Today’s coronavirus news: Ontario reporting 865 new cases of COVID-19; Alberta reports highest 1-day total for new cases since mid-May
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.
10:22 a.m. Ontario is reporting 865 new cases of COVID-19; 692 cases are in individuals who are not fully vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status and 173 are in fully vaccinated individuals. In Ontario, 20,827,809 vaccine doses have been administered. Nearly 83.2 per cent of Ontarians 12+ have one dose and nearly 76.6 per cent have two doses, according to Health Minister Christine Elliott.
320 people are hospitalized with COVID-19; 292 are not fully vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status and 28 are fully vaccinated.
10 a.m. A new study from Bangladesh that featured more than 340,000 subjects across 600 villages shows the important role masks play in preventing the spread of COVID-19.
The study - published on Wednesday by the nonprofit organization Innovations for Poverty Action - is the largest trial that tests the effectiveness of medical masks since the pandemic began last year.
Many studies have been done in the past to determine the effectiveness of facial coverings, but they have mainly focused on small groups of people in medical settings. The results out of Bangladesh showcase their importance due to the fact that they demonstrate a larger-scale scenario that can't be mimicked in smaller settings.
This is really solid data that combines the control of a lab study with real-life actions of people in the world to see if we can get people to wear masks, and if the masks work," said Laura Kwong, an assistant professor of environment health sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, and the study's co-author.
Researchers like co-author Mushfiq Mobarak, an economics professor at Yale University, hope that the results from the study demonstrate the reasoning behind mask mandates that many government officials have placed into effect once again as the delta variant spreads across the country.
The policy question we were trying to answer was: If you can distribute masks and get people to wear them, do they work?" Mobarak said.
The study followed 342,126 randomly selected Bangladeshis for a five-month period beginning last November. The program also called for certain villages to promote the use of wearing masks by distributing them to households at no cost, according to NBC News.
9:40 a.m. Thirty members of the Kentucky National Guard began a month-long deployment Wednesday at Pikeville Medical Center, where they will support the hospital's response to an unprecedented number of patients with COVID-19.
Guardsmen were also sent to hospitals in Bowling Green and Morehead.
As hospitals across the state and nation are overwhelmed with coronavirus, the guardsmen will help understaffed facilities care for the sick sooner. Pikeville Medical Center employs 3,000 people and has 200 job openings.
In Pikeville, they will help with non-medical duties, such as transporting patients within the hospital, helping with janitorial duties and managing traffic control at the vaccination drive-thru, which reopened Wednesday.
Hospital CEO and President Donovan Blackburn said it was a relief to have the help of the Kentucky National Guard.
They're helping us battle this pandemic," he said Tuesday. ...There are people today that are fighting for their lives in our ICU."
Early this week, the hospital had 82 COVID-positive patients. At its peak last winter, the hospital had 83 patients. Blackburn said he expects hospitalizations will reach a plateau in the next two to three weeks and then begin to decrease.
The problem with that ... is it's going to take much longer to get back to where we need to be versus how quickly we got here," he said.
9:20 a.m. Cyprus will start giving COVID-19 booster shots to people over 65, those with weakened immune systems irrespective of age and health care professionals, the health minister said Thursday.
Michalis Hadjipantela said the shots will be given to those who are eligible once a six-month period elapses from the time they completed their vaccination.
Earlier Thursday the European Union's infectious diseases agency urged countries to push ahead with their primary vaccination programs and played down the need for booster shots.
Hadjipantela said expanding the booster shot program to include other age groups will depend on the recommendations of a medical advisory committee.
Cyprus has ample vaccine stocks to cover booster shot needs, Hadjipantela has told the Associated Press.
The east Mediterranean island nation follows countries such as France which on Wednesday became the first big EU country to start administering booster shots of COVID-19 vaccine to people over 65 and those with underlying health conditions. Spanish health authorities are considering similar action.
9:13 a.m. Sunwing says it is requiring that all new and existing employees across all Canadian divisions be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Employees will have until Sept. 13 to provide proof of their full vaccination status or their intention to vaccinate.
9:05 a.m. More students in India will be able to step inside a classroom for the first time in nearly 18 months, as authorities gave the green light to partially reopen more schools despite apprehension from some parents and signs that infections are picking up again.
Schools and colleges in at least six more states are reopening in a gradual manner with health measures in place throughout September. In New Delhi, all staff must be vaccinated and class sizes will be capped at 50 per cent with staggered seating and sanitized desks.
