Today’s coronavirus news: Ontario reporting 975 new cases, 12 deaths including two in long-term care; 29 cases of unknown COVID-19 variant at downtown Toronto shelter
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.
10:35 a.m.: Ontario is also reporting that two more residents in long-term care have died for a total of 3,736 since the pandemic began, in the latest report released by the province.
Ontario is reporting two less long-term-care homes in outbreak, for a total of 127 or 20.3 per cent of LTC homes in the province.
10:20 a.m.: Ontario is reporting 975 new COVID-19 cases and 12 deaths.
The seven-day average is up to 1,055 cases daily or 51 weekly per 100,000, and up to 23.6 deaths per day.
Labs report 25,979 completed tests with a 4.2 per cent positivity rate.
Locally, there are 343 new cases in Toronto, 186 in Peel and 89 in York Region.
10:15 a.m.: Ontario is reporting 16,252 vacccine doses have been administered since its last daily update, and a total of 585,707 as of 8 p.m. Tuesday.
The province says 247,042 people are fully vaccinated, which means they've had both shots.
10 a.m.: The chair of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board is urging the province to prioritize vaccinations for education workers.
In an open letter dated Feb. 16 addressed to Education Minister Stephen Lecce and Health Minister Christine Elliott, board chair Lynn Scott says that staff must be kept safe.
A formal public commitment to vaccinating education workers as part of Phase 2 is not just an important contributor to the strategy for containing COVID-19, but it is also an essential part of the provincial strategy to prioritize the opening of schools," Scott wrote.
9:33 a.m. U.S. home prices surged at the fastest pace in nearly seven years in December, fueled by low mortgage rates and Americans moving from crowded urban areas to houses in the suburbs.
The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-city home price index, released Tuesday, climbed 10.1 per cent in December from a year earlier. The year-end jump was the biggest since April 2014 and follows a strong 9.2 per cent year-over-year gain in November.
Home prices climbed 14.4 per cent in Phoenix, 13.6 per cent in Seattle and 13 per cent in Seattle in December. But prices rose all over. Chicago, which recorded the slowest price gain, saw a 7.7 per cent uptick. Detroit was not included in the year-over-year figures because of record-keeping delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
9:21 a.m. It's time for Adamson Barbecue to pay the piper, again.
Restaurant owner Adam Skelly is already facing provincial and criminal charges after opening his restaurant for indoor dining for three days straight last November, in defiance of public health orders to contain the spread of COVID-19.
Over the weekend, his Instagram account shared a screenshot of an invoice he received from the City of Toronto totalling a whopping $187,000.
Read the story from the Star's Angelyn Francis
8:20 a.m. The coronavirus pandemic is forcing President Joe Biden to alter another first for his administration: the typically formal White House meeting with a foreign counterpart.
Biden will play host to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday for the first bilateral meeting of his presidency, but he will do it virtually.
In pre-pandemic times, such a meeting would have been held with fanfare: Biden welcoming the Canadian prime minister with great pomp upon his arrival, an Oval Office talk between the two leaders, a joint news conference and perhaps a luncheon.
But with both leaders stressing caution to their citizens, Biden and Trudeau are foregoing the typical protocol and holding their talks by video conference.
U.S. presidents traditionally invite the Canadian prime minister for their first meeting with a world leader. White House officials said that they are still trying to offer a touch of stagecraft for the meeting.
The two leaders - Biden in the Oval Office in Washington and Trudeau in the prime minister's office in Ottawa - will first deliver brief remarks in front of the media at the start of their meeting.
Then Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan will hold a 45-minute session with Trudeau, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau and Canada's ambassador to the United States, Kirsten Hillman, according to a senior Biden administration official who previewed the meeting.
8 a.m. Twenty-nine people at a downtown Toronto shelter have now tested positive for an unknown strain of the COVID-19 variant.
Maxwell Meighen Centre is located at 135 Sherbourne St., just north of Queen Street East.
A COVID-19 outbreak was first declared Feb. 3 at the multi-care facility, funded by the City of Toronto and run by The Salvation Army.
Ten days later, the first reported case of COVID-19 variant at a Toronto shelter was found at that location. At that time, there were eight positive cases.
Prior to the pandemic, the Maxwell Meighen Centre could accommodate up to 363 male clients experiencing homelessness. Its maximum capacity now tops 256 to ensure proper physical distancing.
At the moment, 121 men experiencing homelessness are staying at this location and no new residents are being admitted.
7:35 a.m. With weeks to go until people over 80 outside of nursing homes start getting COVID-19 vaccines, many of Ontario's family doctors say they're still in the dark about how the rollout will work.
After reports on Friday that family doctors would soon be contacting their patients in that age group with more details, they've been flooded with calls from seniors wondering where to go and when.
Dr. Anna Holland, an Etobicoke family doctor and addiction medicine specialist, is wondering these same things.
We completely understand as family physicians the confusion, because we are part of that confusion," she said. We are frustrated."
Read the full story from the Star's May Warren
7:25 a.m. It appears Canada's approval of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine is close.
