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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.
9:30 a.m. Peel Region Medical Officer of Health Dr. Lawrence Loh says he is recommending Peel Region move into the grey zone for the next two weeks. Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown and Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie have been calling for Peel to go into the red zone.
9:10 a.m. As Toronto and Peel mark 100 days of lockdown, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business is pleading with Premier Doug Ford to ease pandemic restrictions.
“Today marks a grim milestone for Toronto and Peel Region small businesses: 100 consecutive days in COVID-19 winter lockdowns — the longest in North America,” the CFIB said Wednesday.
Toronto, Peel, and North Bay-Parry Sound are the last three public health unit regions in Ontario still under provincial “stay-at-home” orders.
That means most services, such as barbershops, hair stylists, nail salons, and gyms are closed, restaurants and bars are limited to takeout service, and all shops except those selling food and alcohol are restricted to curbside pick-up.
Ontario’s other 31 public health units have moved into varying stages of openness, including in York, Durham, and Halton.
Read the full story from the Star’s Robert Benzie
8:35 a.m. Nine large city-run clinics will be the “backbone” of Toronto’s vaccination plan that includes more than 350 clinics in total, officials announced Monday — the largest mass immunization in the city’s history as the number of suspected variant cases grows.
Those “mega sites” are set to be operational by April 1, two weeks after the province’s registration system goes live, senior city officials said in a briefing at city hall.
The city also plans to see 49 hospital-run clinics, 46 community health centre operated sites and 249 pharmacy locations operating, as the province prepares to move to vaccinating residents aged 80 and older.
“This will be the largest vaccination effort in the history of the city of Toronto,” said Mayor John Tory. “And I am very confident we will be able to meet this challenge.”
Read the full story from the Star’s Jennifer Pagliaro
8:27 a.m. The postponed Tokyo Olympics look like they will take place without any fans from abroad when they open in just under five months.
The Japanese newspaper Mainichi said on Wednesday the decision had been made to exclude foreign fans. It cited only unnamed sources “involved in the discussions.” It said a final decision would be made “within the month.”
“In the current situation it is impossible to bring in foreign spectators,” the newspaper said, citing an unnamed government official.
The report came just an hour before Tokyo organizers held “five-party” talks online with the International Olympic Committee, the International Paralympic Committee, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and the central government of Japan.
Fans were reported to be a key part of the discussion and IOC President Thomas Bach hinted at hard choices to be made in comments before the meeting.
8 a.m. Alexandra Park Early Learning & Child Care Centre in Toronto has temporarily closed after two employees tested positive for COVID-19, the city said in a press release on Tuesday.
The first staff member tested positive on Feb. 25 in the preschool room. The city says the decision to close the centre came after a second staff member tested positive on March 1.
Staff members and children at the centre were told to self-isolate and monitor for symptoms. Meanwhile, the centre’s rooms will be “thoroughly cleaned and sanitized” during the closure.
The centre, located on Augusta Square near Spadina Avenue and Queen Street W., cares for 10 infants, 10 toddlers and 10 preschoolers.
Read the full story from the Star’s Rhythm Sachdeva
7:50 a.m. TTC operators are urging the government to provide more support to homeless people who have been seeking refuge on the transit system during the COVID-19 crisis.
Since the start of the pandemic last spring, TTC drivers have reported an increase in homeless riders as overall transit use plummets and places where vulnerable residents normally spend their time remain shuttered.
In a petition to the city, provincial and federal governments, a group of transit operators is calling for more outreach workers to be deployed on the TTC to offer shelter referrals, harm reduction support and other assistance. The petition also asks government to create “a mass program of high quality social housing to address the homelessness crisis.”
Bus operator Jason Watts, who supports the grassroots petition, said drivers like him want a “holistic” rather than a “punitive” response.
Read the full story from the Star’s Ben Spurr
7:40 a.m. Seniors aged 80 and up, as well as Indigenous adults, can now preregister for COVID vaccines in some Toronto neighbourhoods, despite messaging from the city at a Monday press conference they’d have to wait for the launch of a provincial online booking portal in mid-March.
“We have the opportunity to do something that’s going to save people’s lives,” said Dr. Jeff Powis, medical director of infection prevention and control at Michael Garron Hospital, part of East Toronto Health Partners.
“I think waiting for March 15, even though that’s only two weeks away, might have an impact on somebody,” he added. “If I can save somebody or keep somebody’s family from suffering the grief of a loss then we’re going to try to do it a bit earlier and faster.”
Read the full story from the Star’s May Warren
7:25 a.m. Provinces have an “opportunity” to vaccinate younger people sooner with the recently approved AstraZeneca vaccine, based on advice from government-appointed experts and the looming expiration date on thousands of doses arriving this week, says Canada’s top public health officer.
Speaking Tuesday at the federal government’s weekly vaccine briefing, officials confirmed 500,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine are set to arrive in Canada on Wednesday.
