Today’s coronavirus news: Premier Doug Ford apologizes for playground closures and added police powers; Ontario is reporting 3,682 COVID-19
The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world Thursday. This file will be updated throughout the day. Web links to longer stories if available.
10:03 a.m. (updated) During a live news conference Thursday, Premier Doug Ford says we made a mistake. We got it wrong. For that I am sorry and I apologize." The premier is referring to his decision to close playgrounds and increase police powers, decisions his government reversed 24 hours later. Ford also confirms that Ontario will have its own provincial paid sick leave program. But no details yet. "We are now working on our own solution."
Ford appears to choke back tears as he discussed the pain of families being unable to be with loved ones in their final moments due to COVID-19 restrictions.
The government announced the new restrictions amid soaring cases and an alarming rise in COVID-19 hospitalizations. "I will always try to do what's right," Ford said. "If we get something wrong, we'll fix it."
Ford - isolating at his late mother's home after an office exposure - now acknowledges that it's nice to be able to isolate at home and still get paid. His government has been asked to develop paid sick leave for months. He says they're working on it but added no more details. Asked if the province's paid sick day program for essential workers will be just for the pandemic or continue on, Ford did not answer directly. He said Ontario will fill the gaps in the federal benefit. Ford had steadfastly refused to introduce a sick-leave program despite COVID-19 outbreaks in workplaces.
Ford said "our team is united and strong," and shrugged off media criticism, saying pundits are entitled to their opinions. "I'm not one to walk away from anything," Ford said.
Ford is in self-isolation after a member of his staff tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday.
More to come.
Watch the news conference live on the Star.
10:00 a.m. Ontario is reporting 3,682 COVID-19 cases with 40 deaths, a new high in the third wave. The seven-day average is down significantly to 4,176 cases per day or 201 weekly per 100,000, and up to 27.1 deaths per day, also a new high in the third wave. Labs report 54,246 completed tests & 7.8% positivity.
9:50 a.m. Quebec set a daily record for COVID-19 vaccinations with 85,000 doses administered on Wednesday.
Health Minister Christian Dube says in a tweet today the number includes more than 30,000 Oxford-AstraZeneca shots that were given as the province expanded access to that vaccine.
On Wednesday, Quebecers 45 and older officially became eligible to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine, prompting long lineups at clinics.
Dube says 103,000 people have scheduled an appointment to get an AstraZeneca dose in the coming week.
He says 11,000 people have been trained to provide COVID-19 vaccines, and the province is ready to receive more doses.
Dube will provide an update on the immunization campaign this afternoon.
9:30 a.m. Nova Scotia closed its provincial boundary to non-essential travel from all parts of Canada except Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador today as it deals with a spike in COVID-19 cases.
The Halifax Regional Centre for Education also confirmed that a total of seven schools are now closed because of confirmed cases of novel coronavirus.
The newest closure is at Bell Park Academic Centre in Lake Echo after a single case was identified late Wednesday.
Health officials say the school will remain closed to students until Tuesday for cleaning.
The outbreak also saw the province cancel next month's women's world hockey championship set for Halifax and Truro for the second consecutive year on Wednesday, citing public safety concerns.
After 25 new COVID-19 cases and 79 active infections were reported Wednesday, Premier Iain Rankin and health officials are scheduled to hold a briefing this afternoon.
9 a.m. The federal government is looking into flights arriving from India due to a massive surge of COVID-19 cases ravaging that country, Canada's top public health doctor said Wednesday as at least one province urged Ottawa to tighten the border.
The government generally believes that limiting travel from specific countries can only go so far, said Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada's chief public health officer, but India may present a special case.
"We will be doing further analysis because it's an emerging situation, not just because of the variant of interest at this point but because they have unfortunately a very massive resurgence in that country," she said. "We will be doing that risk assessment again, and using the data that we have now collected at the border to inform our next steps."
A case involving the "variant of interest" that originated in India - known as the B. 1.617 variant - was detected in Quebec on Wednesday, west of the provincial capital.
