Today’s coronavirus news: Ontario reporting 3,887 COVID-19 cases and 21 deaths; Doug Ford asks Trudeau to stop all international students from coming to Ontario
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.
1:45 p.m.: Newfoundland and Labrador is reporting eight new cases of COVID-19.
Officials say all but one of the new cases are linked to travel within Canada.
Contact tracers are still investigating the source of the remaining infection.
Public health says there are now 33 active reported infections in the province including two people in hospital.
Meanwhile, Manitoba is expanding its COVID-19 eligibility.
Anyone 18 and over who is pregnant, who receives community living disability services, or who works in any health-care setting including outpatient locations and the vaccine warehouse can now book an appointment.
As well, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is now available for the first time to some people under 40.
Newly eligible people are those 30 to 39 with underlying health conditions such as severe obesity, chronic liver disease and HIV.
1:24 p.m.: Quebec is redirecting people from the mass vaccination site at the Olympic Stadium on Saturday because of a planned protest in the area against COVID-19 health orders.
Health Minister Christian Dube said today on Twitter appointments have been transferred to other clinics in the city.
Dube says the other clinics had the capacity to honour appointments scheduled at the stadium but is deploring the fact protesters are choosing to demonstrate outside the mass vaccination site.
The protest is being organized online by a group calling itself Quebec Debout (Quebec standing up). It calls the public health orders imposed in the province "excessive and unjustified."
Protests are planned in Montreal and several other Quebec towns, according to the group's Facebook page.
Dube says the government respects the right to demonstrate but vaccination is a priority.
"People have a right to their opinion, but I think they could have left those who are getting vaccinated alone," Dube told TVA network in an interview today.
12:52 p.m. Toronto police's dedicated enforcement teams have handed out 230 charges over COVID-19 lockdown violations during their first week of operations. The charges were laid for breaking the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act.
Police announced the launch of their new dedicated enforcement teams on April 21, five days after the provincial government put additional lockdown restrictions into place along with a two-week extension of the stay-at-home order.
The teams officially began operations on April 22 in all sixteen divisions. Since then, officers have attended 315 incidents - including 105 calls for gatherings since Monday.
The pandemic presents both public health and public safety risks. We have an enforcement team in every Division across the city and officers are dispersing large gatherings daily and laying charges against those who are ignoring the emergency order," inspector Matt Moyer said in a release.
Downtown has generated the highest amount of calls but police say they have been responding to reports across the city.
"As we head into the weekend, we are discouraging anyone who is thinking of attending or hosting a gathering, and reminding them that, if they do, they may very well expect the police in attendance as well. Please work with us to keep the city safe. Don't attend parties or large gatherings. Stay home and stay safe," Moyer said.
11:50 a.m. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Ottawa will address a surprise request by Ontario's premier Doud Ford to suspend the arrival of international students into the province.
Trudeau said no other province has requested the measure and so Ottawa will work with Ford to formalize the request and see how it can be met.
And Trudeau appeared to reject another request from Ford to slap a mandatory three-day hotel quarantine order on people crossing into Ontario at four land border entry points.
Trudeau said that, On land borders, as a reminder: Anyone who comes to the U.S. land border has already been tested in the U.S. in the last 3 days. Then, they have to get tested again. And everyone has to quarantine for 2 weeks, and do another test on day 8. We are enforcing very severe consequences for anyone breaking these rules."
Prior to separate morning news conferences by the prime minister and the premier, who only been out in public once earlier this week, the Ontario government released a letter in which it asked the federal Liberals to impose stricter requirements at land borders.
The letter does not specifically mention any request of international students, that Trudeau said came up at a federal-provincial teleconference call Thursday night.
In a letter to their federal counterparts, Ontario's health minister Christine Elliott and solicitor general Sylvia Jones demanded immediate action" at Niagara, Windsor, Sarnia, and Brockville to halt the entry of variant cases, and they reiterated an earlier demand this week for pre-departure COVID-19 testing for domestic flights."
Read the full story here from the Star's Tonda MacCharles.
11:15 a.m. A deadly second wave of coronavirus infections is devastating India, leaving millions of people infected and putting stress on the country's already overtaxed health care system.
Officially, by the end of April, more than 17.9 million infections had been confirmed and more than 200,000 people were dead, but experts said the actual figures were likely much higher. In the same period, India has been responsible for more than half of the world's daily COVID-19 cases, setting a record-breaking pace of more than 300,000 a day.
