Today’s coronavirus news: Ontario is reporting 857 new cases, 15 new deaths on Saturday
The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world Saturday. This file will be updated throughout the day. Web links to longer stories if available.
2:47 p.m.: Tracey Savich, owner of Rolling Hills General Store in California, said she couldn't tell if a customer was joking when he came into her store asking for over-the-counter ivermectin for animals as a preventative against COVID-19.
The anti-parasitic drug, commonly used to deworm horses, cows and other livestock, has been controversially touted as a preventative and treatment for COVID, particularly among those who remain skeptical about the vaccine. While its efficacy against COVID has been debunked, some Californians have managed to acquire prescriptions from their health-care providers.
But others who were turned away are flocking to tack and feed stores in search of the over-the-counter version of the drug intended for farm animals.
In Agoura Hills, David Manhan, owner of West Valley Horse Center, said small spikes in ivermectin sales are common during the horse and cattle deworming season, which runs from June to July and then December to January. But in recent weeks, his store is averaging two or three phone calls a day from people claiming to have horses and asking if he has ivermectin products in stock.
On Aug. 31, the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Veterinary Medicine said in a statement to retailers and veterinarians that there were continued concerns that there are people using animal formulations of ivermectin to treat or prevent COVID-19 in humans."
Even if animal drugs have the same active ingredient as an approved human drug, animal drugs have not been evaluated for safety or effectiveness in humans. Treating human medical conditions with veterinary drugs can be very dangerous," the statement read.
2:26 p.m.: Alaska's larger, urban hospitals are so crowded with COVID-19 patients that some smaller, outlying facilities are struggling to transfer seriously ill people or scrambling to care for them in place.
Surging COVID-19 cases around the state continued this week with no sign of hitting a peak as the highly infectious Delta variant continues to drive new cases and hospitalizations. Hospitals, especially in Anchorage and Mat-Su, describe a crisis-level crush of staffing shortages and complicated coronavirus cases.
The state on Friday reported two more deaths of people with the virus and hit another new record for COVID-19 hospitalizations, according to the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services dashboard. A total of 444 Alaskans have died with the virus, as well as 14 people from out of state.
Hospitals such as those in Kodiak, Nome and Bethel are encountering unprecedented challenges as coronavirus-related capacity problems down the line ripple into a domino effect of stalled transfer requests.
Nome's hospital doesn't even have any COVID-19 patients, but it still faces a COVID problem," as Dr. Tim Lemaire, a member of the Norton Sound Health Corp. incident command team, put it. We don't have COVID here, but we can't get our regular patients ... care because of COVID everywhere else."
1:44 p.m.: Health officials in Prince Edward Island are reporting one new case of COVID-19 in the province.
It involves a student between the ages of 10 and 19 who attends West Royalty Elementary School in Charlottetown.
Chief public health officer Dr. Heather Morrison says all close contacts of the student, including classmates and staff, will be contacted directly by public health to arrange for testing and will be instructed regarding self-isolation.
Other students and staff are advised to monitor for symptoms, and the school will undergo a deep cleaning this weekend.
Prince Edward Island currently has eight active cases of COVID-19.
12:42 p.m.: Several hundred people line up every morning, starting before dawn, on a grassy area outside Nairobi's largest hospital hoping to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Sometimes the line moves smoothly while, on other days, the staff tells them there's nothing available and they should come back tomorrow.
Halfway around the world, at a church in Atlanta, two workers with plenty of vaccine doses waited hours Wednesday for anyone to show up, whiling away the time by listening to music from a laptop. Over a six-hour period, only one person came through the door.
The dramatic contrast highlights the vast disparity around the world. In richer countries, people can often pick and choose from multiple available vaccines, walk into a site near their homes and get a shot in minutes. Pop-up clinics, such as the one in Atlanta, bring vaccines into rural areas and urban neighbourhoods, but it is common for them to get very few takers.