But rather than banning travel from nations where variants have emerged, Tam said Canada has mostly opted to take a broader approach, instituting "layers of protection" against travellers from all countries.
She pointed to a pre-boarding test for COVID-19, tests on arrival and government-mandated quarantine.
Calls are mounting for Ottawa to limit travel from India and other such hot spots.
India recorded nearly 300,000 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday alone, with 2,000 more deaths linked to the virus.
Hospitals in India are now overflowing, and medical oxygen is in low supply. The effort to test and vaccinate residents is floundering, and bodies are piling up at morgues and crematoriums.
But even so, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is urging states to avoid lockdowns by creating micro-containment zones to control outbreaks instead.
According to the Canadian government, there have been 35 flights from India with at least one case of COVID-19 that have arrived in Canada in the last two weeks.
8:10 a.m. Norway will lend all of its 216,000 doses of AstraZeneca to neighbouring Sweden and Iceland as long as its own government regulator has paused the use of the vaccine.
On March 11, Norway followed Denmark in deciding to put on hold jabs by the British-Swedish company after reports of very rare blood clots.
Health Minister Bent Hoeie said if the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine is resumed, we will get back the doses we lend as soon as we request it."
The European Medicines Agency has said the benefits of being immunized against COVID-19 outweigh the very rare risks of developing the unusual clots with AstraZeneca.
Hoie also said if the vaccine is taken out of the coronavirus vaccination program in non-European Union-member Norway, the doses we have been given can be donated to other countries in collaboration with the EU."
Hoeie said Sweden will borrow 200,000 doses and Iceland 16,000 doses. The Norwegian doses expire in June and July.
The Danes, who were the first to pull suspend use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, have not yet decided what will happen with their doses.
8 a.m. Singapore said it will further tighten border controls with India, including a ban on visitors from the country, because of a rapidly deteriorating situation" there.
Authorities are also stepping up measures to prevent a wider outbreak within Singapore, officials said at a press conference on Thursday. Foreign workers and those working in the construction and marine sectors, who had previously been infected with COVID-19 and recovered, are no longer exempted from measures like routine testing, the health ministry said in a statement Thursday.
From Saturday, all long-term pass holders, which include foreign spouses or children of citizens or residents, as well as short-term visitors, who have been in India for the last 14 days will not be allowed into Singapore, or to transit through the city-state, the health ministry said. This will also apply to those who had obtained prior approval for entry into Singapore, it said.
All travelers from India who haven't finished their 14-day quarantine by Thursday will need to complete an extra seven-day isolation at dedicated facilities, instead of their homes, according to the statement.
7:50 a.m. With the province plunged in what has been called one of the strictest lockdowns in North America, Ontario health officials are holding up Thunder Bay as an example for what is possible.
The northern city has drastically reduced its case numbers and transmission rate since February, when there were outbreaks at two correctional facilities, numerous schools and within the homeless community, prompting the city to declare a state of emergency.
By March 9, the Thunder Bay District Health Unit was seeing more than 270 cases per 100,000 people, which they've driven down to 24.7 per 100,000 as of April 17. That compares to 278.2 per 100,000 in Toronto.
During an April 16 provincial COVID-19 update, Dr. Adalsteinn Brown, with the COVID-19 science table, said other municipalities should follow the example of Thunder Bay, which has a population of about 120,000.
Thunder Bay was the centre of a huge outbreak only two months ago, but it's flattened its curve in an impressive way. The whole city came together, shut itself down, focused on the fight and got it done," Brown said.
We all have to be like Thunder Bay."
Read the full story from the Star's Omar Mosleh
7:40 a.m. Patient transfers between Ontario hospitals are increasing as the number of people with COVID-19 in ICUs reached a pandemic record of 790 Tuesday, with 566 requiring ventilators.
Ornge, Ontario's air ambulance and medical transport service, and local paramedics have transported 570 patients so far in April to create ICU capacity, including 243 since April 14. That's a 135 per cent increase from March when 242 patients were transported.
