Today’s coronavirus news: Ontario announces 722 new cases of COVID-19, 564 of which are in people not fully vaccinated or with unknown vaccination status
The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world Sunday. This file will be updated throughout the day. Web links to longer stories if available.
10:15 a.m.: Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott says there are 722 new cases of COVID-19. 564 cases are in individuals who are not fully vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status and 158 are in fully vaccinated individuals.
8:34 a.m.: Nestled in the Madawaska Valley a stone's throw from Algonquin Park is Barry's Bay, a small rustic community known as an escape for cottage goers in the summer and a destination for snowmobilers in the winter.
But a recent outbreak in the picturesque town prompted the local acting medical officer of health to single out the community as an outlier in Renfrew County for having been repeatedly overrepresented in the region's case counts, which officials have linked to travel and vaccine hesitancy among a significant portion of the population.
Although Barry's Bay only has about one per cent of the county's population, it has represented 24 to more than 50 per cent of its cases during outbreaks. As Ontario grapples with a fourth wave and looks to schools reopening in September, the local health unit has put out several videos over the last week stressing the urgency for residents - especially in Barry's Bay - to get vaccinated to prevent the Delta variant from sweeping through schools in the fall.
Read the story from the Star's Omar Mosleh.
8:32 a.m.: A Star survey of the province's universities and colleges found the number of deferral requests they received this year remained high as a result of the pandemic.
Read the full story from the Star's Maria Sarrouh here.
8:30 a.m.: Phil Valentine, a prominent conservative radio host in Tennessee who refused to get vaccinated, then urged his followers to get a shot after being hospitalized with COVID-19, has died, his station said Saturday.
Valentine scoffed at the need for vaccines, writing on his blog that his chances of dying from the virus, should he become infected, were way less than 1%."
He announced his COVID-19 diagnosis on July 11 and pledged to return to his show within a day or two.
Unfortunately for the haters out there, it looks like I'm going to make it," he wrote. Interesting experience. I'll have to fill you in when I come back on the air. I'm hoping that will be tomorrow, but I may take a day off just as a precaution."
Less than two weeks later, his radio station, 99.7 WTN, announced that the Nashville host was hospitalized in very serious condition, suffering from COVID pneumonia." The statement said Valentine had had a change of heart and urged others to get a vaccine.
8:26 a.m.: The delta variant has forced Australia and New Zealand to review their strategies of eliminating coronavirus infections, and prompted Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison to say it's highly unlikely his country will ever return to zero cases.
U.S. weekly infections slightly exceeded 1 million on Friday, apparently for the first time since the surge last winter, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University and Bloomberg. Tokyo is considering converting some Olympic facilities into field hospitals as cases rise, the Sankei newspaper reported.
The U.K. will offer antibody testing kits to better understand how many vaccinated and previously infected people are still catching the disease. Thousands protested again in major French cities against government rules on proof of vaccination or a negative test for most public activities; France will also begin a campaign to vaccinate more school-age children from September.
8:25 a.m.: The Rev. Jesse Jackson, a famed civil rights leader and two-time presidential candidate, and his wife, Jacqueline, have been hospitalized after testing positive for COVID-19, according to a statement Saturday.
Jesse Jackson, 79, is vaccinated against the virus and received his first dose in January during a publicized event as he urged others to receive the inoculation as soon as possible. He and his wife, 77, are being treated at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago.
Doctors are currently monitoring the condition of both," according to the statement from Jesse Jackson's nonprofit, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.
There are no further updates at this time," the statement said. We will provide updates as they become available."
A protege of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jesse Jackson was key in guiding the modern civil rights movement on numerous issues, including voting rights.
Despite having been diagnosed for Parkinson's disease, Jackson has remained active, and has advocated for COVID-19 vaccines for Black people, who lag behind white people in the United States' vaccination drive. Earlier this month, he was arrested outside the U.S. Capitol during a demonstration calling for Congress to end the filibuster in order to support voting rights.
8:15 a.m.: Top Republican lawmakers are promising to work with Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear to fight COVID-19 after a court ruling cleared the way for new limits on the Democratic governor's emergency powers.
Beshear's allies said they'll be watching to see if the governor's critics follow through.
Kentucky Republicans cheered the state Supreme Court ruling Saturday. The ruling ordered a lower court to dissolve an injunction that for months had blocked the GOP-backed laws. It comes as the highly contagious Delta variant drives up coronavirus cases and hospitalizations in Kentucky.
The court's decision signals it is time for the Republican leadership to publicly put forth their plan to protect the commonwealth from this pandemic and the deadly Delta variant," said Rep. Joni Jenkins and Sen. Morgan McGarvey, the top Democrats in the Kentucky House and Senate.
We know what they don't support; show us your plan," they added.
The top legislative Republicans - House Speaker David Osborne and Senate President Robert Stivers - said lawmakers are ready to work with the governor, as we have for nearly a year and a half, and address what is a very real public health crisis." The GOP holds supermajorities in both chambers, and Republicans accused Beshear of taking a go-it-alone approach in dealing with the pandemic.