Health Canada's chief medical adviser Dr. Supriya Sharma said Monday that the regulator is in the final stages" of reviewing the two-dose vaccine, which was developed by AstraZeneca with researchers at Oxford University, for use in Canada.
Although that's the same thing Health Canada has said since Feb. 9, Sharma indicated it is now weighing what use Canada should recommend for the vaccine, what it should require on the vaccine label, and what should be the terms and conditions put on the company for ongoing monitoring of its vaccine.
Read the full story from the Star's Tonda MacCharles
6:08 a.m.: New York City movie theatres can open their doors again at limited capacity starting March 5, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday.
Movie theatres can only operate at 25 per cent capacity, with no more than 50 people per screening, Cuomo said.
His announcement came nearly a year after he shuttered movie theatres statewide in mid-March last year along with concert venues and nightclubs as part of efforts to limit spread of COVID-19 in crowded, indoor settings. Cuomo eased restrictions last fall to allow movie theatres to re-open at limited capacity in most counties outside of densely populated New York City.
The governor said theatres must require and enforce assigned seating, masks and social distancing. He said they also need to meet the state's air filtration standards.
Cuomo has pushed this year to start easing COVID-19 restrictions on businesses in hopes of jump-starting an economy hit by a drop in sales tax revenue.
6:06 a.m.: All of France's players and staff have tested negative for the coronavirus in a new round of tests before a decision Wednesday on whether their rugby match against Scotland in the Six Nations can go ahead as scheduled this weekend.
The French Rugby Federation said Tuesday that the new tests were carried out Monday night, after a series of coronavirus positives in the France camp. This time, all players and staff passed.
Previously, 10 players and three staff members had tested positive in the outbreak that hit the France squad. The most recent were captain Charles Ollivon, forwards Cyril Baille, Peato Mauvaka, and Romain Taofifenua, and fullback Brice Dulin.
The Six Nations testing oversight group is to reconvene on Wednesday to decide whether France against Scotland can go ahead on Sunday in Paris. If not, it will likely be postponed for a week.
Scotland warned Monday that a delay could affect the availability of its own players.
Any postponement will have an impact on the player release agreement in place with clubs, which could see more than 10 Scotland players unavailable for selection if the game is rearranged," the Scottish Rugby Union posted on Twitter.
We will be working closely with our Six Nations counterparts to press the case for this week's game to go ahead, should it be medically safe to do so."
5:57 a.m.: Principals say ensuring physical distancing has been their top challenge during the pandemic, a new survey by People for Education has found.
The report by the research and advocacy group, to be released Tuesday, asked administrators to rank their concerns - and for leaders in elementary and secondary schools offering in-person classes, almost three-quarters named that as one of their top two issues, followed by co-ordinating and scheduling staff.
Smaller class sizes. It is impossible to keep students socially distanced. I am constantly the COVID police," said one principal in an elementary school in northern Ontario.
Read the full story from the Star's Kristin Rushowy
5:55 a.m.: Sri Lanka's government says it plans to vaccinate 14 million of the country's 22 million people.
The government will immunize 14 million people, for which we need 28 million doses, and the government is ready to purchase that," government spokesman Ramesh Pathirana said Tuesday.
It plans to purchase 10 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine for $52.5 million from the Serum Institute in India, he said. It will also buy 3.5 million doses directly from the AstraZeneca Institute in Britain. The vaccine is the only one that has been approved by Sri Lanka's regulatory body.
Sri Lanka is currently administering 500,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine that were donated by India. By Tuesday, it had been given to 354,352 people.
Sri Lanka is witnessing a spike in COVID-19 cases, mostly in the capital, Colombo. It has recorded a total of 80,516 cases, including 450 deaths.
5:53 a.m.: The Food and Drug Administration said Monday that it won't require huge, months-long studies if COVID-19 vaccines eventually need tweaking to better match a mutating virus - small, short studies will suffice.
The vaccines now being rolled out do still protect against different variants of the virus, the FDA stressed. But viruses mutate constantly, and some new versions are starting to raise concerns. So FDA issued new guidelines for vaccines - as well as for virus tests and treatments - on steps that companies can start taking to get ready.
We're trying to be prepared in advance," said Dr. Peter Marks, the FDA's vaccines chief.
Already major manufacturers have started updating their vaccine recipes if regulators eventually decide that's necessary.
Marks said the needed tests would include a few hundred people rather than thousands, and could take just two or three months. Volunteers would receive experimental doses of the tweaked vaccine and then have their blood checked to see if it revved up the immune system about as well as the original vaccines do.
Marks said the hope is that if vaccines have to be updated, they would work broadly enough to cover both the original virus and a new mutant version - rather than requiring a combination shot like flu vaccines. Having to make multiple kinds of vaccine and then combine them would put a greater strain on already stretched production capabilities.
5:52 a.m.: Drugmaker Johnson & Johnson says it will be able to provide 20 million U.S. doses of its single-shot COVID-19 vaccine by the end of March, assuming it gets the green light from federal regulators.
J&J disclosed the figure in written testimony ahead of a Congressional hearing on Tuesday looking at the country's vaccine supply. White House officials cautioned last week that initial supplies of J&J's vaccine would be limited.
