Today’s coronavirus news: Ontario reports 3,510 new COVID cases; Toronto to announce new workplace closures today
The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world Monday. This file will be updated throughout the day. Web links to longer stories if available.
10:10 a.m. Ontario is reporting 3,510 COVID-19 cases with 24 deaths Monday. The seven-day average is down to 3,917 cases per day or 188 weekly per 100,000, and up to 28.6 deaths per day, a third wave high. Labs report 33,822 completed tests, which is low for a Monday, and 10.9% positivity.
Locally, there are 1,015 new cases in Toronto, 909 in Peel, 391 in York Region, 244 in Durham and 206 in Ottawa.
As of 8 p.m. yesterday, 4,696,211 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered.
9:40 a.m. Nova Scotia health officials are again reporting a record number of new COVID-19 cases.
The province's Health Department tweeted Monday that the province has 66 new cases, surpassing the 63 reported Sunday.
Fifty-eight of the new cases are in the central health zone that includes Halifax, while there are five in the eastern zone, two in the western zone and one in the northern zone.
The province now has 323 confirmed active cases of COVID-19.
8:53 a.m. The European Union's executive branch said Monday that it has launched legal action against coronavirus vaccine-maker AstraZeneca for failing to respect the terms of its contract with the 27-nation bloc.
The AstraZeneca vaccine has been central to Europe's immunization campaign, and a linchpin in the global strategy to get vaccines to poorer countries. But the slow pace of deliveries has frustrated the Europeans and has been blamed in part for holding up the EU's vaccine rollout.
European Commission spokesman Stefan De Keersmaecker said that Brussels launched the legal action against AstraZeneca last Friday on the basis of breaches of the advance purchase agreement."
He said the reason for the legal action was that some terms of the contract have not been respected" and that the company has not been in a position to come up with a reliable strategy to ensure a timely delivery of doses."
AstraZeneca's contract with the EU foresaw an initial 300 million doses for distribution among member countries, with an option for a further 100 million.
But only 30 million doses were delivered in the first quarter of 2021, and the company says it can provide 70 million in the second quarter, rather than the 180 million it had promised.
AstraZeneca has previously said that its contract with the EU contained vaccine delivery targets, not firm commitments, and that the company was unable to meet them because of early problems with rapidly expanding its production capacity.
8:35 a.m. A teenage girl from Brampton has reportedly died after contracting COVID-19.
The girl has been identified as Emily Victoria Viegas, 13.
A Facebook post from the Greater Toronto Ball Hockey League said that the girl's father, Carlos Viegas, has been a long time player and referee with the league. Their 13 year old daughter tragically passed away from Covid on April 22," the post reads, Carlos we are so sorry for your loss."
The mayors of Brampton and Mississauga tweeted their condolences late Sunday night.
On Sunday evening, Mayor Patrick Brown tweeted his condolences to Viegas' family.
"This is beyond heart wrenching. As a parent, I am lost for words. Horrifying," Brown said.
"We can never underestimate the seriousness Covid 19 and the variants."
Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie also tweeted that losing someone so young to the virus is "heartbreaking."
Read the full story from the Star's Rhythm Sachdeva
8:25 a.m. Indigenous people in Toronto have been hospitalized with COVID-19 at more than three times the rate of the general population in the city, according to preliminary data provided exclusively to the Star.
The rate of COVID-19 infection for Indigenous people in Toronto is also 23 per cent higher than that of the city's general population, according to the data. It was compiled by a coalition of Indigenous health providers and analyzed by Dr. Janet Smylie, a professor at the University of Toronto's Dalla Lana School of Public Health and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Health.
The new data, along with reports of several cases of breakthrough" infections among Indigenous people who have received their first vaccine dose, is leading Smylie and others to call for Indigenous people living in Toronto to be given their second vaccine dose on the original 21- to 28-day interval, as is the case for First Nations people living on reserve.
We're the raging epicentre for the country," Smylie said. It's not the time for the province to push a discriminatory policy that would be having a double standard for First Nations on reserve and off reserve, because actually this off-reserve population in the city of Toronto is very vulnerable to COVID infection, hospitalization and death."
Read the full story from the Star's Brendan Kennedy
7:26 a.m. Local and provincial government officials in Brampton
and Mississauga want the federal government to shut down all international travel and close Pearson Airport to non-essential travel as a new COVID-19 variant is wreaking havoc in other parts of the world.
The new variant, B.1.617, is being called a double mutation" of the original COVID-19 virus and was first discovered in India, which is being overrun by the new strain. Thirty-six cases of the more contagious variant had been discovered in Ontario as of April 23.
As a result, Brampton council and Mississauga provincial MPPs are calling on the federal government to shut down all international travel to Canada and limit travel through Toronto Pearson International Airport, which is actually located in Peel Region.