Months ago, India appeared to be weathering the pandemic. After a harsh initial lockdown, the country did not see an explosion in new cases and deaths comparable to those in other countries.
But after the early restrictions were lifted, many Indians stopped taking precautions. Large gatherings, including political rallies and religious festivals, resumed and drew millions of people.
Beginning this spring, the country recorded an exponential jump in cases and deaths.
What to know about India's coronavirus crisis
11:05 a.m. Quebec bar owners want the government to allow them to reopen for patrons who have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
Two associations representing bar owners wrote to Premier Francois Legault to say modifying the public health order that has closed bars since October would bring some much-needed reprieve for the hard-hit sector.
They also suggest that allowing partially vaccinated people access to bars would help encourage vaccine-hesitant Quebecers to get a shot.
The associations say in the letter that any reopening would include strict public health measures enforced by bar owners.
As of Thursday, about 35 per cent of adult Quebecers had received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
The government said Thursday it will open vaccination appointments to all adult Quebecers by mid-May; people 50 to 59 became eligible today to book an appointment.
11:02 a.m. Nunavut is reporting 11 new cases of COVID-19 Friday, all in the capital city of Iqaluit.
The territory is also reporting five new recoveries, bringing its total active case count to 61.
That number includes four cases in Kinngait, a community of about 1,500, and two in Rankin Inlet.
Health officials say the B117 variant first identified in the United Kingdom is the only strain of the virus in the territory.
Both Iqaluit and Kinngait are under strict lockdowns, with schools and workplaces shut and travel restricted.
10:26 a.m. Nova Scotia is reporting 67 new cases of COVID-19 Friday and 589 active infections.
Fifty-seven cases are in the Halifax area, four are in the western health zone and the eastern and northern zones each have three new cases.
Meanwhile, Nova Scotians between 40 and 54 can book an appointment starting today for the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
Health officials say they expanded access to that vaccine based on guidance from the federal expert panel on immunization and because of a rapid rise in COVID-19 infections that has led to a provincewide lockdown.
Appointments for the AstraZeneca vaccine remain open to people 55 to 64 years old.
Officials say about 195,000 people in the 40-to-54 age group are eligible for a shot at 61 pharmacies and physician offices across the province.
10:14 a.m. (updated) Ontario is reporting 3,887 COVID-19 cases and 21 deaths. The seven-day average is down to 3,722 cases per day or 179 weekly per 100,000, and down to 26.7 deaths per day.Labs report 53,074 completed tests and a 7.4% positivity rate.
Locally, there are 1,331 new cases in Toronto, 871 in Peel, 267 in York Region, 208 in Durham and 204 in Hamilton.
10 a.m. Canada's Olympic team doctor is confident that with the pace of the country's vaccine rollout, every Canadian athlete will be vaccinated before this summer's Tokyo Olympics.
Athletes aren't required to be vaccinated to participate in the Games.
And so, with less than three months before they open on July 23, and with Japan in a state of emergency amid another wave of COVID-19, concern is mounting about how Olympic and Paralympic organizers can ensure the safety of 11,000 athletes from some 200 countries.
Canada's stance is its athletes won't jump the vaccine queue.
It likely wouldn't come to that anyways, according to Dr. Mike Wilkinson, the Canadian Olympic Committee's chief medical officer.
"Canada has vaccinated approximately just over 30 per cent of our population, and so we're doing pretty well," Wilkinson told The Canadian Press.
"It's moving very quickly, I am confident that the athletes will get vaccinated, as well as the rest of the team (coaches, etc.), before they leave for Tokyo."
He noted recent announcements in Ontario and Quebec that anyone aged 18 and over is expected to have access to vaccines by the end of May.
The arrival of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine this week is also good timing, Wilkinson said, and even a single dose of multi-dose vaccines provides excellent coverage and prevention of serious disease.
"We need to understand that vaccines are preventing serious illness and serious disease. It's not 100 per cent eliminating chances you're actually getting the virus, but it's significant protection.
"But that doesn't mean you can throw all the other prevention measures out, and so that's why we've emphasized the whole time that we're in control of how we can minimize exposure, which is essentially through the masks, social distancing, the hygiene, the hand washing, the sanitation, et cetera."