We are now seeing critical care hopscotch,'" wrote Dr. Michael Warner, medical director of critical care at Michael Garron Hospital, on Twitter. This is very concerning. Options are running out."
Read the full story from the Star's Lex Harvey
7:35 a.m. A McMaster University study examining whether surgical masks provide health-care workers with similar protection to N95 respirators has triggered a formal complaint alleging the lives of participants are being needlessly placed at risk.
In an April 19 letter to the federal research ethics panel, a coalition of health-care practitioners allege the study exposes health-care workers to COVID-19 infection" by allowing them to wear surgical masks instead of N95 respirators when caring for patients.
The complaint to Canada's Secretariat on Responsible Conduct of Research (SRCR) states there is ample research" to support the transmission of COVID-19 through aerosols that can be spread through the air and inhaled, requiring respirators as the minimum line of safety protection for at-risk workers."
Read the full story from the Star's Rob Cribb
7:30 a.m. Pharmacist Kyro Maseh says coming in to work used feel like going to war. Every morning, he'd kiss his kids goodbye and hope he wouldn't bring death home" with him.
Those were fearful times last spring - COVID-19 transmission wasn't as well understood, neither Maseh nor his staff had access to PPE and vaccines were a distant dream.
From that terror came a desperate need for levity, something to make the days he felt he was sitting there waiting for death to happen" pass easier.
It started with little things, joking with patients, getting gadgets like laser pointers for staff - anything to cut the tension.
Read the full story from the Star's Ben Cohen
7:15 a.m. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga recommended placing Tokyo, Osaka and other areas under a state of emergency to stem a surge in coronavirus infections just three months before the capital hosts the Olympics.
Suga was looking to also place Hyogo and Kyoto prefectures, which border Osaka, under a state of emergency, telling reporters Thursday he will make a formal decision after consulting with experts.
Suga has previously approved measures within a day of issuing a recommendation on stepped up virus restrictions, with local media saying the declaration was expected to come Friday. The emergency is likely to be in place from April 25 to May 11, covering the Golden Week" string of national holidays, Jiji Press said.
While Japan has so far succeeded in keeping coronavirus infections and deaths at far lower levels than those seen in much of Europe and the U.S., its vaccine program has yet to kick into high gear, meaning restricting activities is the most powerful tool Suga has for reining in case numbers.
7:10 a.m. (updated) Premier Doug Ford will address media Thursday morning, his first news conference since Ontario announced new COVID-19 regulations on Friday that drew broad criticism.
Ford is in self-isolation after a member of his staff tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday night.
The premier's office says he has tested negative for the virus, but had been in contact with the staffer on Monday.
The province announced stricter regulations on Friday in an attempt to slow the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
They included giving police more power to enforce Ontario's stay-at-home order and a ban on most outdoor activities.
The backlash against the new extraordinary powers given to police led the province to backtrack on the measure Saturday, but the ban on most outdoor activities remains in place.
Ontario's science advisers have criticized the restrictions on outdoor activities, saying they will harm children and those who don't have access to their own green space.
6:45 a.m. India reported a global record of more than 314,000 new infections Thursday as a grim coronavirus surge in the world's second-most populous country sends more and more sick people into a fragile health care system critically short of hospital beds and oxygen.
The 314,835 infections added in the past 24 hours raise India's total past 15.9 million cases since the pandemic began. It's the second-highest total in the world next to the United States. India has nearly 1.4 billion people.
Fatalities rose by 2,104 in the past 24 hours, raising India's overall death toll to 184,657, the Health Ministry said.
A large number of hospitals are reporting acute shortages of beds and medicine and are running on dangerously low levels of oxygen.
The New Delhi High Court on Wednesday ordered the government to divert oxygen from industrial use to hospitals to save people's lives. "You can't have people die because there is no oxygen. Beg, borrow or steal, it is a national emergency," the judges said, responding to a petition by a New Delhi hospital seeking the court's intervention.
The government is rushing oxygen tankers to replenish supplies to hospitals.
6:30 a.m. U.K. food bank use rose by a third during the past 12 months as the COVID-19 pandemic left more people without the money to buy basic necessities, a charity that distributes food said Thursday.
