Today’s coronavirus news: Ontario reporting 1,780 cases, 25 more deaths, 116 on ventilators, 633 cases in Toronto; Former police chief Mark Saunders named to Ontario’s vaccine task force

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.

10:25 a.m.: The American Academy of Pediatrics is urging players of most sports to wear cloth face coverings at all times for group training, competition and on the sidelines.

Cloth face coverings have been found to be tolerated well by the majority of people who wear them for exercise, the organization says. The broader cloth face covering encouragement is one of the changes in the update to the academy's interim guidance on sports, which was published Friday. Previously, the organization recommended that face coverings be worn by athletes on the sidelines and during less vigorous activity.

10:05 a.m. (updated): Ontario is reporting 1,780 new cases and 25 deaths Friday.

Locally, the province reports 633 cases in Toronto, 433 in Peel, 152 in York, 94 in Durham, 68 in Windsor-Essex, 51 in Halton, 43 in Hamilton, 41 in Simcoe-Muskoka, 40 in Waterloo, and 39 in Middlesex-London.

The seven-day average is down slightly to 1,759 cases daily, or 85 weekly per 100,000, the Star's Ed Tubb reports. The labs are reporting 56,001 completed tests and 3.6 per cent positivity.

ICU cases now above 200 to 207, with 116 on ventilators.

10 a.m.: Officials in Germany said Friday that they are taking the potential for attacks on mass vaccination centres into consideration as they set up sites to prepare for European Union regulators authorizing the first coronavirus vaccines.

Britain gave the green light Wednesday for emergency use of a vaccine made by German firm BioNTech and U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. The European Medicines Agency has indicated it may not decide whether to grant its authorization until Dec. 29, about two weeks later than Germany had expected to launch a national immunization drive.

The former head of Germany's civil protection agency, Albrecht Broemme, was tasked with setting up six mass vaccination sites in Berlin. He said security questions still need to be resolved.

9:30 a.m. (updated): The Ontario government has announced nine members of its COVID-19 vaccine distribution task force, which will be led by retired Gen. Rick Hillier.

Health Minister Christine Elliott says it will up to the panel to ensure effective and ethical delivery of a vaccine.

Key tasks include delivery, logistics and administration, clinical guidance as well as public education and outreach.

The members are:

• Dr. Dirk Huyer, Ontario's Chief Coroner and Coordinator of Provincial Outbreak Response

• Dr. Homer Tien, trauma surgeon and President and CEO, Ornge

• Dr. Maxwell Smith, bioethicist and assistant professor, Western University

• Dr. Isaac Bogoch, infectious diseases consultant and internist, Toronto General Hospital

• Ontario Regional Chief Rose Anne Archibald of Taykwa Tagamou Nation

• Dr. Regis Vaillancourt, Director of Pharmacy and Integrated Pain Services, Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario

• Linda Hasenfratz, CEO, Linamar Corporation

• Angela Mondou, President and CEO, TECHNATION

• Mark Saunders, former Toronto police chief

9:17 a.m.: U.K. regulators went on the offensive Friday to beat back criticism that they rushed their authorization of a COVID-19 vaccine, saying they rigorously analyzed data on safety and effectiveness in the shortest time possible without compromising the thoroughness of their review.

The comments from the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency came as the Times newspaper reported that the agency's chief executive, Dr. June Raine, planned to give a series of radio interviews so she could speak directly to people who may be concerned about getting vaccinated.

The MHRA reiterated earlier statements that the agency is conducting rolling reviews of COVID-19 vaccine candidates, allowing regulators to speed up the review process by looking at data as it becomes available. The agency gave emergency approval on Wednesday to a vaccine produced by U.S. drugmaker Pfizer and Germany-based BioNTech, making Britain the first Western country to authorize a vaccine against the coronavirus.

9:12 a.m.: Statistics Canada says the economy added 62,000 jobs in November compared with an addition of 84,000 in October.

The unemployment rate fell to 8.5 per cent compared with 8.9 per cent in October.

