Today’s coronavirus news: Ontario reporting 158 cases of COVID-19, 4 deaths; WHO says coronavirus deaths up 21% in last week; Tokyo sets another virus record days after Olympics begin
The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world Wednesday. This file will be updated throughout the day. Web links to longer stories if available.
10:23 a.m. Toronto is planning to shut five of its nine city vaccination clinics so it can shift resources to mobile and pop-up efforts aimed at neighbourhoods where vaccination rates are below the city average, tweets the Star's David Rider from the city's press conference.
10:20 a.m. Ontario is reporting 158 cases of COVID-19 and four deaths. Locally, there are 25 new cases in Toronto, 19 in York Region and 16 in Waterloo Region, 15 in Hamilton and 13 in Durham Region. More than 20,500 tests completed.
10:12 a.m. Mayor John Tory says Toronto is on track "in the coming days" to meet provincial requirements for moving to the next stage of reopening (no sign Toronto will be allowed to reopen before rest of province, so we'll likely wait for others to catch up to vaccination rate), tweets the Star's David Rider.
Tory says work on getting homebound people second doses is almost done. (There was a long delay in getting first doses to those who can't leave home to attend a clinic or pop-up.)
The city's work on reopening is "going strong," Tory says. On Aug. 9, city buildings will begin a gradual and safe reopening. City hall and civic centres will go first, with the resumption of some in-person counter services.
"We're excited to open our doors again" Tory says of city buildings. Tory is having a meeting with major employers Wednesdasy about reopening offices and what that means for downtown Toronto.
The mayor has also announced another program to encourage people to dine out.
10:10 a.m. Mayor John Tory says more than 4.28 million vaccine doses have now been administered in Toronto; more than 70 per cent of Toronto adults are fully vaccinated.
10:10 a.m. Coronavirus infections in Nigeria surged to the highest level in almost five months as a third wave of cases spreads in Africa's most-populous nation.
The West African nation recorded 404 new cases on Tuesday, the highest number since March 4, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control. More than 88 per cent of the infections are in the commercial hub of Lagos, which said earlier that the increase signaled the start of a third wave.
Nigeria has more than 4,700 active COVID-19 cases, with 2,134 deaths. Only 1.3 per cent of its more than 200 million inhabitants had received their first vaccine as of July 10.
10 a.m. President Joe Biden promised a summer of joy" on July 4 as he declared America's independence from COVID-19. Three weeks later that sense of victory is evaporating in the face of a resurgent pandemic.
The U.S. now faces a surge in cases fueled by vaccine holdouts and the highly transmissible Delta variant, prompting the federal government and companies on Tuesday to weigh mandatory vaccinations of workers and a return to widespread mask wearing.
That reversal of fortune could bring back restrictions many Americans had hoped were gone for good - a bitter setback for Biden, who has counted on defeating the pandemic as a cornerstone of the nation's economic recovery.
As the seven-day rolling average of new infections approached 52,000 on Tuesday, more than four times the level just three weeks ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidance recommending Americans resume wearing masks in indoor public places in many parts of the country - regardless of whether they're vaccinated.
Just two months ago, the agency said vaccinated Americans could safely remove their masks everywhere.
The rapidly rising case count is prompting concern about the safety of schools, which are poised to begin reopening for the fall in less than a month, and whether the economy will suffer another blow should Americans resume social distancing practices.
Virus fears could keep Americans away from restaurants, hotels and bars, especially in areas with high transmission, and cause them to reconsider reporting to their jobs or traveling.
9:42 a.m. The World Health Organization says the number of coronavirus deaths globally jumped by 21 per cent in the last week.
Most of the 69,000 deaths were reported in the Americas and Southeast Asia. The U.N. health agency also noted that COVID-19 cases rose by 8 per cent worldwide and that there are now nearly 194 million infections.
WHO said that if these trends continue, the cumulative number of cases reported globally could exceed 200 million in the next two weeks." It added that the number of COVID-19 deaths increased in all regions except for Europe. The biggest numbers of cases were reported in the U.S., Brazil, Indonesia, the U.K. and India.
8:10 a.m. The Region of Peel has reached a milestone in its vaccine rollout, having administered more than two million doses.
