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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.
7:34 a.m. A Wisconsin pharmacist convinced the world was “crashing down” told police he tried to ruin hundreds of doses of coronavirus vaccine because he believed the shots would mutate people’s DNA, according to court documents released Monday.
Police in Grafton, about 20 miles (32 kilometres) north of Milwaukee, arrested Advocate Aurora Health pharmacist Steven Brandenburg last week following an investigation into the 57 spoiled vials of the Moderna vaccine, which officials say contained enough doses to inoculate more than 500 people. Charges are pending.
“He’d formed this belief they were unsafe,” Ozaukee County District Attorney Adam Gerol said during a virtual hearing. He added that Brandenburg was upset because he and his wife are divorcing, and an Aurora employee said Brandenburg had taken a gun to work twice.
A detective wrote in a probable cause statement that Brandenburg, 46, is an admitted conspiracy theorist and that he told investigators he intentionally tried to ruin the vaccine because it could hurt people by changing their DNA.
Misinformation around the COVID-19 vaccines has surged online with false claims circulating on everything from the vaccines’ ingredients to its possible side effects.
6:21 a.m. Germany's disease control centre on Tuesday reported 944 more COVID-19 deaths, fueling expectations that Chancellor Angela Merkel and the country's 16 state governors will extend the country's lockdown until the end of the month.
Germany’s latest lockdown took effect Dec. 16 after a partial shutdown starting in early November failed to reduce the number of daily new coronavirus infections. It was initially set to expire Jan. 10.
Merkel's meeting with the governors on Tuesday will decide how long the lockdown should go on and to what extent schools will reopen. Another topic high on the agenda will be addressing criticism of the country's vaccination program amid frustrations over its gradual start.
Vaccinations in Germany and the rest of the 27-nation European Union started over a week ago. In Germany, a nation of 83 million, nearly 265,000 vaccinations had been reported by Monday, the Robert Koch Institute said.
5:17 a.m. A new survey suggests nearly half of Canadians visited with family or friends over the winter holiday period.
The poll by Léger and the Association for Canadian Studies poll found 48 per cent of those surveyed visited with people outside their home, compared to 50 per cent who did not.
Public health officials had pleaded with Canadians to sharply limit their contacts during the holidays to avoid massive spikes in COVID-19 transmission.
Case numbers are rising and the poll suggests 62 per cent of those surveyed have little or no confidence that we'll limit the spread of COVID-19 over the next few weeks.
But 87 per cent said they would support a total ban on international travel until there are several consecutive days of reduced numbers of COVID-19 cases
Pollsters asked 1,506 people the questions between Dec. 30, 2020 and Jan. 3, 2021 as news emerged of several politicians who did travel abroad.
5:12 a.m. The travel industry in Canada has been thrown into a "tailspin" by new federal rules requiring a COVID-19 test before Canadians are allowed back into the country from most international travel, says the Association of Canadian Independent Travel Advisors.
The timing of Transport Minister Marc Garneau's announcement of the new protocol last Thursday — New Year's Eve — could not have been worse because many agents had closed their offices for the holiday long weekend, the group said in a statement.
"The releasing of this new protocol in the afternoon of New Year's Eve put most of our industry into a tailspin," ACITA said.
"With no warning in place, people who had chosen to travel over the New Year were not given the opportunity to cancel or change their trips."
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ACITA is a new association started by independent travel agents last spring in part to lobby for government assistance for the industry due to challenges caused by the pandemic.
It says the testing move "seems to be having the opposite effect" from helping the industry recover.
5:02 a.m. China has designated parts of Hebei province near Beijing as a coronavirus high danger zone after 14 new cases of COVID-19 were found.
Eleven of those cases were in Shijiazhuang city, where some events for the 2022 Winter Olympics will be held. An additional 30 people tested positive for the virus without showing any symptoms, the provincial health authority said Tuesday.
The other three COVID-19 cases were in the city of Yantai. Parts of Shijiazhuang were designated high danger areas, meaning they will undergo stricter testing and isolation measures, while parts of Yantai were registered as medium risk areas. Medical investigators were looking into whether a single event such as a family gathering had been the origin of many of the Hebei cases.
5 a.m. American biotech company Moderna says Israel has approved its COVID-19 vaccine, but the announcement comes as the country faces a rapidly growing outbreak of the disease.
Moderna said in a statement Tuesday that the Israeli Health Ministry authorized use of the company’s vaccine and that it would begin delivering this month the 6 million doses secured by Israel.
Israel’s Health Ministry reported 8,308 new confirmed cases of coronavirus on Tuesday — one of the highest daily tallies since the beginning of the pandemic — as the country struggles to contain the pandemic during a third national lockdown. Israel has recorded over 450,000 cases of coronavirus and 3,445 deaths.
At the same time, Israel has already vaccinated over 10% of its population, primarily the elderly and healthcare workers.
Tuesday 4:49 a.m. Amid public outcry, France’s health minister has promised an “exponential” acceleration of his country’s slow coronavirus vaccination process.
After barely 500 people in France were vaccinated in the first six days, Health Minister Olivier Veran defended the government’s strategy of giving the vaccines first to residents of nursing homes. But he vowed Tuesday to simplify a bureaucratic consent process blamed in part for France’s lagging vaccinations.
Veran said the government will expand the number of vaccination centres and categories of people eligible for early vaccines, and allow people to sign up for vaccinations on an app or by phone.
The growth of vaccinations in the coming days “will be exponential, rest assured,” he said on RTL radio. But he insisted that the government would not forego safety guidelines in a country facing broad vaccine skepticism.
Monday 9:35 p.m.: The COVID-related deaths of 96 Albertans were reported over the five-day New Years holiday, the province said Monday.
On Monday, the province released new COVID-19 data showing nearly 100 deaths were reported to the province between Dec. 30 and Jan. 3 and another 5,107 new cases were diagnosed over the five days.
The youngest person to pass away from the virus was a woman in her 20s from the central zone, who died Jan. 1. The province said there are no known comorbidities at this time.
Over the past 24 hours, 1,128 new cases were reported in the province and 11,900 tests were completed. There are currently 13,839 active cases in the province and since the beginning of the pandemic the province has run 2,847,016 COVID-19 tests. There were 27 deaths reported on Jan. 3.
Click here to read more COVID-19 coverage from Monday.
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2021-01-05 12:45:00Z
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