Japan organizers released their latest edition of the "Playbook" this week, outlining safety measures and restrictions at the Games, including daily COVID-19 testing for athletes.
Athletes will stay within a "bubble," moving only between the athletes village, competition venues and training sites.
9:05 a.m. York Region has identified its first two cases of the so-called double mutant" variant of COVID-19 and it appears to have been acquired at a quarantine hotel.
Dr. Karim Kurji, York's medical officer of health, told regional council April 29 he was notified last Friday that two York Region residents have the new variant B.1.617.
Local public health investigators followed up and learned one had travelled from China and one had travelled from Taiwan - both countries with low incidence levels of this particular variant.
The two individuals tested negative before leaving those countries and were found to be negative on arrival testing here, he said.
The federal government requires international air travellers to quarantine at designated hotels upon arrival until they test negative for COVID-19.
In one instance, the individual was staying in the hotel, and in another, after three days, the individual went to self isolate at home, Kurji said.
We believe they followed protocol perfectly, but, 10 days later, both of them tested positive. Both, upon detailed interviews, felt they had acquired it from the hotels where they had quarantined."
It's not clear if that is the case, Kurji said, but there is an investigation underway with a high level" federal agency, the chief medical officer of health, public health Ontario, York Region and Peel public health, as well as with the other more than 30 people who have the new variant in Canada.
It's evidence that good case and contact management can help target where cases are spreading, he said.
I think that this speaks to the high standards that our case and contact investigators have been adopting, and this is why we have always preferred targeted interventions."
8:59 a.m. France has announced its first confirmed cases of the virus variant that is sweeping over India, just as the French president outlined a national reopening plan after six months of virus restrictions.
The Health Ministry announced late Thursday night that three people tested positive for the new variant in the Bouches-du-Rhone and Lot et Garonne regions of southern France. All three had travelled to India, and are under medical observation.
Authorities are seeking to trace their contacts and investigating other suspected cases, the ministry said. It noted that the variant has been detected in at least six other European countries.
France last week stepped up virus controls for travellers arriving from India as well as some other countries where variants are spreading.
The announcement came as French President Emmanuel Macron laid out a four-stage reopening process aimed at boosting the economy, welcoming back tourists and lifting nearly all of France's virus restrictions by June 30.
The vast majority of France's virus cases now involve the more contagious, more dangerous variant first identified in Britain. France has reported one of the world's highest virus death tolls, at more than 103,000 deaths.
8:50 a.m. Statistics Canada estimates the economy grew at an annualized rate of 6.5 per cent in the first quarter of the year.
The preliminary estimate for the first three months of the year compares with growth at an annualized rate of 9.6 per cent over the last three months of 2020.
Statistics Canada says the economy grew 0.4 per cent in February and estimated growth of 0.9 per cent for March.
8:36 a.m. Toronto Public Health has ordered the partial closure of three more businesses due to COVID-19.
The closures include The Vinyl Company on Fenmar Drive, the Canada Goose corporate office in Scarborough and the Ellis-Don construction site at 390-440 Dufferin Street.
The Ellis-Don closure affects sub-contractors including Torino Drywall Inc., Tri-Clean Building Services, Inc., Zerem Electrical Services, Figure 3, and Royalguard Industries Inc.
This is the second Ellis-Don construction site to be impacted. On Apr. 23, the company's site at Michael Garron Hospital on Coxwell Street was ordered partially closed.
The city closed 11 workplaces earlier this week under COVID-19 emergency orders.
8 a.m. (updated) Ontario is asking the federal government to impose mandatory three-day quarantines in hotels for travellers entering Canada at land crossings.
Health Minister Christine Elliott and Solicitor General Sylvia Jones make the request in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19 in the province.
Travellers arriving at Canada's international airports currently have to stay in a specially designated hotel for three days before completing a 14-day quarantine at home.
The province says there are reports of international travellers booking return flights into nearby American airports, taking a taxi to a United States-Canada land crossing, and walking or driving across the border.
Elliott and Jones say these reports are deeply troubling and are an "extreme risk" as deadly international variants of the novel coronavirus feed a third wave of the pandemic in Ontario.
7:30 a.m. Premier Doug Ford will hold a virtual press conference Friday at 12 p.m. The premier continues to self isolate after a staffer tested positive for COVID-19.
