Today’s coronavirus news: New testing program at Pearson can deliver results for select passengers in hours; Two Sudbury schools closed; Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine safe, U.S. regulators say - Toronto Star

Retired general Rick Hillier, chair of Ontario's COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution Task Force, holds a briefing at Queen's Park to provide an update on the province's distribution plan.

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.

9:50 a.m. The Royal Agricultural Winter Fair is set to take place in person this November, CEO Charlie Johnstone told the Star.

“The plan right now is to open up the doors to the public so we can execute a physical fair in November consistent with the mission and mandate that is the Royal Winter Fair and we’re excited about doing that,” he said.

The annual fair, first held in 1922, is scheduled to kick off Nov. 5 and run for a total of nine days. It normally draws 300,000 people, according to its website, but last year’s event was one of many gatherings to be cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Being off last year was a challenge for everybody across the board, across the world,” Johnstone said. “We’re really enthusiastically embracing the opportunity to once again welcome the very best in Canadian agriculture, local food and equestrian sport to Royal.”

The Canadian National Exhibition, also called off last summer, is also scheduled to go ahead with its in-person festivities this year.

“The CNE team is very busy planning our 2021 event,” director of marketing and communications, Karen Lynch told the Star. “That said, we are following Public Health Guidelines very carefully and will be proceeding with the 2021 CNE unless governmental stipulations prevent us from doing so.”

Read the full story from the Star’s Irelyne Lavery

9:35 a.m. Ghana received the world’s first delivery of coronavirus vaccines from the United Nations-backed COVAX initiative on Wednesday — the long-awaited start for a program that has thus far fallen short of hopes that it would ensure shots were given quickly to the world’s most vulnerable people.

The arrival of 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the West African country marks the beginning of the largest vaccine procurement and supply operation in history, according to the World Health Organization and UNICEF. It is a linchpin of efforts to bring the pandemic to an end and has been hailed as the first time the world has delivered a highly sought-after vaccine to poor countries during an ongoing outbreak.

“Today marks the historic moment for which we have been planning and working so hard. With the first shipment of doses, we can make good on the promise of the COVAX facility to ensure people from less wealthy countries are not left behind in the race for life-saving vaccines,” said Henrietta Fore, executive director of UNICEF, which delivered the vaccines.

9:20 a.m. Two more units have been added to a COVID-19 outbreak declared at Vancouver General Hospital.

A statement from Vancouver Coastal Health says outbreaks are underway on inpatient units T-14-G and T-11-G in the highrise tower of the hospital's Jim Pattison Pavilion.

The health authority says the outbreaks are in addition to one declared Sunday in unit T-10-C in the same tower.

The statement says, in total, 16 patients and 13 staff members have tested positive for COVID-19.

Visits to all three units have been suspended, except for end-of-life compassionate visits, and the hospital says infection prevention and control protocols are underway to prevent further transmission.

Coastal Health says the rest of the hospital, including the emergency room, remain open and operating as usual.

9:10 a.m. When Sharmila D’Souza landed in Toronto with her daughter, Isabel, she was hoping her detailed quarantine plan would be enough to spare them a mandatory three-day hotel stay.

D’Souza has not seen her husband, Isabel’s father, in two years — separated by family responsibilities back in India and COVID-19.

But there are no exceptions to Canada’s new quarantine rules for international air travellers, which require incoming passengers to book three nights in one of 18 approved hotels in Toronto, Calgary, Montreal and Vancouver, and to stay there until they get the results of their coronavirus test.

Read the full story from the Star’s Alex McKeen

9 a.m. When COVID-19 hit Ontario and the first provincial state of emergency shuttered venues for the arts, one might say it was the day live music died.

Bars and restaurants could not have live entertainment. Curtains came down on theatres with shows suspended. Arenas could not host concerts, while music festivals went virtual or were cancelled altogether. Busking was still possible, although it is not an outlet for all the arts and streets were largely bare of foot traffic to play for.

Circumstances that some hoped to be temporary have extended for nearly a year. With some venues closed forever and others cautiously reopened following provincial orders, there has yet to be a place for musicians. They aren’t essential by the province’s terms and they’ve had to stay at home.

It’s a grim landscape but, as one musician says, when you have a musical talent you will find a way to use it. The bills have to be paid too.

Three Toronto musicians told the Star how they’ve been making music.

Read the full story from the Star’s Brian Bradley

8:42 a.m. Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective, U.S. regulators said, a key milestone on the path toward giving Americans access to the first such shot to work in a single dose.