In the capital only students in grades nine through 12 will be allowed to attend at first, though it is not compulsory. Some parents say they will be holding their children back, including Nalini Chauhan, who lost her husband to the coronavirus last year.
That trauma is there for us and that is what stops me from going out. We don't go to malls. We don't go shopping. So why schools now?" she said.
Life has been slowly returning to normal in India after the trauma of a ferocious coronavirus surge earlier this year ground life in the country to a halt, sickened tens of millions, and left hundreds of thousands dead. A number of states returned last month to in person learning for some age groups.
9 a.m. Amid news Wednesday that Ontario will soon join Quebec and B.C. in introducing a vaccine certificate that will allow only vaccinated people into certain non-essential businesses, critics were quick to point out holes in the plan.
Some businesses have been left off the list, while implementation of the certificate won't come into effect until Sept. 22. The addition of a scannable or printable QR code to prove your vaccination status won't be introduced until Oct. 22. Meanwhile, with schools returning to in-person learning next week, the plan may be moving too slowly to curb the expected rise in cases that will follow, one expert said.
Dr. Susy Hota, medical director of infection prevention and control at University Health Network, told the Star the rollout feels reluctant," and could have had a more hard-line approach that promotes further vaccine uptake.
Here are some things to keep in mind before the passport comes into effect.
8:41 a.m. Critical Care Services Ontario is reporting 159 adult patients with COVID-related critical illness now in adult ICUs. There were 14 new adult admissions.
7:42 a.m. The World Health Organization's chief was unusually direct in criticizing China for its lack of cooperation in investigating the origin of the coronavirus after inaugurating the WHO's new pandemic early warning center in Berlin on Wednesday.
"The origins study, the reason it is politicized is because access to information and data is not as you would expect," said Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
"What we are asking China: Please share data," he said, bringing up the possibility of sanctions should it not be forthcoming.
Some WHO members, led by Germany, are working on a global pandemic treaty that would, among other things, stipulate transparency and cooperation.
"We need real commitments of all member states and all those who want to sign this treaty that they are fully transparent in the case of an outbreak," said German Health Minister Jens Spahn, who also echoed Tedros' statements.
If that does not happen, he said, there must be consequences.
China, in its search for the origin of the coronavirus, has so far refused to release raw data on the first 174 patients likely to have been infected with the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus.
China defends itself against all accusations and says the investigation is being politicized, especially by the U.S.
The early warning center that was opened in Berlin on Wednesday aims to prepare the world for future pandemics through the collection and analysis of large amounts of data.
7:30 a.m. A man in New Zealand who had tested positive for the coronavirus faces criminal charges after he escaped from an Auckland quarantine hotel and returned home, according to authorities.
In New Zealand, people who test positive for the virus are routinely required to isolate in hotels run by the military. Authorities believe the man escaped early Thursday and was on the run for about 12 hours before police - dressed in full protective gear - arrested him about 10 kilometers away.
COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins told reporters it wasn't yet clear how the man escaped the hotel, although closed circuit cameras showed a man hiding in a bush when a security guard walked past.
Under a new COVID-19 law passed last year, the man could face a fine or up to six months in jail if found guilty of failing to comply with a health order. New Zealand is currently battling an outbreak of the delta variant in Auckland.
7:08 a.m. The African Union's COVID-19 envoy says vaccine doses produced by a plant in South Africa will no longer be exported to Europe after the intervention of South Africa's government.
Strive Masiyiwa told reporters Thursday that South African drug manufacturer Aspen, which has a contract with Johnson & Johnson to assemble the ingredients of its COVID-19 vaccine, will no longer ship vaccine doses out of the continent and that millions of doses warehoused in Europe will be returned to the continent.
That arrangement has been suspended," he said, adding that J&J doses produced in South Africa will stay in Africa and will be distributed in Africa."
He said the issue had been corrected in a positive way," with Aspen's arrangement with Johnson & Johnson changing from a contract deal to a licensed arrangement" similar to the production in India of the AstraZeneca vaccine. Masiyiwa said the Aspen product will be African branded."
Johnson & Johnson was criticized heavily for shipping doses to countries in Europe, which have already immunized large numbers of their people and have even donated vaccines to more needy countries.
Africa has fully vaccinated under 3 per cent of its 1.3 billion people. Vaccine production within the continent is seen as key to meeting the stated target of vaccinating 60 per cent of the people.
The continent has reported more than 7.8 million cases, including 197,150 deaths.
5:45 a.m.: As Ontario introduces its new vaccine-certificate or vaccine-passport program, it will be looking to replicate success seen in the West.