But 300,000 of those doses will expire on April 2 and — for now — the federal government’s National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) is recommending against their use for people over 65, citing limited data.
Read the full story from the Star’s Alex Ballingall
6 a.m. It was 1 a.m. in Israel, but officials in that country were on the phone with members of Ontario’s science advisory table to discuss the strategies they were using to vaccinate residents with the COVID-19 vaccines at a pace that has now made them one of the fastest in the world.
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“They just said ‘we’re just going to get the vaccine out. We’re going to put it in arms. We’re going to use all of the available technology that we have to facilitate that,’ ” said Dr. Gerald Evans, chair of the division of infectious diseases at Queen’s University and a professor of medicine, who was on the call earlier this year.
“And bingo, look at how much they’ve done already,” Evans added.
On Sunday, the country reached a milestone — half of Israel’s residents have been vaccinated. And nearly 90 per cent of people over the age of 50 have received the shot, according to media reports.
Israel has used the Pfizer vaccine exclusively for its citizens, striking a deal with the company that gave the country unprecedented access to doses in return for vaccine data and allowing them to ramp up vaccine delivery more quickly than other countries.
Read the full story from the Star’s Patty Winsa on how an early morning phone call with Israel could speed up Ontario’s vaccine rollout.
5:12 a.m. New Zealand reported no new community cases of the coronavirus for a third consecutive day as the latest outbreak in Auckland appears to have been brought under control.
The government placed the nation’s largest city into a weeklong lockdown Sunday after several new community cases were found.
Top lawmakers in the Cabinet are meeting Friday to review the lockdown. Also, health officials announced they had given the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine to more than 9,000 people, including more than half of the 12,000 people who work at the border.
New Zealand currently has a supply of about 200,000 doses. The country has been slower than many to begin its vaccination campaign but is seen as lower risk after eliminating community spread of the virus.
5:05 a.m. Kenya has received just over 1 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine in the first batch from the global COVAX initiative that was created to ensure that low- and middle-income countries have fair access to vaccines.
Some 1.02 million doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, arrived in Nairobi early Wednesday, according to a joint statement from UNICEF, the World Health Organization, international vaccine alliance GAVI and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.
Kenyan Health Minister Mutahi Kagwe expressed excitement and optimism that the vaccines would help stop the spread of the coronavirus that has forced the East African country to partially lock down its economy with devastating consequences for many citizens.
“We have been fighting the pandemic with rubber bullets but what we have acquired today is equivalent, metaphorically speaking, to bazookas and machine-guns,” Kagwe said.
The minister said the vaccines will be administered to some 400,000 medical workers and the rest will go to other front-line workers such as teachers and police officers.
5 a.m. A blast smashed windows at a coronavirus testing centre in a small town north of Amsterdam early Wednesday, police said. Nobody was hurt.
Police in the province of North Holland tweeted that “an explosive went off” near the testing centre in Bovenkarspel just before 7 a.m.
Police cordoned off the area, which is 60 kilometres (40 miles) north of Amsterdam, and were investigating the cause of the blast.
In January, rioters torched a coronavirus test facility in the fishing village of Urk on the first night of a 9 p.m.-to-4:30 a.m. nationwide curfew imposed as part of the government’s latest coronavirus lockdown.
Wednesday 4 a.m. The first doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine are set to arrive in Canada today as confusion persists over who should get it.
Canada is to receive 500,000 doses of the vaccine, the third approved for use in Canada, from the Serum Institute of India.
But questions about who should receive the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine continue amid conflicting guidance about its use.
Health Canada last week authorized its use for all adult Canadians but the National Advisory Committee on Immunization recommended Tuesday that it not be administered to people 65 years of age or older.
The committee says there is limited data from clinical trials about how effective the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is for seniors and recommends that they be given priority for the two other vaccines — Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna — already green-lighted for use in Canada.
Both Health Canada and the committee stress no safety concerns have arisen in the clinical studies or among the millions of seniors who have received the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine in other countries.
Tuesday 10:36 p.m.: The Brazilian variant of coronavirus has emerged in Oregon, the first known such case on the U.S. West Coast, medical authorities said Tuesday.
The sample was sent to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at the end of January by medical officials in Douglas County, Oregon. They said they received the results back on Monday night, showing the P.1 variant.
“The P.1 variant ... appears to be related to business travel outside the United States to and from Brazil,” the Douglas County COVID-19 Response Team said in a statement Tuesday.
The variant, which was originally traced to Brazil, appears to be more contagious than the original COVID-19 strain. It can potentially be contracted by someone who was already infected or who has been vaccinated.
There have been 10 other cases of the P.1 variant reported in the United States, with five in Florida, two in Minnesota and one each in Oklahoma, Alaska and Maryland, the CDC says.
Click here to read more of Tuesday’s COVID-19 coverage.
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2021-03-03 14:26:15Z
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