Today’s coronavirus news: Ontario reporting 1,135 cases of COVID-19, 316 new cases in Toronto; Ontario government unveils plan to improve air conditioning in LTC homes
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.
10:20 a.m. Ontario is reporting 1,135 cases of COVID-19, 316 new cases in Toronto. More than 37,700 tests were completed; locally, there are 271 new cases in Peel and 75 in York Region.
9:36 a.m. The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits dropped last week to 406,000, a new pandemic low and more evidence that the job market is strengthening as the virus wanes and economy further reopens.
Thursday's report from the Labor Department showed that applications declined 38,000 from 444,000 a week earlier. The number of weekly applications for jobless aid - a rough measure of the pace of layoffs - has fallen by more than half since January.
The decline in applications reflects a swift rebound in economic growth. The government separately estimated Thursday that the economy expanded at a strong annual pace of 6.4 per cent in the first three months of this year, unchanged from its initial estimate. More Americans are venturing out to shop, travel, dine out and congregate at entertainment venues. All that renewed spending has led companies to seek new workers, which helps explain why a record number of jobs is now being advertised.
9:13 a.m. 2,038,962 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered to date in Toronto.
9:10 a.m. Long-term care Minister Merrilee Fullerton is unveiling a plan to improve air conditioning at LTC homes in Ontario.
On April 1, the government updated regulations which require designated cooling areas of all homes be served by air conditioning and be maintained at a comfortable level during specified periods and which will enhance the effectiveness of enforcement.
The minister says all 626 long-term-care homes in Ontario are in compliance, with designated cooling areas.
Sixy per cent of homes are fully air conditioned, including in all resident rooms, compared to 42 per cent last summer. An additional 23 per cent of homes are working toward being fully air conditioned.
9 a.m. Immunity to the coronavirus lasts at least a year, probably much longer, and improves over time especially after vaccination, according to two new studies. The findings may help put to rest lingering fears that protection against the virus will be short-lived.
Together, the studies suggest that most people who have recovered from COVID-19 and who were later immunized will not need boosters. Vaccinated people who were never infected most likely will need the shots, however, as will a minority who were infected but did not produce a robust immune response.
Both reports looked at people who had been exposed to the coronavirus about a year earlier. Cells that retain a memory of the virus persist in the bone marrow and may churn out antibodies whenever needed, according to one of the studies, published Monday in the journal Nature.
8:40 a.m. York Region health officials say there's been a COVID-19 outbreak at Concord Food Centre in Thornhill after 23 cases were linked to the supermarket.
A statement said a workplace outbreak was declared at the store on May 12 after 14 employees tested positive for the virus.
Health officials are urging anyone who shopped at Concord Food Centre from April 8 to May 21 to monitor for signs and symptoms of COVID-19 until 14 days after their last visit.
8:35 a.m. As the city of Toronto launches a new plan to reach residents who have yet to receive their first shot of the COVID-19 vaccine, experts say officials should consider more strategies to encourage uptake, including everything from the wider involvement of family doctors and trusted community members, to vaccine buses on summer beaches and even lottery tickets or free doughnuts.
Toronto reached the milestone of vaccinating 65 per cent of adults this week. But the hard work of creating more convenient opportunities for vaccination and reaching out to those who may be unsure must be ramped up, say those who study vaccine hesitancy.
There are still people who want vaccines but don't know how to get them, or who can't take time off work or stand in a line, said Dr. Maya Goldenberg, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Guelph
Read the full story from the Star's Kenyon Wallace and May Warren
8:23 a.m. Britain's health minister on Thursday defended his handling of the coronavirus pandemic after a former top government aide alleged the government's botched response had led to tens of thousands of needless deaths.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock hit back after Dominic Cummings singled him out for criticism in an excoriating attack on the government.
In testimony to lawmakers on Wednesday, Cummings accused Hancock of lying to the public and said he should have been fired" for mistakes including testing failures that saw patients with the virus discharged from hospitals to nursing homes. Thousands of people died with COVID-19 in British care homes in the first months of the outbreak.
Hancock said the unsubstantiated allegations around honesty are not true."
I have been straight with people in public and in private throughout," he told legislators in the House of Commons. Every day since I began working on the response to this pandemic last January, I've got up each morning and asked: What must I do to protect life?"
Cummings, who left his job as Prime Minister Boris Johnson's top adviser in November, claimed the government's slow and chaotic initial response, and Johnson's failure to learn from mistakes, meant that tens of thousands of people had died unnecessarily.