The vaccine was 72 per cent effective in a U.S. clinical trial, Food and Drug Administration staff wrote in a document summarizing the company’s trial data, confirming findings J&J released earlier this month. There were no COVID-related deaths in the vaccinated group, the staff wrote. Agency officials prepared the document ahead of a meeting Friday where external advisers will make a non-binding recommendation as to whether the vaccine should be authorized.

The analysis supported a favourable safety profile with no specific safety concerns identified that would preclude issuance of an EUA.

Vaccines from Moderna Inc. and the partnership of Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE were authorized by the FDA in December, just before the first major coronavirus variants were seen in the U.S.

8:24 a.m. After being at the centre of COVID-19 deaths and mass outbreaks, the city’s long-term-care homes have new, hopeful data that could be a sign of encouraging things to come.

This week, Toronto Public Health reported a “substantial decline” in the rate seniors have tested positive in long-term-care homes, from 10.9 per cent in November to just 0.6 per cent as of the week of Feb. 7 — well below the overall city rate of 4.8 per cent.

It was the “first sign” Mayor John Tory said this week that the city’s vaccination efforts were working.

In the 10 homes the city of Toronto runs, there was just a single staff person that tested positive recently and zero residents who had COVID-19.

“This week was the first week where we actually saw zeroes for a short period of time, which was just so striking for us,” said Paul Raftis, the head of Toronto’s senior care. Caring for the city’s most vulnerable has kept him up at night. Now, the falling numbers have brought a huge wave of relief.

“There really isn’t words for it.”

That sharp decline comes just a week after the city celebrated the successful completion of vaccination of more than 10,000 residents across all 87 of the city’s LTCs — public, non-profit and for-profit.

Read the full story from the Star’s Jennifer Pagliaro

8:16 a.m. Public health officials in Sudbury have dismissed students and staff from two schools following five confirmed cases of COVID-19.

Lasalle Secondary School and Cyril Varney Public School were closed today.

All five cases have been identified by Public Health Sudbury & Districts as variants of concern.

The afternoon route of elementary bus N100 is also affected.

Staff and students at the two schools and on the bus route are being advised by public health officials to self-isolate and get tested for COVID-19.

Officials say there is no evidence that the virus was acquired or spread within the school communities, so no outbreak has been declared.

8:05 a.m. As millions of Ontario seniors wonder when it will be their turn for the COVID-19 vaccine, residents of one east Toronto apartment building found the shots arriving at their doors, Tuesday.

A pilot program is rolling out over the next three days, with the hope that it can be used as a model for getting vaccines to those who need them most, when more become available.

The residents of Jack Layton Seniors Housing, a publicly funded non-profit seniors building, were the first to get the delivery service.

“I think the main reason we wanted to do this is to try to figure out how best to deliver vaccines to seniors” 80 and older, said Dr. Jeff Powis, medical director of infection prevention and control at Michael Garron Hospital.

“This is a bit of a trial run to see what we could do differently,” he said, starting with the highest risk apartments with a lot of older people, and then “very quickly moving out to other buildings that are predominantly seniors.”

Read the full story from the Star’s May Warren

7:48 a.m. Hydro One Ltd. reported its fourth-quarter profit fell compared with a year earlier as the power utility faced higher costs related to the pandemic.

Hydro One says it earned net income attributable to common shareholders of $161 million or 27 cents per diluted share for the quarter ended Dec. 31, compared with a profit of $211 million or 35 cents per diluted share a year earlier.

In addition to COVID-19 related expenses, the company says it saw a reduction in insurance proceeds, higher depreciation and asset removal costs and higher taxes.

Revenue for the quarter totalled $1.87 billion, up from $1.72 billion.

6:21 a.m.: Travellers and employees at Toronto’s Pearson airport will soon be able to opt in to a COVID-19 testing research program that will deliver results in just two hours.

The Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA), which operates Toronto Pearson International Airport, is working with several Canadian health care companies to deploy the 10-week program, which is designed to test the efficacy of antigen tests against the approved PCR test.

The program, which launches on March 1, is supported in part by funding from the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP).

“This research will contribute substantial new scientific data to the body of knowledge used to fight this disease by improving access to testing that will identify, trace and isolate COVID-19,” said GTAA president and CEO Deborah Flint in a press release Wednesday.

Read the full story from the Star’s Rosa Saba.

6:18 a.m.: One of the few bright spots to the pandemic shines through in a crop of new entrepreneurs. For some, the shakeup in daily routines has brought the push they needed to jump into new business ideas that didn’t seem possible before.

Read the story from the Star’s Jenna Moon and Angelyn Francis here.