The Trussell Trust said the food banks it works with handed out more than 2.5 million food parcels in the year through March, up from 1.9 million a year earlier. The figures represent only a partial picture of the increasing need because independent food aid providers also expanded during the pandemic, the trust said.
The trust called on the British government to do more to help people struggling to make a living and not to rely on food banks to fill gaps in the country's welfare system.
No one should face the indignity of needing emergency food,'' Emma Revie, the trust's chief executive, said. Yet our network of food banks has given out record numbers of food parcels as more and more people struggle without enough money for the essentials.''
The British economy suffered one of the deepest and most protracted recessions in the developed world last year. The economy shrank by about 10 per cent amid the pandemic.
6:24 a.m. The Scarborough Health Network temporarily closed its vaccination clinics as of Wednesday.
As a result of vaccine supply shortage, all of our Scarborough COVID-19 vaccine clinics are temporarily closed," said Lisa Cipriano, interim manager for communications and public affairs at Scarborough Health Network.
We are operating three pop-up clinics in two Scarborough postal codes this week, as well as opening up appointments for a limited supply of AstraZeneca vaccine."
Clinics will reopen as soon as more vaccines arrive.
6:10 a.m. Toronto is nearing two very different COVID-19 milestones - 3,000 deaths suffered, and one million vaccine doses administered.
City officials on Wednesday announced plans to ramp up vaccinations, thanks to more expected supply, but acknowledged vaccine alone won't stop the virus's third wave from pushing the health system over the brink.
Dr. Eileen de Villa, Toronto's public health chief, announced 27 more Torontonians dead from COVID-19, bringing the total since March 2020 to 2,970. Wednesday also saw 1,302 new cases and 1,010 people in hospital, 194 of them in intensive care units and 128 of them on breathing machines.
The figures for people currently in hospital, people currently in ICU and people currently intubated, are all the highest recorded at any point in the pandemic so far," a sombre de Villa told the online briefing.
Noting the 3,000th death is expected any day, de Villa said: I ask everyone to ask themselves if we should mark this loss off life in some way more than as a milestone ... We must do everything we can right now to disrupt the spread of COVID-19."
The only way to end the third wave, she said, is staying home, limiting contact with people outside your household and wearing a mask as much as possible. Vaccinations are vital, she said, but given the time they take to administer and become effective, they're more about preventing future waves.
Virus variants are filling ICUs and putting young, otherwise healthy people on life support, including an alarming number of pregnant women.
Mayor John Tory announced that almost 950,000 vaccine doses have been administered through all clinics, including people getting second doses. He said plans to speed up the rollout include:
Launch of a Team Toronto sprint strategy" to triple to 12,000 the number of weekly doses administered through mobile and pop-up clinics, all aimed at neighbourhoods identified as being hardest hit by COVID-19.
Getting as many adults vaccinated in area codes starting with M9W, M9V, M9L, M9M, M9N, M6M, M3K, M3J, M3N, M3M, M4H, M1J and M1G.
Increasing bookings at several city-run clinics in virus hot spots - Scarborough Town Centre, Malvern Community Recreation Centre, Carmine Stefano Community Centre, and The Hangar at Downsview Park - starting May 10, based on expected supply.
Read the full story from the Star's David Rider
5:50 a.m. In Canada, the provinces are reporting 314,399 new vaccinations administered for a total of 10,797,817 doses given. Nationwide, 957,716 people or 2.5 per cent of the population has been fully vaccinated. The provinces have administered doses at a rate of 28,490.826 per 100,000.
There were 120,504 new vaccines delivered to the provinces and territories for a total of 13,424,964 doses delivered so far. The provinces and territories have used 80.43 per cent of their available vaccine supply.
5:45 a.m. If you've spent any time on social media this week, you've come across scores of selfies from Gen X'ers - sleeves rolled up to their shoulders - receiving hand-clapping emojis and other kudos for getting their AstraZeneca jabs.