8:15 a.m. One more person has died from COVID-19 in Halton, even as the region saw one of the lowest increases in new COVID-19 cases in months.
In its daily update on Wednesday, Halton health officials are reporting that the disease has claimed the life of a Burlington resident. This brings the region's death toll to 224 - including 56 in Burlington.
Public health also confirmed 29 additional COVID-19 cases across the region. There are 10 more infections in both Oakville and Burlington, eight in Milton, and one in Halton Hills. To date, 17,363 people have been infected with the illness, with 16,787 marked as resolved.
A total of 5,578 variant cases have been reported.
8:10 a.m. In an effort to more effectively respond to calls for larger gatherings, Peel Regional police are dedicating officers to work with bylaw enforcement in Brampton and Mississauga.
A team of dedicated officers, split between Mississauga and Brampton, will be there to respond with bylaw teams for calls over large gatherings, Const. Akhil Mooken said.
The aim is to ensure that police can more quickly aid bylaw officers, who are the first line of enforcement for a slew of provincial and municipal rules linked to the ongoing stay-at-home order and COVID-19 restrictions, including bans on gatherings both indoor and outdoor.
When called for assistance by the bylaw teams, they have had to wait for an officer to be available to attend," Akhil explained. This new partnership will provide an officer to be able to respond in a more timely manner."
Read the full story from the Star's Jason Miller
8:05 a.m. Toronto's top doctor is open to the possibility of children soon returning to classrooms.
Dr. Eileen de Villa expressed cautious optimism" Wednesday, but said she can't make a recommendation until she gets provincial guidance on school reopening criteria and looks at levels of COVID-19 spread in the community.
De Villa's comments to reporters came one day after her provincial counterpart, Dr. David Williams, said schools in some regions could reopen May 31, depending on a decision from Premier Doug Ford's cabinet.
Toronto students have been learning remotely since April 7 when de Villa ordered schools closed to help stop exponential COVID-19 spread during the pandemic's third wave, which has been in decline since mid-April.
Peel Region's Dr. Lawrence Loh closed schools there at the same time. Loh last week said he was optimistic COVID-19 numbers are trending in a favourable direction that, if maintained, might support a return to in-person learning."
Read the full story from the Star's David Rider
7:54 a.m. When the Canada Student Service Grant launched last June, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau touted the program as a way for pandemic-battered students to give back to their communities, gain work experience and earn some cash in the process.
Just under one year later, exactly what was done with the $912 million Ottawa was prepared to spend on the ill-fated program is unclear, even as young Canadians stare down another pandemic summer blighted by poor job prospects.
When it was created, the CSSG was part of a $9-billion package of student-focused funding that also included the now-closed Canada Emergency Student Benefit (CESB).
Under the program, post-secondary students and recent graduates would have received $1,000 per 100 hours of work - a rate below minimum wage - by participating in paid volunteer opportunities offered by a range of non-profit organizations.
Read the full story from the Star's Raisa Patel
7:30 a.m. Weeks after rocketing to some of the highest COVID-19 rates on the continent, Alberta has laid out an ambitious reopening plan that could see residents returning to some version of normal life before the end of June.
Today we are truly near the end of this thing," Premier Jason Kenney told reporters Wednesday. We're finally getting back to normal, and I think it means the best Alberta summer ever. This is due, in large part, to the miracle of modern medicine - the COVID-19 vaccines."
The plan has three phases, each successive step triggered by how many people in the province have received their first vaccination dose and how many people are hospitalized. The first restrictions the province will loosen will be capacity rules for religious gatherings, starting Friday - and, if all goes according to plan, Alberta could hit the final stage of its reopening as soon as late June or early July, Kenney said.
Read the full story from the Star's Alex Boyd
7:20 a.m. Toronto is launching a multi-pronged campaign to get the last 35 per cent of residents vaccinated against COVID-19, and to start getting second doses into those already partially protected.
VaxTO" will use texts, emails, voice broadcasts, telephone town halls and multilingual social media posts to unvaccinated Torontonians they need to roll up their sleeves, city officials announced Wednesday.
The campaign got its start over the weekend, Mayor John Tory said, with a robocall to 150,000 homes in COVID-19 hot-spot neighbourhoods which helped hundreds of people who answered the call," to book a vaccine appointment.