6:18 a.m.: Thailand on Wednesday received its first delivery of COVID-19 vaccine for mass inoculations, 200,000 doses from the China-based company Sinovac.

The lot received by Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport is part of a total 2 million doses the government earlier reserved from Sinovac.

The government plans to start vaccinations in 13 high-risk provinces on March 1. They will be for frontline medical personnel, officials with exposure to infected patients, and people with congenital diseases.

About a third of the initial 200,000 doses is earmarked for Samut Sakhon province, near Bangkok, where an outbreak last year set off a surge of coronavirus infections.

Tourism Minister Pipat Ratchakitprakan said some doses have been reserved for workers in the tourism sector to help promote a revival of the hospitality industry, which was badly hurt by restrictions to fight the spread of the coronavirus.

6:17 a.m.: India will start inoculating people above 60, and those with underlying health problems above age 45 in the second phase of its massive vaccination drive from March 1.

India’s Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar says the vaccinations will be done in 10,000 public and 20,000 private hospitals. Javadekar told reporters on Wednesday that vaccine shots in government hospitals will be free, but did not say how much it will cost in private hospitals.

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India started inoculating health workers beginning on Jan. 16.

India is home to the world’s largest vaccine makers. The government has authorized emergency use of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, manufactured by Serum Institute of India, and a homegrown vaccine developed by Bharat Biotech.

Cases of COVID-19 are increasing in some parts of India after months of a steady nationwide decline In many cities, markets are bustling, roads are crowded and restaurants are nearly full. The country is reporting about 11,000 to 13,000 new cases a day, compared to a peak of nearly 100,000. in September.

6:17 a.m.: The Czech prime minister says the pandemic situation in his country, one of the hardest-hit in the European Union, is “extremely serious” and his government will have to impose more restrictions to slow down the spread of the coronavirus.

Prime Minister Andrej Babis says the measures are needed to prevent “a total catastrophe” in hospitals that have been coming close to their limits.

The government will decide those measures later Wednesday. Babis says they will be similar to those in place last spring when the borders and schools were completely closed. He also mentioned possible restrictions to limit movement of people.

Babis says the situation might be the worst on March 1, the anniversary of the first cases recorded in the Czech Republic.

Babis spoke amid a surge of new coronavirus cases caused by a highly contagious variant originally found in Britain as hospitals are filing up.

The day-to-day increase f new confirmed cases reached 15,672, about 3,000 more than a week ago. A total of 6,817 COVID-19 patients needed intensive care.

The country had almost 1.2 million confirmed cases with 19,682 deaths.

6:16 a.m.: Ghana has become the first country in the world to receive vaccines acquired through the United Nations-backed COVAX initiative with a delivery of 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India.

The vaccines, delivered by UNICEF, arrived at Accra’s international airport early Wednesday and are part of the first wave of COVID-19 vaccines being sent by COVAX, an international co-operative program formed to make sure low- and middle-income countries have fair access to COVID-19 vaccines. COVAX is led by the United Nation’s World Health Organization; Gavi, a vaccine group; and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, or CEPI.

Ghana is among 92 countries that have signed onto the COVAX program, according to a statement by Ghana’s acting Minister of Information Kojo Oppong Nkrumah.

The West African nation of 30 million has recorded 81,245 cases and 584 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic, according to figures from Ghana’s Health Services Tuesday.

Ghana’s vaccination campaign will begin March 2 and will be conducted in phases among prioritized groups, beginning with health workers, adults of 60 years and over, people with underlying health conditions, frontline executive, legislature, judiciary, and their related staff, said Nkrumah.

6:16 a.m.: More than 2,400 doses of COVID-19 vaccines in Tennessee’s most populous county went to waste while local officials sat on tens of thousands of shots they thought had already gone into arms, the state’s top health official announced Tuesday.

The Department of Health began an investigation over the weekend into a report that recent winter storms caused 1,000 doses to be tossed in Shelby County, which encompasses Memphis.

But Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey on Tuesday revealed that the problems were far more widespread. She said issues dating back to Feb. 3 included multiple incidents of spoiled doses, an excessive vaccine inventory, insufficient record-keeping and a lack of a formal process for managing soon-to-expire vaccines. A federal investigation is also expected.

As a result, Shelby County’s local health department will temporarily no longer be allowed to allocate the vaccine. Instead, Memphis city officials, hospitals, clinics and other pharmacies will handle the distribution. Meanwhile, the physical management of the vaccine will now be handled by hospital partners.

6:15 a.m.: Israel’s government has approved a nighttime curfew from Thursday until Sunday to prevent the spread of the coronavirus over the Purim holiday.