Pearson is Canada's largest airport and Brampton and Peel Region remain among the country's biggest COVID-19 hot spots and hardest-hit areas.
A year ago, at the beginning of pandemic, Brampton city council made a request to close the airport so it would only be for Canadians coming back from abroad. It continues to be a concern to our council that the airport is open, and I have concerns that variants are going to come into the country because of the high volume of activity at Pearson Airport," Brown told reporters during an April 21 news conference.
"Close the airport," added Brown in a tweet.
6:45 a.m. Confirmed coronavirus infections in the Philippines surged past 1 million on Monday in the country's latest grim milestone, as officials assess whether to extend a monthlong lockdown in the Manila region amid a deadly spike or relax it to fight an economic recession, joblessness and hunger.
The Department of Health reported 8,929 new infections on Monday, bringing the country's total to 1,006,428, including 16,853 deaths. The totals are the second highest in Southeast Asia after Indonesia.
The Philippines imposed its first massive coronavirus lockdown in March last year, shutting down most businesses, confining millions of people to their homes and shutting public transport. The heavy restrictions were eased later in the year but the economy still contracted by 9.6% in 2020, with unemployment and hunger at their worst in years.
Infections, however, spiked again last month to some of the worst levels in Asia, prompting President Rodrigo Duterte's administration to reimpose a lockdown in the Manila region, the country's financial and commercial hub with more than 25 million people. Several hospitals in the metropolis reported being overwhelmed, with new COVID-19 patients waiting in hospital driveways, ambulances and cars.
Hospital officials say many health workers have been infected or have had to take a break due to stress and fatigue.
Despite a slight decline in new cases, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said he believes the current lockdown should be extended by another week or two. Economic officials have warned that a prolonged lockdown would increase unemployment and slow an economic recovery.
Our health system's capacity hasn't improved that much," Duque told the DZMM radio network.
He said the shortage of hospital intensive care units in some cities remains critical.
Duterte and his administration have faced widespread criticism over his handling of the pandemic and the sluggish start last month of a vaccination campaign which has been hampered by supply problems, delivery delays and public hesitancy.
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque tried to paint a more optimistic outlook. While he acknowledged that the number of infections has ballooned, he stressed that most patients have recovered and the government is taking steps to make intensive care units available for patients with severe infections.
Let's not focus on the total figures. Let's look at the figures of nearly 900,000 who have recovered and our case fatality rate that is low based on the world average," Roque said in a televised briefing. So, I don't think it is a negative reflection."
Cabinet officials and medical experts are to meet Tuesday to recommend whether to continue the lockdown to Duterte, who may announce a decision on Wednesday, Roque said.
6:30 a.m. Delhi has been cremating so many bodies of COVID-19 victims that authorities are getting requests to start cutting down trees in city parks for kindling, as a record surge of illness is collapsing India's tattered health care system.
Outside graveyards in cities like Delhi, which currently has the highest daily cases, ambulance after ambulance waits in line to cremate the dead. Burial grounds are running out of space in many cities as glowing funeral pyres blaze through the night.
India's surge in coronavirus infections, growing at the fastest pace in the world, has left families and patients pleading for oxygen outside hospitals, the relatives weeping in the street as their loved ones die while waiting for treatment.
The nation of nearly 1.4 billion people set a global record of new daily infections for a fifth straight day Monday. The 350,179 new cases pushed India's total past 17 million, behind only the United States. Deaths rose by 2,812 in the past 24 hours, bringing total fatalities to 195,123, the Health Ministry said, though the number is believed to be a vast undercount.
A stark symbol of the crisis are the overwhelmed graveyards and crematoriums, stacked to the brim with the dead.
In the central city of Bhopal, crematoriums have added pyres. One has been forced to skip the exhaustive rituals Hindus believe release the soul from the cycle of rebirth.
Overwhelmed crematoriums reflect the collapse of India's already fragile health care system. Hospitals are unbearably full, with two or three patients to a bed in some cases. Officials are racing to add beds, ventilators and more oxygen to help the sick breathe.
5:49 a.m. The Netherlands is banning passenger flights from India, where coronavirus infections are surging to record levels.
The government says the ban comes into force Monday evening and initially lasts until May 1. Flights carrying cargo and medical staff are exempt.
About seven flights a week arrive in the Netherlands from India.
India has set daily global records for new coronavirus infections, fueled by a new variant.
The Netherlands already has flight bans in place from South Africa and nations in South America.
The Netherlands also has pledged 1 million euros ($1.2 million) in aid to help India tackle the surge in infections.
Caretaker Minister for Development Cooperation Sigrid Kaag said it is heart breaking to see the consequences of corona in India."