Employment rose by 0.3 per cent for the month, compared with 0.5 per cent in October. That contrasts with the period between May and September, when employment grew by an average of 2.7 per cent per month.

The average economist estimate had been for a gain of 20,000 jobs and the unemployment rate to remain unchanged, according to financial data firm Refinitiv.

8:46 a.m.: Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's chief infectious disease expert, says there was never a question that he would accept President-elect Joe Biden's offer to serve as his chief medical officer and adviser on the coronavirus pandemic.

Fauci told NBC's Today" show on Friday, I said yes right on the spot" after Biden asked him to serve during a conversation on Thursday.

As the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Fauci has served several presidents, Republican and Democratic. But during President Donald Trump's administration, he has been largely sidelined as Trump gave rosy assessments of the virus and insisted it would fade away.

Fauci has urged rigorous mask-wearing and social distancing, practices that have not often been followed at the White House.

On Thursday, Biden said he will ask Americans to commit to 100 days of wearing masks as one of his first acts as president.

I told him I thought that was a good idea," Fauci told NBC.

7:46 a.m.: Belgium says the country's second coronavirus wave is well on the decline, with all major public health indicators showing improvement over the past week.

Belgian virologist Steven Van Gucht of the government's Sciensano health group said Friday that the daily average of virus-related deaths now stood at 116 people, a 23% decrease compared to the previous 7-day average.

Patients in intensive care also declined to 788; a few weeks ago, authorities feared demand would outstrip Belgium's 2,000-bed ICU capacity.

Despite the positive trend, authorities stressed there could be no relaxing of efforts to contain the virus during the Christmas season.

7:45 a.m.: The Czech Republic has launched a coronavirus testing program for the country's teachers as students gradually return to school.

The program that started Friday and continues to Dec. 18 is designed to test up to 170,000 teachers. The free program is voluntary and uses rapid antigen tests.

The Czech government also plans to make COVID-19 tests available to all citizens, possibly starting Dec 18.

In November, the country started testing residents of all nursing and retirement homes.

The Czech Republic was one of the hardest hit amid the recent resurgent of coronavirus infections in Europe. The country of 10.7 million has reported more than 537000 confirmed cases, including more than 8,600 deaths.

The number of new daily cases had been dropping for several weeks, but the trend might be reversing. The day-to-day increase of new cases reached 4,624 on Thursday, almost 600 more than a week earlier.

6:12 a.m.: South Korea has recorded 629 new coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours, the highest daily tally in about nine months.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said Friday that 600 of the newly confirmed patients were domestically transmitted cases - nearly 80 per cent of them in the densely populous Seoul area, which has been at the centre of a recent viral resurgence.

It says the 629 new cases took the country's total to 36,332 for the pandemic, with 536 deaths related to COVID-19.

After successfully suppressing two previous outbreaks this year, South Korea has been grappling with a fresh spike in infections since it relaxed stringent social distancing rules in October. Last week, it toughened distancing restrictions in the greater Seoul area and other places.

6:12 a.m.: Austria has started voluntary mass testing for the coronavirus in a move that officials hope will help prevent long, hard lockdowns in the future.

The fast antigen tests started on Friday in Vienna and in the westernmost Vorarlberg and Tyrol provinces, days before Austria starts loosening tough lockdown measures that have been in place since mid-November. Positive tests will be backed up by conventional tests within 24 hours, and contacts quarantined if they are confirmed.

A special website has been set up for people to register for the tests.

The testing is being handled by the Austrian military, which has set up a big testing facility at the Vienna convention centre with 170 test lanes.

Italy's South Tyrol province, which borders Austria, already has conducted mass tests - following the example of Slovakia, which moved to slow infections and avoid a second lockdown by testing nearly two-thirds of its people in one weekend last month.

6:09 a.m.: The data is clear, and has been for months: Ontarians who are poor, under-housed and racialized are disproportionately attacked by COVID-19.

And yet, deep into the second wave, this central feature of the pandemic has not been central to our pandemic response, health experts say. The current one size fits all" restrictions have so far failed to protect the vast majority of people getting infected by COVID-19. As a result, lockdowns in hot spots like Toronto and Peel are on track to be longer, harder and more devastating for everyone.