As the hashtag #GenXZeneca trended on Twitter on Wednesday, Gen X'ers took their moment in the social media sun to indulge in a bit of gloating about how fearless" they were and, in some cases, to take a few subtle pot-shots at vaccine-shoppers, while waxing nostalgic about icons of their childhood: the Sony Walkman, the Commodore 64, Big Wheels and processed cheese.
While some consider the self-promotion to be a bit rich and worry it could stoke vaccine envy," the explosion of vaccine selfies - or vaxxies" - by Gen X'ers may be just the type of guerrilla marketing that gets the vaccine-hesitant among us out the door, some experts say.
Read the full story from the Star's Douglas Quan
5:40 a.m. A poll released by the Ontario Federation of Labour found that 83 per cent of Ontarians believe that governments should make all employers provide paid sick days for all employees."
The poll by communications firm Stratcom, which surveyed a diverse group of 3,245 Ontario residents aged 18 and older, comes amid outrage over Premier Doug Ford's refusal to implement policies such as paid sick days to curb the spread of COVID-19 across the province.
Amidst a catastrophic third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is clear that there is an urgent need for legislation that provides permanent, adequate and universal paid sick days," said Patty Coates, Ontario Federation of Labour president, in a news release. Ontarians overwhelmingly agree that paid sick days are a common-sense public health measure that keeps people safe during COVID and beyond."
Read the full story from the Star's Ann Marie Elpa
5:34 a.m. Early childhood educator Jessica Tomas spends all day working with unmasked young kids at a Toronto daycare - helping them eat, getting them dressed to play outside and offering a comforting hug when needed.
Tomas and other child-care workers remain on the job, where physical distancing measures are difficult to enforce, even as the pandemic's third wave has prompted Ontario to impose a stay-at-home order and move schools online.
Daycare workers, however, are not yet eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine based on their profession and are renewing their push to be prioritized for a shot.
"Getting a vaccine would alleviate such an enormous amount of anxiety that I have entering the building and leaving the building," Tomas said. "It would just be such a weight lifted off my shoulders."
Tomas, who uses the pronouns they and them, said they considered quitting over the last year due to the pressures of the pandemic. Getting vaccinated would help them focus on the job they love, Tomas said.
The Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care and the Association of Early Childhood Educators of Ontario have written an open letter to Premier Doug Ford that asks him to make inoculating daycare staff a priority. It has over 10,000 signatures.
5:32 a.m. Nazeem Muhajarine says he feels a sense of relief after receiving his first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine last week at a centre in Saskatoon.
"It was just so well-organized and run. I felt completely safe," Muhajarine said in an interview.
The professor of community health and epidemiology at the University of Saskatchewan said the province is making great strides quickly getting shots into arms, but he's concerned some people are being left behind.
Premier Scott Moe touted during question period Wednesday that Saskatchewan is leading the country when it comes to administering first vaccinations.
"Our way through this pandemic, everyone's plan to get through this pandemic, is to get everyone vaccinated as quickly as possible," Moe said.
More than 365,000 doses of vaccine have been given in Saskatchewan. Health officials say 52 per cent of residents over the age of 40 have received their first shot.
It puts Saskatchewan - with a population of just under 1.18 million - ahead of other provinces when it comes to doses delivered per capita. Data from a COVID-19 vaccination tracker, run by University of Saskatchewan students using federal and provincial data, suggests the province in outpacing Ontario and Quebec.
Moe credits his Saskatchewan Party's "robust vaccination plan," which he says will be augmented in the coming days. Eligibility for all vaccines is being lowered to 44 on Thursday, except for in the north where it will go down to 40. It's expected to drop to 40 for the general population by Wednesday.
Muhajarine said there's much to applaud about the vaccine rollout. The choice, initially, to use age-based eligibility meant it was easy to understand and targeted those who were more likely to experience severe outcomes if infected, he said.
Drive-thru COVID-19 vaccination clinics have also been successful, said Muhajarine. One providing mass immunizations in Regina as the capital has became a hot spot for variants has expecially worked well.
Muhajarine said his own experience shows that organization at larger mass vaccination sites is also commendable.