5:47 a.m. Pakistani authorities are racing against time to add more beds and ventilators at hospitals amid a surge in deaths and coronavirus infections.
Authorities have started summoning troops to ensure people don't violate social distancing rules, according to Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad.
Pakistan says it will be forced to impose a nationwide lockdown if the COVID-19 situation does not improve this week.
Pakistan on Monday reported 70 deaths from COVID-19 and 4,825 cases in the past 24 hours.
It comes a day after Pakistan closed schools in high-risk areas but refused to delay exams, ignoring protests from students.
Pakistan has reported 17,187 deaths from COVID-19 among 800,452 cases since last year.
5:46 a.m. Officials in northern Spain's Pamplona have called off the famed San Fermin bull-running festival for the second year in a row because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Pamplona Mayor Enrique Maya cited a prevalence of coronavirus outbreaks, a high occupancy rate in hospitals and a slow rollout of vaccines as reasons to call off this summer's celebration.
The festival cannot be organized overnight," Maya said Monday during a news conference. This is very hard. I never thought that this could happen."
The nine-day festival in July is easily Spain's most international event. The festival was popularized by Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises" and up to last year's cancellation had last been called off during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s.
A new contagion resurgence seems to be waning in Spain, which has seen three major bouts of outbreaks since March last year. The accumulated caseload since then nationwide is nearing 3.5 million coronavirus infections.
At least 77,500 people have died in the country from COVID-19, although experts are saying that the vaccination of nearly one fifth of the country's 47 million inhabitants with at least one of two doses is helping to keep the number of new fatalities at the lowest levels so far during the pandemic.
5:45 a.m. After a year working on the pandemic front lines as a nurse, Jenna Heather saw her second COVID-19 vaccine as a light at the end of the tunnel" - so when she contracted the virus one month after her second Pfizer dose, it was a bit of a wake-up call."
What came next was a shock to her system. She suffered from fever, sore throat, runny nose, headaches and nausea for a week. Still, she's thankful she had some protection from the vaccine.
I'm very happy I was able to stay out of the hospital and it wasn't anything worse," she said.
Heather is among a small number of people who have experienced breakthrough" COVID-19 infections after getting fully vaccinated, a topic that's getting increasing attention as variants of concern test vaccine protection. Scientists say cases like Heather's - which are rare and normal for any vaccine - are a lesson for Canadians to stay diligent and follow public health measures until most of the population has been jabbed.
Read the full story from the Star's Lex Harvey
5:35 a.m. Toronto is expected to announce its first workplace closures today under new rules meant to curb the spread of COVID-19.
Public health units in both Toronto and Peel introduced the rules, which allow them to shutter establishments where five or more workers have tested positive for COVID-19 over a 14 day period.
Toronto Public Health said it was conducting investigations over the weekend and planned to announce which workplaces would be affected Monday.
Peel Region announced its first two closures on Saturday.
It partially closed two Amazon fulfilment centres - one in Brampton and one in Bolton.
Peel Region could also announce new closures today, as it says it plans to update its list of affected workplaces each weekday at noon.
5:34 a.m. Manitoba is set to announce new public health measures Monday afternoon as COVID-19 cases surge.
Premier Brian Pallister and Dr. Brent Roussin, the chief provincial public health officer, are scheduled to make the announcement at 12:30 p.m.
Manitoba last tweaked its rules a week ago, when Roussin warned it was the last chance to avoid a lockdown.
Details of the new measures to be announced today were not immediately available.
COVID-19 case counts have risen dramatically recently, from double-digits earlier in the spring to a daily average of 206 over the last week.
Manitoba recorded 259 cases of COVID-19 Sunday.
Monday 5:32 a.m. The federal government says it expects Canada to receive around 1.9 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine this week, including its very first shipment of single-dose shots from Johnson & Johnson.
Canada is set to receive about 300,000 doses of the J&J vaccine, which will come in addition to more than 1 million Pfizer-BioNTech shots and around 650,000 jabs from Moderna.
The country is not currently scheduled to receive additional supplies of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which has been in heavy demand after the eligible age for the shot was dropped to 40-plus in several provinces.
That demand is only expected to increase after the National Advisory Committee on Immunization adjusted its age recommendation for the shots, announcing on Friday that Canadians 30 and older should get the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Some provinces, however, have said they don't have enough supply to expand eligibility any further.
Federal Public Procurement Minister Anita Anand said last week the government is in talks with the United States to secure additional AstraZeneca doses after President Joe Biden suggested his country might share the shots with Canada.
The U.S. has stockpiled tens of millions of AstraZeneca shots, but health officials there have not approved the vaccine for use.
Anand said earlier this month that Canada still expects to receive 4.1 million doses of AstraZeneca from all sources by the end of June.
The expected arrival of the first Johnson & Johnson doses later in the week follows the end of an 11-day pause in the U.S. as health officials looked into six cases of rare blood clots.