More than 65 per cent of Torontonians have now received at least a first dose of vaccine. The two millionth dose was administered in the city Tuesday.
Read the full story from the Star's David Rider
7:13 a.m. Is it safe for students and teachers to return to schools for in-class learning - yes or no?
That's the thorny question Premier Doug Ford and his cabinet ministers are wrestling with amid conflicting pandemic advice.
Parents, local medical officers of health and top pediatric experts are telling Progressive Conservative MPPs they want schools to open - even just for a few weeks before classes wrap up at the end of June.
But Ford is demanding a consensus" from Dr. David Williams, the chief medical officer of health, the science table of doctors and epidemiologists, and others before proceeding.
Williams insisted Tuesday he's eager for schools to reopen as early as next week, but said it's a decision that has to be made at the cabinet level" - and one he hopes will come soon.
Read the full story from the Star's Robert Benzie and Kristin Rushowy
6:11 a.m.: It seems like every new restaurant opening in the past month is some sort of hybrid between pizza, fried-chicken sandwiches or burgers. Foods that are takeout-friendly and are more practical to sell than say, a three-course prix fixe. But when Toronto emerges from one of the longest indoor-dining bans in the world, what will the restaurant scene look like?
Read the full story from the Star's Karon Liu.
6:05 a.m.: U.S. health officials have granted emergency authorization to a third antibody drug to help reduce hospitalizations and deaths due to COVID-19.
The FDA said Wednesday it authorized the drug from GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology for people with mild-to-moderate cases of COVID-19 who face extra risks of severe illness, including seniors and those with underlying health problems.
There has been low demand for two similar drugs already available, due mainly to the logistical hurdles of delivering them and confusion about their availability. U.S. health officials have been trying to raise awareness of the treatments, connecting people who test positive for COVID-19 with information about nearby providers.
The drugs are delivered as a one-time intravenous infusion at a hospital or clinic and should be given within 10 days of the start of symptoms.
6:03 a.m.: The city that was once Australia's worst COVID-19 hot spot on Thursday announced a seven-day lockdown, its fourth since the pandemic began.
The lockdown for Melbourne and the rest of Victoria state comes after a new cluster in the city rose to 26 infections, including a person who was in intensive care.
Victoria Acting Premier James Merlino said: Unless something changes, this will be increasingly uncontrollable."
The new Melbourne cluster was found after a traveller from India became infected with a more contagious variant of the virus while in hotel quarantine in South Australia state earlier this month. The traveller was not diagnosed until he returned home to Melbourne.
Australia's second largest city last year underwent a second wave of infections that peaked at 725 new cases in a single August day at a time when community spread had been virtually eliminated elsewhere in the country.
That lockdown lasted for 111 days. A third lockdown that lasted for five days in February was triggered by a cluster of 13 cases linked to hotel quarantine near Melbourne Airport.
Victoria accounts for 820 of Australia's 910 coronavirus deaths during the pandemic.
6:03 a.m.: Production of another potential vaccine against COVID-19 will begin within weeks, its developers Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline said Thursday as they launched a large Phase III trial enrolling 35,000 adult volunteers in the United States, Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The study will test the effectiveness of vaccine candidate formulas against the virus that spread from Wuhan, China, and against a variant first seen in South Africa, the pharmaceutical firms said.
If the trial is successful, regulators could approve the vaccine for use in the last three months of the year, the companies said in a statement.
Manufacturing will begin in the coming weeks to enable rapid access to the vaccine should it be approved," they added.
Their statement also quoted Thomas Triomphe, who leads vaccine research and development at Sanofi Pasteur, as saying:
We are encouraged to see first vaccinations starting to take place in such an important, pivotal Phase 3 study."
6 a.m.: China on Thursday accused the Biden administration of playing politics and shirking its responsibility in calling for a renewed investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic that was first detected in China in late 2019.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said at a daily briefing that President Joe Biden's order showed the U.S. does not care about facts and truth, nor is it interested in serious scientific origin tracing."
Biden told U.S. intelligence officials to redouble their efforts to investigate the origins of the pandemic, including any possibility the trail might lead to a Chinese laboratory.
After months of minimizing that possibility as a fringe theory, the Biden administration is joining worldwide pressure on China to be more open about the outbreak, aiming to head off Republican complaints the president has not been tough enough to press China on alleged obstruction.
5:55 a.m.: A Calgary mayoral candidate has been arrested in Edmonton in connection with an anti-masking incident at a shopping centre earlier this month.