On Wednesday, Ontario became the fourth Canadian province to announce plans to require residents to prove they've been vaccinated in order to get into certain indoor spaces.
In the plan Premier Doug Ford said it's no secret" he didn't want to implement, Ontarians will be required to show a vaccine receipt and identification to get into certain settings starting Sept. 22. Then, starting Oct. 22, Ontarians will have access to a QR code certificate, proving their vaccine status.
The goal is both to reduce transmission of the virus, by allowing only vaccinated people to get into high-risk transmission settings, and to incentivize the vaccine-hesitant to go and get their jabs, with a promise that the system will be pulled back if and when vaccination rates increase and transmission slows.
Read more from the Star's Alex McKeen: How does Ontario's vaccine-passport system stack up with what other provinces are doing? Here's what we know
5:37 a.m.: Methadone has long been a gold-standard treatment for opioid addiction. But government regulations mean many patients have to organize their lives around getting and taking it, no matter how well they are doing, a new study has found.
The pandemic made it unsafe for people to queue up daily at methadone clinics, so rules were relaxed to allow patients to take doses home just like other prescriptions. And, advocates say, the change helped people maintain recovery and ought to become permanent.
The new study, published in the Journal of Harm Reduction and conducted by researchers at New York University, Icahn School of Medicine and the City University of New York, interviewed current and former methadone users, people who used illegal opioids but never methadone, and treatment providers.
5:30 a.m.: Even as Ontarians between the ages of 12 and 17 are getting vaccinated against COVID-19 in ever-increasing numbers, medical professionals expect demand for testing in younger cohorts to rise when kids return to classrooms amid growing cases of the highly transmissible Delta variant.
Provincial data shows that between Aug. 17, when children turning 12 this year were given the go-ahead to get the Pfizer vaccine, and Sept. 1, the vaccination rates for 12-17-year-olds rose from 69.8 per cent to 74.9 per cent for one shot, and from 56.5 per cent to 62.9 per cent for fully vaccinated, as of press time.
While this is undoubtedly good news for worried parents and educators watching daily cases climb just a week away from the start of school, COVID cases in school-aged children are still expected to rise to the point that assessment centres will face increased pressure to test more. New modelling from Ontario's COVID-19 Science Advisory Table, released Wednesday, shows that a rapid rise in the number of seriously ill people needing hospital care is expected among the unvaccinated, as workplaces and schools reopen in September. The fourth wave will affect all age groups, with the potential to exceed ICU capacity, according to the modelling.
At least two hospitals have opened up pediatric COVID assessment centres to brace for this fourth wave, and at both, officials say they're already seeing more kids coming with symptoms for testing.
Read more from the Star's Kenyon Wallace and May Warren.
5:05 a.m.: Joe Rogan, the host of the hugely popular podcast The Joe Rogan Experience," said Wednesday that he had tested positive for the coronavirus after he returned from a series of shows in Florida, where the virus is rampant.
Rogan, who was rebuked by federal officials last spring for suggesting on the podcast that young healthy people need not get COVID vaccinations, said that he started feeling sick Saturday night after he returned from performing in Orlando, Tampa and Fort Lauderdale. He did not say whether he had been vaccinated.
In his video Wednesday, Rogan said he had been treated with a series of medications. Sunday sucked," he said, but by the time he made the video, he said he was feeling pretty good," using an expletive.
The list of treatments he mentioned included monoclonal antibodies, which have been shown to protect COVID patients at risk of becoming gravely ill; and prednisone, a steroid widely accepted as a COVID treatment. When Donald Trump was stricken with COVID during his presidency, he was also treated with monoclonal antibodies.
Rogan also said he had received a vitamin drip" as well as ivermectin, a drug primarily used as a veterinary deworming agent. The Food and Drug Administration has warned COVID-19 patients against taking the drug, and that has repeatedly been shown as ineffective for them in clinical trials. However, it is a popular subject on Facebook, Reddit and among some conservative talk show hosts, and some toxicologists have warned of a surge of reports of overexposure to the drug by those who obtain it from livestock supply stores.
Read more from the Associated Press.
4 a.m.: Alberta reported 1,315 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, the highest one-day total since mid-May, when the peak of the last wave began to recede.
The province also says there are 465 infected people in hospital, including 107 in intensive care, and eight more deaths.
Alberta has been averaging more than 1,000 new cases a day for the last week.
The number of ICU cases has doubled in the last 10 days.
Premier Jason Kenney's United Conservative government has been silent for weeks on what - if anything - it will do, but said earlier this summer that rising case numbers were to be expected.
The province lifted almost all health restrictions July 1.