There have also been questions and concerns about possible contamination of AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson doses at a Baltimore factory.
Health Canada released a statement on Sunday offering assurances that the two vaccines are safe.
"Health Canada has verified that the 1.5 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine imported into Canada from this facility meet quality specifications," it said.
"The department reviewed test results of all vaccine lots that came into Canada, as well as the company's quality control steps implemented throughout the manufacturing process to mitigate potential risks of contamination."
The Johnson & Johnson vaccines expected this week do not come from the Baltimore facility, it added.
This week will also mark the last in which Canada will receive less than 2 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, as the pharmaceutical giants prepare to ramp up deliveries for the foreseeable future.
The government expects the Pfizer-BioNTech shots to arrive early in the week, and the Moderna doses around mid-week.
Provinces reported 231,540 new vaccinations administered over the past 24 hours on Sunday, for a total of 12,044,741 doses given since the start of the vaccination campaign in the winter.
Across the country, 1,018,381 people, or 2.7 per cent of the population, had been fully vaccinated. The provinces have administered doses at a rate of 31,780.926 per 100,000.
Monday 5:30 a.m. A little more than a year ago, the province released sobering statistics about how many people might die as a result of COVID-19, which was then relatively new and poorly understood.
The estimate was 3,000 to 15,000 over two years. Extrapolating from those figures, Toronto's medical officer of health, Dr. Eileen de Villa, said Toronto could expect to see between 600 and 3,000 deaths.
On Saturday, Toronto hit the terrible marker of 3,011 dead.
There's no excuse for us to be in this position," said Dr. Lisa Salamon-Switzman, an emergency physician who works at Scarborough Health Network.
This was preventable."
Salamon-Switzman blames the provincial decision to loosen restrictions in many public health units in February for fuelling the most recent wave of illness.
Read the full story from the Star's Francine Kopun and Ed Tubb
Sunday 9:02 p.m. : The latest numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Canada as of 8:30 p.m. ET on Sunday April 25, 2021.
There are 1,178,986 confirmed cases in Canada.
Canada: 1,178,986 confirmed cases (86,229 active, 1,068,792 resolved, 23,965 deaths).*The total case count includes 13 confirmed cases among repatriated travellers.
There were 6,982 new cases Sunday. The rate of active cases is 226.89 per 100,000 people. Over the past seven days, there have been a total of 55,530 new cases. The seven-day rolling average of new cases is 7,933.
There were 38 new reported deaths Sunday. Over the past seven days there have been a total of 343 new reported deaths. The seven-day rolling average of new reported deaths is 49. The seven-day rolling average of the death rate is 0.13 per 100,000 people. The overall death rate is 63.06 per 100,000 people.
There have been 30,809,196 tests completed.
7:53 p.m.: The European Union plans to open its doors this summer to U.S. tourists who've been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, The New York Times reported, citing the head of the bloc's executive body.
The change, which would come under certain conditions, would end the bloc's more than one-year ban of nonessential travel from most countries to limit the spread of the coronavirus.
The latest move came after the huge progress" of U.S. vaccinations and as talks advanced on both sides on the proof of immunity for visitors, allowing the governing body of the bloc to recommend a change in policy, according to the newspaper.
The Americans, as far as I can see, use European Medicines Agency-approved vaccines," Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, was cited by the paper as saying. This will enable free movement and the travel to the European Union."
The White House National Security Council had no immediate response on the report Sunday.
7:03 p.m.: Vice-President Kamala Harris will make the case before United Nations members on Monday that now is the time for global leaders to begin putting the serious work into how they will respond to the next global pandemic.
The virtual address, Harris' second to a U.N. body since her inauguration, will come as the United States makes progress on vaccinating the public and much of the world struggles to acquire vaccines.
At the same time that the world works to get through this pandemic, we also know that we must prepare for the next," Harris will say, according to excerpts of the speech obtained by The Associated Press. The speech will be co-hosted by U.N. permanent representatives of Argentina, Japan, Norway and South Africa.
The Biden administration will mark its first 100 days in office this week. President Joe Biden is scheduled to address Congress on Wednesday and is certain to highlight the headway his administration has made in responding to the worst public health crisis in the U.S. in more than a century.
Harris, according to the excerpts, will broadly outline how the administration thinks the U.S. and other nations should consider focusing their attention. The steps include improving accessibility to health systems, investing in science, health workers and the well-being of women, and surging capacity for personal protective equipment and vaccine and test manufacturing.
6:38 p.m.: American tourists who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 will be able to visit the European Union over the summer, the head of the bloc's executive body said in an interview with The New York Times on Sunday, more than a year after shutting down nonessential travel from most countries to limit the spread of the coronavirus.