The Prime Minister’s Office and Health Ministry said in a statement Tuesday that a curfew from 8:30 p.m. until 5 a.m. would be in force starting Purim eve.

Purim, a Jewish holiday traditionally marked with public festivities and gatherings, begins Thursday at sundown. The holiday lockdown prohibits any large gatherings of more than 10 people indoors, concerts, parades or parties typical of the holiday’s observances.

Israel reopened its economy last week after a nearly two-month lockdown, the country’s third since the start of the pandemic, as new cases of COVID-19 began to gradually decrease. But recent days have seen a slight uptick in new infections, prompting the government to impose the new lockdown.

It has one of the highest immunization rates per capita, with over 4.5 million of its citizens having received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine.

The Health Ministry has reported over 759,000 cases and at least 5,634 deaths from COVID-19.

6:15 a.m.: South Korea’s top infectious disease expert has warned that vaccines will not end the coronavirus pandemic quickly as the country prepared to give its first vaccinations this week.

Jeong Eun-kyeong, director of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, said during a briefing Wednesday it would take a “considerably long time” before the vaccination campaign brings the virus under control.

The country aims to vaccinate more than 70% of its population by November. But a safe return to mask-less normalcy is highly unlikely in 2021, considering various factors including the growing spread of virus variants, said Choi Won Suk, an infectious disease professor at the Korea University Ansan Hospital who joined Jeong at the briefing.

“We are concerned that people might drop their guard as vaccination begins, triggering another massive wave of the virus,” Jeong said.

South Korea on Wednesday began transporting its first available doses of vaccines that rolled off a production line in the southern city of Andong, where local pharmaceutical company SK Bioscience manufactures vaccines developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.

The country will kick off its mass immunization campaign on Friday by administering the Astra-Zeneca-Oxford vaccines to residents and employees at long-term care facilities.

Separately, some 55,000 doctors, nurses and other health professionals involved with treating COVID-19 patients will begin receiving shots of vaccines developed by Pfizer and BioNTech on Saturday.

6:12 a.m.: A pastor of an Edmonton-area church that has been allegedly holding Sunday services in violation of COVID-19 rules is to appear in court today.

James Coates with GraceLife Church in Spruce Grove was arrested last week.

RCMP have said he was remanded in custody after refusing to agree to bail conditions.

The church has been holding services that officials say break public health regulations on attendance, masking and distancing.

Police fined the church $1,200 in December and a closure order was issued in January.

Coates was twice charged in February with violating the Public Health Act and violating a promise to abide by rules of his release, which is a Criminal Code offence.

Coates has addressed the province’s health restrictions in his sermons, telling worshippers that governments exist as instruments of God and there should be unfettered freedom of worship.

An associate pastor of the church, Jacob Spenst, conducted last Sunday’s service and told the congregation that messages of support have been pouring in for the jailed pastor.

6:08 a.m.: Advocates say migrant and undocumented workers should have access to COVID-19 vaccines.

The Migrant Rights Network is calling on all levels of governments to guarantee that access.

The group is expected to make the call in a news conference today along with doctors and labour leaders .

They say they are concerned that thousands of migrant and undocumented workers will not get the vaccine because of their immigration status.

The group says government vaccination plans do not include measures that would guarantee safe access to the shot for the workers.

The Ontario government has not said if temporary foreign workers employed on the province’s farms would have access to the COVID-19 vaccine.

4 a.m.: The latest numbers on COVID-19 vaccinations in Canada as of 4 a.m. ET on Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2021.

In Canada, the provinces are reporting 48,362 new vaccinations administered for a total of 1,602,365 doses given. The provinces have administered doses at a rate of 4,227.957 per 100,000.

There were 152,100 new vaccines delivered to the provinces and territories for a total of 2,003,810 doses delivered so far. The provinces and territories have used 79.97 per cent of their available vaccine supply.

4 a.m.: The latest numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Canada as of 4 a.m. ET on Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2021.

There are 852,269 confirmed cases in Canada (30,677 active, 799,830 resolved, 21,762 deaths).The total case count includes 13 confirmed cases among repatriated travellers.

There were 2,760 new cases Tuesday. The rate of active cases is 80.72 per 100,000 people. Over the past seven days, there have been a total of 20,693 new cases. The seven-day rolling average of new cases is 2,956.

There were 40 new reported deaths Tuesday. Over the past seven days there have been a total of 367 new reported deaths. The seven-day rolling average of new reported deaths is 52. The seven-day rolling average of the death rate is 0.14 per 100,000 people. The overall death rate is 57.26 per 100,000 people.

There have been 23,880,652 tests completed.

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2021-02-24 14:37:30Z
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