According to Peel Public Health, as of July 26, approximately 2.13 million doses have been given out, including first and second doses.
Between July 19 and July 25, more than 87,000 doses have been administered.
This milestone has provided 926,000 residents with complete vaccine coverage, or approximately 64.7 per cent of the adult population, according to public health's COVID-19 dashboard.
8 a.m. Loblaw Companies Ltd. says its second-quarter profit soared on a 4.5 per cent increase in revenues as it marked a year since it posted heightened sales and COVID-related costs from the outset of the pandemic.
Canada's largest grocery and pharmacy chain says its net income attributable to common shareholders was $375 million or $1.09 per diluted share, up from $169 million or 47 cents per share a year earlier.
Adjusted profits for the three months ended June 19 was $464 million or $1.35 per diluted share, up from $260 million or 72 cents per share in the second quarter of 2020.
Revenues were $12.49 billion, compared with $11.96 billion in the prior year quarter as food same-store sales declined 0.1 per cent and Shoppers Drug Mart same-store sales increased 9.6 per cent.
Loblaw was expected to post $1.21 per share in adjusted profits on $12.16 billion of revenues, according to financial data firm Refinitiv.
COVID-19 related costs were $70 million, including $25 million for one-time bonuses, compared with $282 million and $180 million, respectively, a year earlier.
7:45 a.m. Music lovers planning to attend New York City's star-studded concert in Central Park this August better come equipped with a COVID-19 vaccination if they want to be admitted, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuesday.
He rolled out the mandate at his morning press briefing after talking up the We Love NYC Homecoming Concert last week when he left the question of vaccine requirements unanswered. On Tuesday, the mayor made the matter crystal clear.
We want this to be a concert for the people, but I also want to be clear - it has to be a safe concert. It has to be a concert that helps us keep moving forward with our recovery," he said. If you want to go to this concert, you need to show proof of vaccination. Simple as that."
The concert - intended as a celebration of the city's reopening after a year and a half of COVID-19 hardships - will kick off at 5 p.m. on Aug. 21 and will be broadcast live by CNN. Eighty percent of tickets will be free of charge.
Concert-goers will be required to have only one dose of a COVID vaccine to be admitted.
De Blasio and renowned music producer Clive Davis also revealed on Tuesday more names of performers who'll be taking the stage on Central Park's Great Lawn.
They include Wyclef Jean, LL Cool J, Carlos Santana, Patti Smith and Earth, Wind and Fire, as well as Journey, Barry Manilow, the Killers and the New York Philharmonic. De Blasio announced earlier this month that Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon and Jennifer Hudson would also perform.
7:30 a.m. Toronto officials are holding their final scheduled COVID-19 briefing Wednesday morning. Mayor John Tory, Dr. Eileen de Villa and Chief Matthew Pegg will provide the update at 10 a.m.
7:15 a.m. In a major breakthrough for one of the world's last countries to embrace COVID-19 vaccines, Tanzania's president kicked off the nation's vaccination campaign Wednesday by publicly receiving a dose and urging others to do the same.
The East African country's government under former President John Magufuli had long worried African health officials by denying the pandemic. Magufuli, who insisted the coronavirus could be defeated with prayer, died in March. The presidency went to his deputy, Samia Suluhu Hassan, who has since changed Tanzania's course on COVID-19.
Hassan, who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, expressed confidence in the safety of vaccines and said the country of more than 58 million people will pursue more. The United States on Saturday announced the delivery of more than 1 million doses via the COVAX global initiative aimed at supplying low- and middle-income countries.
Tanzania went well over a year without updating its number of confirmed virus cases but has now resumed reporting the data to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which showed 858 cases in the country as of Wednesday.
Critics of Tanzania's past stance on COVID-19, however, have long warned that many more people have been infected.
6:30 a.m. It was arguably the first Canadian attempt to dip a toe back into large-scale public events, and organizers of the Calgary Stampede say it appears to have been a success, from a pandemic perspective, with only about one in 10,000 visitors ending up with COVID-19.
Seventy-one people likely acquired" the virus at the 10-day rodeo and exhibition that logged half a million entries through their gates this month, according to a release from the Stampede on Tuesday that cited numbers from the provincial health ministry.
