first woman appointed as a judge to the Quebec Court of Appeal; and John Borrows, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Law at the University of Victoria.
Click here for the names, level and citations of the 59 newest members of the Order of Canada.
Read more about the new members of the Order of Canada here.
6:35 a.m. A new variant of the coronavirus that may be more contagious has been found in a Colorado man who had not been travelling, triggering a host of questions about how the first U.S. case of the new version showed up in the Rocky Mountain state.
The new variant was first identified in England, and infections are soaring now in Britain, where the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients has surpassed the first peak of the outbreak in the spring. The new variant has also been found in several other countries.
Colorado officials were expected to provide more details at a news conference Wednesday about how the man in his 20s from a mostly rural area of rolling plains at the edge of the Denver metro area came down with the variant.
6 a.m. It’s been a year for the ages, with the spread of a coronavirus, no longer novel, sickening and killing people around the world. Unsurprisingly, after taking stock of the past 12 months, The Canadian Press named COVID-19 the story of the year.
There’s no question that COVID-19 reshaped the year for everyone — but what if it hadn’t?
We asked a few observers to imagine such an alternative reality for us, and to take a guess at what 2020 might have looked like without COVID-19.
Read the full story here to see what they said.
5:19 a.m. Luke Letlow, who was to have been Louisiana’s newest Republican member of the U.S. House, has died from complications related to COVID-19 only days before being sworn into office. He was 41.
Letlow spokesman Andrew Bautsch confirmed the congressman-elect’s death Tuesday at Ochsner-LSU Health Shreveport. The spokesman says that “the family appreciates the numerous prayers and support over the past days.”
Letlow had won a December runoff election and was set to take office in January. He was admitted to a Monroe hospital on Dec. 19 after testing positive for the coronavirus. He was later transferred to the Shreveport medical centre and placed in intensive care.
5:15 a.m. German authorities have reported more than 1,000 coronavirus-related deaths in one day for the first time since the pandemic began.
The national disease control centre, the Robert Koch Institute, said Wednesday that 1,129 deaths were reported over the past 24 hours. That exceeds the previous record set a week ago of 962 and brings Germany’s total death toll to 32,107.
While delayed reporting of statistics over holidays and weekends is often an issue in Germany, the latest figure fits a recent pattern of high numbers of deaths.
Germany had a relatively low death rate in the first phase of the pandemic but has seen hundreds of deaths per day in recent weeks. Among major European nations, Italy, the U.K., France and Spain still have higher death tolls.
A shutdown that was deepened on Dec. 16 with the closure of schools and most shops is scheduled to remain in place until Jan. 10. It appears almost certain to be extended when Chancellor Angela Merkel and state governors review the situation next week.
5:11 a.m. A Chinese drugmaker said Wednesday its coronavirus vaccine was found to be 79.3 per cent effective at preventing infection in preliminary data from the final round of testing, moving Beijing closer to possibly being able to fulfil its pledge to supply other developing countries.
Sinopharm’s data release is the first official announcement of late-stage trial data from a Chinese company on its vaccine candidates. Its effectiveness rate is behind Moderna’s vaccine, which is more than 94 per cent effective, and Pfizer’s, which is 95 per cent effective. Scientists had cautioned that COVID-19 vaccines may only be about as effective as the flu vaccine, which generally is about 50 per cent effective.
However, the company did not provide additional information, and final proof of the vaccine’s effectiveness will depend on publication of fuller scientific data.
5:07 a.m. Britain on Wednesday became the first country to authorize an easy-to-handle COVID-19 vaccine whose developers hope it will become the “vaccine for the world.” The approval and a shift in policy that will speed up rollout of the vaccine in the U.K. comes as a surge in infections threatens to swamp British hospitals.
The Department of Health said it had accepted a recommendation from the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency to authorize emergency use of the vaccine developed by Oxford University and U.K.-based drugmaker AstraZeneca.
“The rollout will start on Jan. 4 and will really accelerate into the first few weeks of next year,” British Health Secretary Matt Hancock told Sky News. Britain has bought 100 million doses of the vaccine.
AstraZeneca chief executive Pascal Soriot told BBC Radio 4 the company could start shipping the first doses of the vaccine Wednesday or Thursday “and the vaccination will start next week and we will get to 1 million — and beyond that — a week, very rapidly.”
5:04 a.m. Saskatchewan is to release details today on how it will vaccinate older residents in the north against the novel coronavirus.
The province’s health minister and chief medical health officer are to provide a briefing about the rollout of the Moderna vaccine, which is set to arrive in Saskatchewan this week.
Before Christmas, officials said they expected to receive 4,900 doses.
The province planned to use the Moderna vaccine to immunize residents in northern Saskatchewan and remote communities because it’s easier to transport than the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which needs ultracold storage.
So far, more than 2,300 health-care workers in Regina and Saskatoon have received a first dose of the Pfizer vaccine.
Premier Scott Moe said last week that those living in long-term care facilities would also be among the first in line to get the Moderna shots.
The province recorded 208 new COVID-19 infections over Monday and Tuesday. Fewer than 1,300 tests were processed each of those days.
Wednesday 5 a.m. Some 50,000 doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine are expected to arrive in Ontario today.
Retired Gen. Rick Hillier, who is leading the province’s COVID-19 vaccination program, says the drug will be distributed to long-term care and retirement homes.
He says immunizations are slated to start there within days of the delivery.
Hillier said Tuesday that more than half of Ontarians — about 8.5 million — should receive the vaccine by the end of July.
Another vaccine made by Pfizer-BioNTech is already being administered to health-care workers, but its storage requirements limit where that can be done.
Ontario’s associate chief medical officer of health is expected to discuss the province’s framework for vaccine distribution at a news conference this afternoon.
Tuesday 10:16 p.m.: U.S. President-elect Joe Biden criticized the Trump administration Tuesday for the pace of distributing COVID-19 vaccines and predicted that “things will get worse before they get better” when it comes to the pandemic.
“We need to be honest — the next few weeks and months are going to be very tough, very tough for our nation. Maybe the toughest during this entire pandemic,” Biden said during remarks in Wilmington, Delaware on Tuesday.
His comments come as the coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 336,000 Americans, with experts warning holiday travel and gatherings could precipitate yet another spike in virus cases even as the virus has already been surging in states nationwide.
Click here to read more of Tuesday’s COVID-19 coverage.
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