7:05 a.m. A record surge in COVID-19 infections in Costa Rica forced the government to announce new restrictions Thursday that will dial back the country's economic reopening.
Health Minister Daniel Salas said that in the prior 24-hour period, Costa Rica had tallied 2,781 new infections, the highest daily total since the country's first case was confirmed in March 2020. Fifteen people died of COVID-19 during the same period.
Non-essential" businesses in central Costa Rica, including the capital, were told to close and stronger sanctions were announced for businesses violating reduced capacity rules for their venues.
The rapid increase in infections has stressed the country's public health system. The intensive care units of public hospitals had reached 94% of their capacity.
Costa Rica will however continue in-person learning. Salas said that while infections had been identified at schools the vast majority were isolated and in total that represented only 6% of the country's schools.
Costa Rica has confirmed more than 248,000 COVID-19 infections and more than 3,200 deaths.
6:50 a.m. Indian scientists appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to publicly release virus data that would allow them to save lives as coronavirus cases climbed again Friday, prompting the army to open its hospitals in a desperate bid to control a massive humanitarian crisis.
With 386,452 new cases, India now has reported more than 18.7 million since the pandemic began, second only to the United States. The Health Ministry on Friday also reported 3,498 deaths in the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 208,330. Experts believe both figures are an undercount, but it's unclear by how much.
India's pandemic response has been marred by insufficient data and the online appeal - signed by over 350 scientists Friday afternoon - asks government to release data about the sequencing of virus variants, testing, recovered patients and how people were responding to vaccines.
The appeal says that granular" data on testing was inaccessible to non-government experts and some government experts too. Modeling work to predict future surges was being done by government-appointed experts with insufficient information. Similarly, scientists had failed to get information that would allow them predict how many beds, oxygen or intensive care facilities would be needed, it said.
The appeal urged the government to widen the number of organizations sequencing the virus to study its evolution, and also increase the number of samples being studied. It added that restrictions on importing scientific raw materials - to make India self reliant' is a key goal for Modi and his government - was an obstacle. Such restrictions, at this time, only serve to impede our ability to deal with COVID-19," it said.
Meanwhile, families continued to flood social media and messaging apps with pleas for help: oxygen, beds, medicines, intensive care units and wood for funeral pyres.
6:48 a.m. Turkish security forces on Friday patrolled main streets and set up checkpoints at entry and exits points of cities, to enforce Turkey's strictest COVID-19 lockdown to date. Still, many people were on the move as the government, desperate not to shut down the economy completely, kept some sectors exempt from the restrictions.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan imposed the new lockdown restrictions - which took effect Thursday evening and will last until May 17 - following an alarming resurgence that saw COVID-19 infections and fatalities reach record high levels.
Under the restrictions - which span the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, as well as the three-day Eid holiday - residents are banned from leaving their homes except to shop for groceries or to meet other essential needs. Intercity travel requires special permits.
However, millions of people were exempted from the stay-at-home order. In addition to health sector workers and law enforcement officers, they include factory and agriculture workers as well as supply chain and logistic company employees. Tourists were also exempted, while restaurants are allowed to deliver food.
The Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey estimated that some 16 million workers in the country of 84 million would continue to be on the move during the lockdown.
The streets of Ankara and Istanbul were quieter than usual. Nevertheless, workers exempted from the bans filled subways cars and buses in Istanbul, broadcaster Halk TV reported.
Police patrolled the streets and set up checkpoints at main intersections to ensure that residents who were out and about had documents proving they are exempted from the stay-home order. Gendarmerie police were, meanwhile, stopping vehicles to ensure passengers had the necessary permits for intercity travel, causing long lines of vehicles.
Istanbul Gov. Ali Yerlikaya said more than 19,000 law enforcement officers would be on duty during the lockdown, and that more than 300 checkpoints would be set up.
6:45 a.m. 1,150,918 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered to date in Toronto.
6:30 a.m. Refugees, immigrants and other recent newcomers to Ontario are being vaccinated for COVID-19 at much lower rates than Canadian-born or long-term residents, new data shows.
And even with the provincial government's revised vaccination rollout plan prioritizing hot spots, newcomers living in neighbourhoods most at risk for transmission continue to experience the lowest rates of vaccination compared to those who were born in Canada or who have lived here for more than 35 years, according to a new report by the non-profit ICES, formerly the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences.