However, the professor said now that vulnerable senior populations are immunized and there are highly contagious new strains, the province may be missing the mark.
Getting the most vaccinations out fastest is just part of a good public health response, he said, but surging infections and hospitalizations mean the response should now be targeted to those most affected.
"Workplace spreads and outbreaks have been quite prevalent," Muhajarine said. "That's been a huge contributor in Regina and has been a contributor in Saskatoon as well."
There were 231 new cases in Saskatchewan on Wednesday and four more deaths, including a person in their 30s another in their 40s. The others were over 70. There were 185 people in hospital and 49 in intensive care.
Provincial public health orders were tightened recently as officials warned the more transmissible variant strains were becoming dominant.
Muhajarine said the recent deaths of influential Cree teacher Victor Thunderchild, 55, in Prince Albert and well-known chef Warren Montgomery, 42, in Regina are examples of people in high-risk work environments who weren't able to get vaccinations under the age-eligibility plan.
He said Saskatchewan should consider following Ontario and Manitoba, which are pivoting vaccination plans to target neighbourhoods where people have a higher risk of contracting the virus.
It should also consider socio-economic factors, including how many residents are in a household and the type of jobs people have, he added.
One example would be neighbourhoods with multi-generational households and where many people work service jobs facing the public. Congregate living facilities such as shelters and correctional centres would be another, he said.
Muhajarine said teachers and other essential workers should also get priority.
Every region in the country is seeing benefits to targeting areas and occupations where the pandemic's third wave has taken hold, he suggested
"That is not something to be trivialized in this kind of complex and mass undertaking."
Thursday 5:30 a.m. A new study looking at the prevalence of COVID-19 antibodies in blood donors finds that the risk of contracting the virus in Canada's poorest neighbourhoods increased by over 400 per cent between the end of the first wave last year and January 2021.
At the same time, more affluent neighbourhoods saw a much smaller increase in the risk of contracting the virus - 77 per cent - according to Canadian Blood Services and the COVID-19 Immunity Task Force, a national group formed to determine the extent of COVID-19 infection in Canada.
It's a wake-up call," said Dr. Tim Evans, executive director of the immunity task force. We're seeing this really nasty growing inequality."
The findings back up other data on COVID-19 case counts, hospitalizations and deaths that show poorer and racialized communities have been disproportionately hit by the disease, especially in the third wave. They also lend support to months of calls by the medical community to vaccinate people in these communities as soon as possible.
To arrive at their conclusions, the researchers examined the results of tests showing how many blood donors had antibodies against the virus that causes COVID-19, an indicator that the donors had contracted the disease in the past.
The study covered most of Canada with the exception of the territories and Quebec, which has its own blood supply. The results show seroprevalence - the percentage of people in the population who have antibodies in their blood - giving a clearer picture of the true extent of the spread of the virus due to the fact many donors may not have received COVID tests from public health.
Read the full story from the Star's May Warren and Kenyon Wallace
Wednesday 9:30 p.m.: An emergency parliamentary debate that was supposed to be a forum for cross-party collaboration on better ways to combat the COVID-19 pandemic has devolved into another round of partisan finger-pointing.
Veteran Green MP Elizabeth May requested the debate, appealing to MPs to stop the blame game and think about how Canada can develop a more nationally co-ordinated approach to the pandemic that is raging out of control in some provinces.
Both the Greens and NDP suggest it's time for the federal government to invoke the Emergencies Act, which would enable it to shut down interprovincial travel and lockdown areas experiencing community spread of the more contagious variants of COVID-19 - rather than leaving it up to provincial and territorial governments.
But Conservative and Bloc Quebecois MPs are using the opportunity to rehash their criticism of the Liberal government's handling of the health crisis.
Conservatives are blaming Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's failure to secure a stable supply of vaccines in January and February for the third wave of COVID-19 sweeping across the country.
May says she's saddened by the finger-pointing and argues there's plenty of blame to go around but it's urgent right now to focus on how Canada can do better, not on what went wrong in the past.