It's not clear whether those people then spread the virus to others - a spokesperson for Alberta Health said that information was not available, though added that Stampede was not believed to be a significant driver of cases.
Attendance this year was about half the number of visitors the so-called Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth normally gets.
Read the full story from the Star's Alex Boyd
6:05 a.m. There was a day in November of 2020 when Amy Lazar Kleiman got up before the sun.
She hoped to get in a few hours of work before her children awoke and needed to be fed and helped to log in to school and find their classes and download their worksheets, and fed some more. She squeezed in an hour of crucial emails to clients at lunch while her husband took the kids outside to play. Then she returned to second-grade math and a kindergarten craft project, and more snacks and then games and dinner and bath time. Finally, she tucked the kids into bed and, when it was dark outside again, she sat down in front of her laptop, stared at the screen and tried to muster some crisp, shiny words for the copy she had promised to deliver. It was the day she thought, Actually, I can't do this. This is not going to be possible. We cannot go on like this. I cannot go on like this.'
The scales are going to tip," Lazar Kleiman, 40, said, assessing her world, as she tried to maintain her career as a copywriter and also get her children through a second pandemic lockdown, no longer trusting that they might go back to school that year. Either I'm just going to stop school or - I guess, I stop working."
Read part 2 of the Atkinson series from Stephanie Nolen
6 a.m. Sydney's month-long lockdown will be extended by at least another four weeks, with Australian authorities failing to flatten an outbreak of daily COVID-19 cases that on Wednesday surged to another record.
New South Wales state Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the lockdown has been extended until at least August 28. The restrictions began on June 26, when 12 new cases were recorded in the local community. The city's outbreak has since swelled - fueled by the spread of the highly-contagious delta variant - with 177 more cases recorded on Wednesday, she told reporters.
Berejiklian said the harshest lockdown restrictions, now in place in regions of southwest Sydney, will be extended to other areas in the city's west. A vaccination campaign will also be ramped up for high school students in those regions. But she made a concession to the economy, saying that the construction sector can restart work in other areas of the city.
She also indicated that her state will receive additional funding support from the federal government to bolster the economy, with an announcement expected as early as later Wednesday.
Berejiklian has been criticized by some health experts and political rivals who say she was too slow to implement lockdown in the city of 6 million people, in a bid to keep Australia's most economically important state - responsible for about a third of national gross domestic product - open for business.
While fellow cities Melbourne and Adelaide exited their most recent lockdowns early Wednesday, Sydney's outbreak highlights how the entire country is increasingly vulnerable to the delta variant, which has leaked out of the fragile hotel-quarantine system for returning residents into the local community.
5:50 a.m. Tokyo has reported 3,177 new coronavirus cases, setting an all-time high and exceeding 3,000 for the first time days after the start of the Olympics.
The new cases Wednesday exceeded the earlier record of 2,848 set the previous day and bring the total for the Japanese capital to 206,745 since the pandemic began early last year.
Tokyo has been under a fourth state of emergency since July 12 ahead of the Olympics, which began last Friday despite widespread public opposition and concern that they could further worsen the outbreak.
Experts say Tokyo's surge is being propelled by the new, more contagious Delta variant of the virus.
5:40 a.m. As Olympics host Tokyo saw another record number of coronavirus cases Wednesday, Japan's vaccination minister said the speed of the country's inoculation campaign is less urgent than getting shots to young people, who some health experts are blaming for the current surge in infections.
Vaccination Minister Taro Kono told The Associated Press that Japan is overshooting" its goal of a million shots a day, so speed doesn't matter anymore." Japan is averaging about 10 million shots a week after a late start.
"Even if we slow down a little bit, I'm OK. Rather we need to reach out to the younger people, so that they would feel that it's necessary for them to get vaccinated," Kono said, speaking in English during an interview in his office.
Many in Japan fear that the tens of thousands of visitors allowed special entry for the Olympics will cause more huge spikes in cases or a new variant of the coronavirus.
Tokyo reported 3,177 new coronavirus cases Wednesday, an all-time high for the city and the first time it exceeded 3,000 infections in a day. The new cases exceeded the earlier record of 2,848 set Tuesday and bring the total for the Japanese capital to 206,745 since the pandemic began early last year.