In the developing world, supply is limited and uncertain. Just over three per cent of people across Africa have been fully vaccinated, and health officials and citizens often have little idea what will be available from one day to the next. More vaccines have been flowing in recent weeks, but the World Health Organization's director in Africa said Thursday that the continent will get 25 per cent fewer doses than anticipated by the end of the year, in part because of the rollout of booster shots in wealthier counties such as the United States.
12:09 p.m.: Quebec is reporting 995 new COVID-19 cases and three further deaths attributed to the virus.
The province's Health Department reported 11 more hospitalizations compared to the previous day for a total of 218, with three more patients listed in intensive care for a total of 75.
Health Minister Christian Dube says authorities expected new cases to rise as students went back to school, but calls the rise in hospitalizations worrisome.
Dube says via his Twitter account that of 36 new hospitalized patients, 32 were not adequately vaccinated against COVID-19.
But the health minister adds the good news is that people are still getting their first doses, which can help minimize the impact of the pandemic's fourth wave. Authorities say 23,328 vaccine doses were administered on Friday, including more than 8,000 first shots.
11:19 a.m.: A 35-year-old man from Alberta has been charged with assault after a health worker at the Charlottetown Airport was pushed early Thursday morning.
Charlottetown Police say a man and a woman on an incoming flight refused to go through the COVID-19 screening center at the airport. They say a man pushed a health worker aside, bypassed the screening area and left the airport.
The man has been charged with assault, while he and a 41-year-old woman were each issued a $1,050 fine in violation of the Public Health Act.
11:17 a.m.: Atlanta's zoo says at least 13 western lowland gorillas have tested positive for COVID-19, including 60-year-old Ozzie, the oldest male gorilla in captivity.
Zoo Atlanta said Friday that employees noticed the gorillas had been coughing, had runny noses and showed changes in appetite. A veterinary lab at the University of Georgia returned positive tests for the respiratory illness. Zoo Atlanta is waiting on confirmation from the National Veterinary Services Lab in Ames, Iowa.
Zoo officials believe an asymptomatic employee who cares for the gorillas passed on the virus. The employee had been fully vaccinated and was wearing protective equipment such as a mask and gloves.
There's no evidence that the gorillas can pass the virus back to humans, the zoo says.
10:39 a.m.: Ontario is reporting 857 new cases and 15 new deaths on Saturday.
Of those 857 cases, 646 are in individuals who are not fully vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status and 211 are in fully vaccinated individuals.
8:12 a.m.: College Boreal partnered with Public Health Sudbury and Districts to host a mobile COVID-19 vaccination clinic at its main campus on Thursday.
The clinic was open to students, staff, and visitors looking to receive their first or second dose of an mRNA vaccine.
The college said that it welcomed the clinic as part of its efforts to ensure that everyone has a safe start to the 2021-22 academic year.
As part of College Boreal's mandatory vaccination policy, everyone attending campus must have received at least their first dose of the vaccine by Sept. 7.
We think it's very important for students and staff to have a safe environment to be in, to work in, and to learn in so we wanted to make sure vaccinations were mandated," Patrick Lafontaine, director of student services at College Boreal.
The response we've received has been very positive. We had a lot of questions about the vaccination clinic on the first day of class, so we handed out a lot of information, and we expect a good turnout for the clinic today."
College Boreal announced that it will require full vaccination for anyone wishing to access its campuses and facilities across the province in August.
8:11 a.m.: As of Sept. 10, there are 1o1 new COVID-19 cases in Northern health, totalling the active cases to 782.
Two new deaths have also been recorded in the past 24 hours in the Northern Health region, totalling the count to nine deaths throughout the province, according to an information bulletin released by the provincial Ministry of Health on Sept. 10.
There are currently 39 people hospitalized in the Northern Health region with 15 in critical care, according to BC CDC data.
B.C. is reporting 820 new cases of COVID-19, including 11 epi-linked cases, for a total of 173,158 cases in the province.
The ministry release also stated that between Sept. 2-8, people not fully vaccinated accounted for 78.4% of cases and from Aug. 26-Sept. 8, they accounted for 86.6% of hospitalizations.