Officers arrested Kevin J. Johnston, 49, without incident yesterday on a Criminal Code warrant for causing a disturbance and for being part of an illegal public gathering in contravention of the Court of Queen's Bench Order.
It's alleged that on Saturday, May 22, Johnston entered several stores at the CORE Shopping Centre in downtown Calgary without a mask, and reportedly verbally abused any employees who asked him to put one on.
He then left the stores, and returned moments later with several other unmasked people, who verbally confronted the employees while livestreaming the event.
The City of Calgary says authorities are still investigating the incident.
5:55 a.m.: The federal government is urging provinces not to waste thousands of doses of AstraZeneca vaccine that are due to expire in a few days.
In a letter to her provincial and territorial counterparts, federal Health Minster Patty Hajdu encourages provinces that aren't able to get their AstraZeneca doses into people's arms by the end of the month to give them to provinces that can.
She offers federal support to help ensure the doses are not wasted.
Hajdu says the Public Health Agency of Canada can assist with logistics and co-ordination should a province or territory conclude that it can't use all its doses before the expiration date and wants to transfer them elsewhere in the country.
The issue is set to be discussed further today during Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's regular pandemic conference call with first ministers.
It's not clear how many doses are at risk of going to waste, but Ontario is scrambling to use some 45,000 AstraZeneca shots by the end of May, with another 10,000 set to expire in June, while Manitoba has said it has 7,000 doses that will expire in a few days.
5:51 a.m.: Educators across the country are making plans to have students return to classes full time next fall. Many parents are worried what more than a year of disrupted schooling has meant for their children.
Experts say kids' social and emotional needs and patience with academic achievements will be paramount when classroom doors reopen.
They have just lived through something that is unprecedented," said Tracy Vaillancourt, an education professor at the University of Ottawa, who specializes in research on children's mental health.
Read the full story by the Canadian Press here.
5:50 a.m.: A Canadian-made COVID-19 vaccine undergoing clinical trials in Halifax is having trouble recruiting enough participants as vaccination rates increase in Nova Scotia.
The Canadian Centre for Vaccinology at Dalhousie University is trying to complete the second stage of the Phase 1 trial for a vaccine developed by Edmonton-based Entos Pharmaceuticals but says it's hard to find volunteers as more people get shots.
The centre's director, Dr. Scott Halperin, said the search is on for about a dozen more people aged between 18 and 55 who haven't been vaccinated yet and who haven't been exposed to the virus. They are needed to complete the initial phase of the trial, which requires a total of 36 participants.
In an interview Wednesday, Halperin said recruitment remains a challenge, especially given the province announced an acceleration of its vaccine rollout this week, with plans to administer second doses two to four weeks earlier than originally planned.
He also noted that vaccination rates will only increase with vaccine now available in Nova Scotia to people 20 years of age and older.
The rollout program for the vaccine is ahead of schedule, which means there are less people who would be eligible for a clinical trial," said Halperin. There is a decreasing number of people who are still not immunized."
4 a.m.: The latest numbers on COVID-19 vaccinations in Canada as of 4 a.m. ET on Thursday, May 27, 2021.
In Canada, the provinces are reporting 301,113 new vaccinations administered for a total of 21,938,721 doses given. Nationwide, 1,743,426 people or 4.6 per cent of the population has been fully vaccinated. The provinces have administered doses at a rate of 57,886.912 per 100,000.
There were 21,300 new vaccines delivered to the provinces and territories for a total of 25,390,194 doses delivered so far. The provinces and territories have used 86.41 per cent of their available vaccine supply.
4 a.m.: The latest numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Canada as of 4 a.m. ET on Thursday, May 27, 2021.
There are 1,368,106 confirmed cases in Canada.
Canada: 1,368,106 confirmed cases (44,785 active, 1,297,960 resolved, 25,361 deaths).*The total case count includes 13 confirmed cases among repatriated travellers.
There were 2,594 new cases Wednesday. The rate of active cases is 117.84 per 100,000 people. Over the past seven days, there have been a total of 25,719 new cases. The seven-day rolling average of new cases is 3,674.
There were 38 new reported deaths Wednesday. Over the past seven days there have been a total of 295 new reported deaths. The seven-day rolling average of new reported deaths is 42. The seven-day rolling average of the death rate is 0.11 per 100,000 people. The overall death rate is 66.73 per 100,000 people.
There have been 34,372,343 tests completed.