If we don't tackle this problem, we will continue to struggle through the winter. I can guarantee you that right now," says Dr. Peter Juni, scientific director of the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table, which provides evidence to inform the province's pandemic response.

Read the full story from the Star's Jennifer Yang and Kate Allen here.

6:06 a.m.: Joe Biden says he will ask Americans to commit to 100 days of wearing masks as one of his first acts as president, stopping just short of the nationwide mandate he's pushed before to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

The move marks a notable shift from U.S. President Donald Trump, whose own skepticism of mask-wearing has contributed to a politicization of the issue. That's made many people reticent to embrace a practice that public health experts say is one of the easiest ways to manage the pandemic, which has killed more than 275,000 Americans.

The president-elect has frequently emphasized mask-wearing as a patriotic duty" and during the campaign floated the idea of instituting a nationwide mask mandate, which he later acknowledged would be beyond the ability of the president to enforce.

Speaking with CNN's Jake Tapper, Biden said he would make the request of Americans on inauguration day, Jan. 20.

On the first day I'm inaugurated, I'm going to ask the public for 100 days to mask. Just 100 days to mask - not forever, just 100 days. And I think we'll see a significant reduction" in the virus, Biden said.

Biden also said he asked Dr. Anthony Fauci to stay on in his administration, in the exact same role he's had for the past several presidents," as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the nation's top infectious-disease expert.

6:03 a.m.: The White House coronavirus response co-ordinator says Americans must not gather indoors with outsiders or take off their masks at any time when they are outdoors - even when they are eating and drinking.

Dr. Deborah Birx says people also have to observe social distancing and wash their hands to contain the coronavirus pandemic. She says some states are taking these measures, but in others it's not happening at the level that they need to happen."

Birx says that even once vaccines are approved, it will take weeks to months before the most vulnerable individuals in America" can be immunized.

She made the comments after meeting with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and General Assembly President Volkan Bozkir at UN headquarters in New York on Thursday.

6:01 a.m.: Statistics Canada will say this morning how Canada's job market fared last month as COVID-19 case counts rose along with a new round of public health restrictions.

The labour force has clawed back about three-quarters of the three million jobs lost during lockdowns in March and April.

The country has seen six consecutive months of job increases since then, but the pace of gains slowed between September and October.

Expectations for November is that the country will eke out another gain.

5:59 a.m.: The reimagined holiday party comes as COVID-19 has forced companies to rethink their usual December festivities.

In pandemic hot spots that means bringing the razzle dazzle to virtual gatherings, while others in locations with fewer cases of the virus are opting to host parties but strictly enforce social distancing and masks.

Many will send tokens of appreciation to workers or offer time off or cash, but some will forgo any kind of celebration to tighten spending and acknowledge a tough year.

Read the full story from the Canadian Press.

5:58 a.m.: America's top infectious disease expert has apologized for suggesting U.K. authorities rushed their authorization of a COVID-19 vaccine, saying he has great faith" in the country's regulators.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had sparked controversy with an earlier interview in which he said U.K. regulators hadn't acted as carefully" as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Fauci said late Thursday that he meant to say U.S. authorities do things differently than their British counterparts, not better, but his comments weren't phrased properly.

I do have great faith in both the scientific community and the regulatory community at the U.K., and anyone who knows me and my relationship with that over literally decades, you know that's the case," Fauci told the BBC.

5:57 a.m.: Premier Doug Ford is expected to unveil Ontario's COVID-19 vaccine task force today.

Ford said yesterday the team is being finalized and the province will be ready to distribute the vaccine whenever it arrives.

The task force will include medical, information technology, and logistics experts.

Earlier this month, the province announced retired Gen. Rick Hillier will lead the task force.

Health Minister Christine Elliott says the team will also include a bioethicist who will make recommendations about who should receive access to the vaccine first.

The province's chief medical officer of health has also said some regions of the province could be moved today into further restricted measures in the province's pandemic response.