8:10 a.m.: Several hundred people line up every morning, starting before dawn, on a grassy area outside Nairobi's largest hospital hoping to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Sometimes the line moves smoothly, while on other days, the staff tells them there's nothing available, and they should come back tomorrow.
Halfway around the world, at a church in Atlanta, two workers with plenty of vaccine doses waited hours Wednesday for anyone to show up, whiling away the time by listening to music from a laptop. Over a six-hour period, only one person came through the door.
The dramatic contrast highlights the vast disparity around the world. In richer countries, people can often pick and choose from multiple available vaccines, walk into a site near their homes and get a shot in minutes. Pop-up clinics, such as the one in Atlanta, bring vaccines into rural areas and urban neighbourhoods, but it is common for them to get very few takers.
In the developing world, supply is limited and uncertain. Just over 3% of people across Africa have been fully vaccinated, and health officials and citizens often have little idea what will be available from one day to the next. More vaccines have been flowing in recent weeks, but the World Health Organization's director in Africa said Thursday that the continent will get 25% fewer doses than anticipated by the end of the year, in part because of the rollout of booster shots in wealthier counties such as the United States.
8:10 a.m.: Darkness set in for Natasha Blunt well before Hurricane Ida knocked out power across Louisiana.
Months into the pandemic, she faced eviction from her New Orleans apartment. She lost her job at a banquet hall. She suffered two strokes. And she struggled to help her 5-year-old grandson keep up with school work at home.
Like nearly a fifth of the state's population - disproportionately represented by Black residents and women - Blunt, 51, lives below the poverty line, and the economic fallout of the pandemic sent her to the brink. With the help of a legal aid group and grassroots donors, she moved to Chalmette, a few miles outside New Orleans, and tried to settle into a two-bedroom apartment. Using a cane and taking a slew of medications since her strokes, she was unable to return to work. But federal benefits kept food in the fridge for the most part.
Then came Hurricane Ida.
8:08 a.m.: At a taxi stand by a bustling market in Kampala, Uganda's capital, traders simply cross a road or two, get a shot in the arm and rush back to their work.
Until this week, vaccination centres were based mostly in hospitals in this East African country that faced a brutal COVID-19 surge earlier this year.
Now, more than a dozen tented sites have been set up in busy areas to make it easier to get inoculated in Kampala as health authorities team up with the Red Cross to administer more than 120,000 doses that will expire at the end of September.
All of this we could have done earlier, but we were not assured of availability of vaccines," said Dr. Misaki Wayengera, who leads a team of scientists advising authorities on the pandemic response, speaking of vaccination spots in downtown areas. Right now we are receiving more vaccines and we have to deploy them as much as possible."
In addition to the 128,000 AstraZeneca doses donated by Norway at the end of August, the United Kingdom last month donated nearly 300,000 doses. China recently donated 300,000 doses of its Sinovac vaccine, and on Monday a batch of 647,000 Moderna doses donated by the United States arrived in Uganda.
Saturday 8:05 a.m.: President Joe Biden's aggressive push to require millions of U.S. workers to get vaccinated against the coronavirus is running into a wall of resistance from Republican leaders threatening everything from lawsuits to civil disobedience, plunging the country deeper into culture wars that have festered since the onset of the pandemic.
In South Carolina, Gov. Henry McMaster says he will fight to the gates of hell to protect the liberty and livelihood of every South Carolinian." South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a potential 2024 presidential candidate, says she is preparing a lawsuit. And J.D. Vance, a conservative running for a U.S. Senate seat in Ohio, is calling on businesses to ignore mandates he describes as Washington's attempt to bully and coerce citizens."
Only mass civil disobedience will save us from Joe Biden's naked authoritarianism," Vance says.
Biden is hardly backing down. In a visit to a school Friday, he accused the governors of being cavalier" with the health of young Americans, and when asked about foes who would file legal challenges, he retorted, Have at it."