The report acknowledges that the province's decision to target hot spots and expand age eligibility in early April has resulted in an overall increase in vaccinations in these neighbourhoods, but finds that vaccine coverage continues to lag in immigrants, refugees and recent OHIP registrants, including older adults.
There's age risk and there's transmission risk, and we know that immigrants and refugees are overrepresented in essential workers, and we know that many immigrant communities live multi-generationally," said Dr. Astrid Guttmann, chief science officer of ICES and lead author of the report. So the risk of transmission is higher and they're less vaccinated. We need it to be the other way around."
Read the full story from the Star's Kenyon Wallace and May Warren
5:51 a.m. Ontario's vaccination plan is speeding up - with anyone over 18 eligible to book a shot by the end of May - and a two-week focus on COVID-19 hot spots should be enough to make important progress, says the science table of experts advising Premier Doug Ford.
A move to put 50 per cent of new doses into high-risk areas until mid-May was shy of the month-long blitz science experts initially recommended to seriously blunt transmission rates, as the province struggles to dampen the third wave of the pandemic and prevent a fourth.
However, calculations made Thursday night show that increased vaccine supplies, coupled with higher recent vaccination levels, suggest three-quarters of adults could get jabs in the hot spots within two weeks.
Whether we reach 75 per cent or not will depend on how well the rollout works and on uptake in those communities," a science table source said late Thursday.
Two weeks is enough time to reach the kind of vaccine coverage in hot spots that we'd been hoping for."
Read the full story from the Star's Rob Ferguson
5:37 a.m. Security guard Chris Sokoloski spent hours trying to book a daytime vaccine appointment at four different pharmacies this week. Unsuccessful, frustrated and worried about the high COVID-19 case counts in Peel, he turned to the recently launched overnight clinics, lining up outside a Mississauga Shoppers Drug Mart at 1:15 a.m. Thursday. An hour later, he was vaccinated.
Sokoloski was one of 75 people who stood in the dark in the chilly April drizzle outside the pharmacy on Hurontario Street, some making small-talk with others in the queue as they anxiously awaited their sought-after first jab in a region ravaged by the pandemic.
Home to thousands of at-risk essential workers like Sokoloski, Peel Region continues to be hard-hit by COVID-19, with the highest positivity rate in the province at 14.5 per cent and 901 confirmed new cases as of Thursday. Even as case counts continue to climb, vaccine supply in the region has been inadequate, leaving front-line workers and their loved ones especially vulnerable to the virus.
I'm just excited to hopefully be safer for work," said Sokoloski, 45, after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine. I'm doing health screenings all day long for people. My girlfriend's immunocompromised, so I'm scared of bringing the virus home to her."
Read the full story from the Star's Maria Sarrouh
5:32 a.m. Toronto is on track to have 40 per cent of adults vaccinated against COVID-19 with at least one dose by this weekend. It's a step toward the Ontario government's goal of reaching that threshold across the province by Monday.
The city's vaccination progress, expected to accelerate with increased shipments of the Pfizer vaccine, combined with local COVID-19 infection rates that seem to have plateaued and possibly started to drop, is good news, health experts say.
Dr. Eileen de Villa on Wednesday, was not ready to say the city has turned in a corner in this punishing third wave of the pandemic.
Daily new infections are down from record highs, but she would not say they are plateauing."
More than 1,000 new cases per day is not something to celebrate, she said, and to bring this wave under control and have the kind of summer we want ... there is a lot of work to be done."
Read the full story from the Star's David Rider
5:30 a.m. British Columbia's solicitor general is expected to announce more details about enforcement of a travel ban aimed at reducing the spread of COVID-19.
Mike Farnworth, who is also the public safety minister, announced orders a week ago to limit non-essential travel between three regional zones until May 25.
He has said police will conduct periodic road checks at key travel points and violators could be issued $575 fines.
The National Police Federation has criticized the order, saying it lacks clarity and that its RCMP members in B.C. are at risk of public backlash and exposure to the virus due a slow immunization rollout for officers.
The B.C. Civil Liberties Association has said Indigenous, Black and racialized communities could be at risk of negative harmful impacts when dealing with police.
However, Farnworth has maintained the province sought input from racialized communities.