Japan has so far kept its cases and deaths lower than many other countries. But its vaccination campaign started very late in comparison to other large economies, and there is fear that rising cases could overwhelm hospitals.
Tokyo is under its fourth state of emergency, which will last through the Olympics and into the Paralympics next month. Experts had earlier warned that the more contagious delta variant could cause a surge during the Olympics, which started Friday.
Experts have noted that cases among younger, unvaccinated people are rising sharply. While about two-thirds of Wednesday's cases were people in their 30s or below, people in their 50s now dominate Tokyo's nearly 3,000 hospitalized patients and are gradually filling up available beds. Authorities reportedly plan to ask medical institutions to increase their capacity to about 6,000.
5:35 a.m. Ontario students who aren't vaccinated will have to spend more time isolating at home than vaccinated students if they are exposed to COVID-19, says the province's chief medical officer of health.
Dr. Kieran Moore also said the province is keeping an eye on the spread of the more contagious Delta variant, and we'll monitor that situation closely. We will want a conservative, safe opening in the school setting and that may include masking" with rules that could vary by region.
While details of the province's back-to-school plan have yet to be released, students who are fully vaccinated and exposed will be able to return to school immediately if they test negative for COVID. Meanwhile, those who aren't vaccinated and are exposed will have to self-isolate for 10 days and pass two COVID tests, with a failed test leading to another 10 days off, Moore said at his weekly COVID briefing.
Read the full story from the Star's Kristin Rushowy
Wednesday 5:31 a.m. If you have family in the U.S. you've been hoping to drive to see, if you own a cottage across the border you're waiting to visit, if you've been holding your vacation planning thinking a road trip to New York City or New England might still be in the cards this summer, there's bad news. The reopening of the U.S. land border to Canadian travellers is likely a good way off.
We already learned last week that the U.S. wasn't co-ordinating its border reopening with Canada's Aug. 9 welcoming of vaccinated American citizens, to the tremendous surprise of many expert observers. But when the Joe Biden White House confirmed Monday it is no longer planning to lift international travel restrictions in the near future over concerns about the spread of the Delta variant, it was a pretty clear sign that the thinking in U.S. government is no longer about how to return to normal, but how to stave off disaster.
Read the full story from the Star's Ed Keenan
Tuesday 8:25 p.m.: Yukon reported six new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday as the territory's top doctor says there were more recoveries than new diagnoses for the first time in a week.
Dr. Brendan Hanley says in a statement the number of active infections had ticked down by one to 89 cases on Tuesday.
He says three of the new cases were diagnosed in Whitehorse, two were in rural Yukon, and one was someone from outside the territory.
There have been no new infections reported in Watson Lake, a town in southeast Yukon near the boundary with B.C. that's seen clusters of cases recently.
The majority of the 582 cases that have been reported in Yukon since the pandemic began have been diagnosed since June 1.
The territory has linked a total of six deaths to COVID-19.
Tuesday 8:22 p.m.: The Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan has fully vaccinated 90 per cent of its eligible adult population within just seven days, its health ministry said Tuesday.
The tiny country, wedged between India and China and home to nearly 800,000 people, began giving out second doses on July 20 in a mass drive that has been hailed by UNICEF as arguably the fastest vaccination campaign to be executed during a pandemic."
In April, Bhutan grabbed headlines when its government said it had inoculated around the same percentage of eligible adults with the first dose in under two weeks after India donated 550,000 shots of AstraZeneca vaccine.
But the country faced a shortage for months after India, a major supplier of the AstraZeneca shot, halted exports as it scrambled to meet a rising demand at home as infections surged.
Bhutan was able to restart its drive last week after half a million doses of Moderna vaccine arrived from the United States as a donation under the UN-backed COVAX program, an initiative devised to give countries access to coronavirus vaccines regardless of their wealth.
Some 5,000 shots of Pfizer were also facilitated through COVAX, which is co-led by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the World Health Organization and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation.
It also received more than 400,000 AstraZeneca shots from Denmark, Croatia and Bulgaria in the last two weeks.