The company reiterated that it will have capacity to provide 100 million vaccine doses to the U.S. by the end of June. That supply will help government officials reach the goal of having enough injections to vaccinate most adult Americans later this year. On a global scale the company aims to produce 1 billion doses this year.
U.S. health regulators are still reviewing the safety and effectiveness of the shot and a decision to allow its emergency use is expected later this week. J&J's vaccine would be the first in the U.S. that requires only a single shot.
Currently available vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna require two doses spaced several weeks apart. Executives from both companies and two other vaccine makers will also testify at Tuesday's hearing.
5:51 a.m.: The Philippine president will reject recommendations to further ease coronavirus quarantine restrictions across the country until a delayed vaccination campaign kicks off, his spokesman said.
President Rodrigo Duterte also rejected a plan to resume face-to-face school classes in some pilot areas until vaccinations, which have been set back by delays in the arrival of initial batches of COVID-19 vaccine, have been launched, presidential spokesman Harry Roque said.
The scheduled delivery on Tuesday of 600,000 doses from Sinovac Biotech Ltd. was postponed anew after the China-based company failed to immediately secure an emergency-use permit from Manila's Food and Drug Administration. Sinovac got the authorization Monday.
Top economic officials have asked Duterte to consider further easing quarantine restrictions in the country starting in March to bolster the economy, which has suffered one of the worst recessions in the region, and stave off hunger. But Duterte rejected the recommendations.
The chief executive recognizes the importance of reopening the economy and its impact on people's livelihoods," Roque said but added that the president gives higher premium to public health and safety."
The Philippines has reported more than 563,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 infections and more than 12,000 deaths, the second highest in Southeast Asia. The government has faced criticisms for failing to immediately launch a massive vaccine campaign for about 70 million Filipinos.
5:50 a.m.: Mexico has received its first shipment of Russia's Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine.
Some 200,000 doses arrived to Mexico City's international airport late Monday night aboard a British Airways flight from Moscow. Officials plan to use the doses to begin vaccinating seniors in the capital's most marginalized boroughs on Wednesday. Mexico Foreign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard confirmed their arrival via Twitter.
Mexico received its first shipment of vaccines from Pfizer in mid-December, but turned to Sputnik V in January when other expected vaccine shipments were delayed. Sputnik too arrives later than initially expected. Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin in late January.
In early February, Mexican regulators gave Sputnik V emergency approval and the government signed a contract to bring 400,000 doses to Mexico in February. It was unclear when the next shipment of Sputnik would arrive.
5:50 a.m.: A year into the coronavirus pandemic, doctors and researchers are still striving to better understand and treat the accompanying epidemic of COVID-19-related anosmia - loss of smell - draining much of the joy of life from an increasing number of sensorially frustrated longer-term sufferers like Forgione.
Even specialist doctors say there is much about the condition they still don't know and they are learning as they go along in their diagnoses and treatments. Impairment and alteration of smell have become so common with COVID-19 that some researchers suggest that cheap, simple odour tests could be used to track coronavirus infections in countries with few laboratories.
For most people, the olfactory problems are temporary, often improving on their own in weeks. But a small minority are complaining of persistent dysfunction long after other COVID-19 symptoms have disappeared. Some have reported continued total or partial loss of smell six months after infection. The longest, some doctors say, are now approaching a full year.
Researchers working on the vexing disability say they are optimistic that most will eventually recover but some will not. Some doctors are concerned that growing numbers of smell-deprived patients, many of them young, could be more prone to depression and other difficulties and weigh on already strained health systems.
They are losing colour in their lives," said Dr. Thomas Hummel, who heads the smell and taste outpatients clinic at University Hospital in Dresden, Germany.
These people will survive and they'll be successful in their lives, in their professions," Hummel added. But their lives will be much poorer."
5:48 a.m.: The pandemic surpassed a milestone Monday in the United States that once seemed unimaginable - COVID-19 has now claimed 500,000 lives and counting.
Experts warn that about 90,000 more deaths are likely in the next few months, despite a massive campaign to vaccinate people.
Meanwhile, the nation'' trauma continues to accrue in a way unparalleled in recent American life, said Donna Schuurman of the Dougy Center for Grieving Children & Families in Portland, Ore.
At other moments of epic loss, like the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Americans have pulled together to confront crisis and console survivors. But this time, the nation is deeply divided. Staggering numbers of families are dealing with death, serious illness and financial hardship. And many are left to cope in isolation, unable even to hold funerals.
In a way, we're all grieving," said Schuurman, who has counselled the families of those killed in terrorist attacks, natural disasters and school shootings.
In recent weeks, virus deaths have fallen from more than 4,000 reported on some days in January to an average of fewer than 1,900 per day.
Still, at half a million, the toll recorded by Johns Hopkins University is already greater than the population of Miami or Kansas City, Miss. It is roughly equal to the number of Americans killed in the Second World War, the Korean War and the Vietnam War combined. It is akin to a 9/11 every day for nearly six months.
The people we lost were extraordinary," President Joe Biden said Monday, urging Americans to remember the individual lives claimed by the virus, rather than be numbed by the enormity of the toll.
Just like that," he said, so many of them took their final breath alone in America."