5:24 a.m. People who break health rules by holding parties that lead to death from COVID-19 should heed the warning from a British Columbia judge about facing a manslaughter charge, legal experts say.
Prof. Lisa Dufraimont of York University's Osgoode Hall law school said manslaughter charges stem from an unlawful act that causes death and a foreseeable activity that could cause bodily harm.
"And if in fact it does cause someone's death, as the judge said, then that could amount to manslaughter," Dufraimont said in an interview Thursday.
"The judge is right about that."
Provincial court Judge Ellen Gordon chastised Mohammad Movassaghi this week as she sentenced him to one day in jail, a $5,000 fine and 18 months' probation. He had previously pleaded guilty to disobeying a court order, failing to comply with a health officer's order and unlawfully purchasing grain alcohol.
The court heard he held a party for 78 people in a penthouse condominium that was about 165 square metres in size that police described as a makeshift nightclub.
Gordon called the event "a crime, not a party," adding that it was something attended by people "foolish enough" to put their own and their grandmothers' health at risk.
"If someone who had been at your party was infected and died, as far as I'm concerned, you're guilty of manslaughter," she said. "If someone who had been at your party was infected and passed it on to grandma, as far as I'm concerned, you're guilty of manslaughter."
Movassaghi apologized to the judge and to the public for his "grievous error of judgment."
In the months since, Movassaghi said he has been following the public health orders "to a T," practising physical distancing and wearing a mask.
"I learned a hard lesson,'' he said.
Speaking generally about the law, Dufraimont said the offences that could lead to manslaughter charges could follow if a person flagrantly disregards provincial health orders.
"When you do a dangerous act that's also a lead offence under the legislation, and if that were to lead to someone's death, that could be manslaughter," she explained.
Manslaughter has no minimum sentence but could result in life in prison.
However, Isabel Grant, a professor at the University of British Columbia's Peter A. Allard school of law, urged caution when charging a person with manslaughter.
"I think it's technically possible that the Crown could substantiate a manslaughter charge but I think it's highly unlikely," Grant said.
"I'm just not sure that that really gets us very far."
Grant said it would also be a "very difficult thing" to prove where a person contracted the virus.
Friday 5:20 a.m. Ontario's Long-Term Care COVID-19 Commission is to submit its final report to the provincial government Friday.
The commission has examined what went wrong in the province's response to the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As of Thursday, 3,768 long-term care residents have died of COVID-19 in Ontario.
The commission interviewed a range of people and groups, from Long-Term Care Minister Merrilee Fullerton to doctors and personal support workers to family members of residents who were ill.
The report is to include recommendations on how the province can protect long-term care homes from any future pandemics.
The commission has already released two sets of interim recommendations.
Thursday 9:15 p.m. (Updated) A southwestern Ontario golf course has been charged after it opened up for business illegally, despite provincial COVID-19 stay-at-home orders.
The Bridges at Tillsonburg operated for almost a week before Ontario Provincial Police charged the business with failure to comply under the Ontario Reopening Act on Thursday.
Last Saturday, tee-times were fully booked at the Bridges in defiance of COVID-19 restrictions. Ontario's stay-at-home order includes the closure of golf courses and most other outdoor activities until at least May 20.
Under the act, corporations who fail to comply face a fine of up to $10,000,000.
Police said the case is scheduled to be heard at the Ontario Court of Justice in Woodstock on June 3.
Thursday 7:23 p.m. Alberta is targeting COVID-19 hot spots with tighter restrictions that include at-home learning for junior and senior high school students and a ban on indoor fitness and sports, The Canadian Press reports.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney also says curfews will be considered if numbers go higher, according to CP.
He says it's a hard but necessary step to bend the curve of surging cases.
The restrictions will apply to areas with more than 350 cases per 100,000 population and will be in place for at least two weeks.
Those areas include the cities of Edmonton, Calgary, Red Deer, Grande Prairie, Lethbridge, Airdrie and the county of Strathcona.
Kenney says leading indicators of infection are still rising, and there are a record 632 people in hospital with COVID-19, 151 of them receiving intensive care.
He says the test positivity rate in the province sits at 10 per cent and variants now make up more than 60 per cent of all cases.
Chief medical health officer Dr. Deena Hinshaw reported another 2,048 cases today and three more deaths.
The total number of active cases sits at 21,385, a number inching closer to a record set in mid-December.