Today’s coronavirus news: Ontario reports 3,439 people hospitalized and 597 in the ICU; Thousands expected at anti-vaccine mandate protest in Ottawa
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.
10:20 a.m. Ontario is reporting 3,439 people hospitalized with COVID-19 and 597 in the ICU.
There are at least 4,855 new cases of COVID-19. 82 per cent of patients admitted to the ICU were admitted for COVID-19 and 18 per cent were admitted for other reasons but have tested positive for COVID-19.
With another 56 deaths reported on Saturday, Ontario has reported more COVID-19 deaths in the last week (442) than any seven-day period of the entire pandemic, according to the Star's Ed Tubb.
10:05 a.m. The halls of justice may have become less crowded as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, say legal experts, and they warn there are still unanswered questions ahead.
Two years ago, when the pandemic first gripped the country, trials were delayed and the public was banned from courthouses. The entire system came to a grinding halt.
The courts have limped along since then with online appearances and filings, largely administrative changes that had been encouraged by the legal community for years.
"There's all sorts of positive outcomes to the trend that the pandemic has necessitated," said Tony Paisana, a law professor at the University of British Columbia and chairman of the Canadian Bar Association's national criminal justice section.
10 a.m. Two nurses on Long Island are accused of forging COVID-19 vaccination cards and pocketing more than $1.5 million from the scheme, prosecutors and police said.
Julie DeVuono, the owner of Wild Child Pediatric Healthcare in Amityville, and her employee, Marissa Urraro, are both charged with felony forgery, and DeVuono also is charged with offering a false instrument for filing. Both were arraigned Friday.
Messages seeking comment were left Saturday with their lawyers.
Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney said DeVuono and Urraro handed out fake vaccination cards, charging $220 for adults and $85 for children. DeVuono, a nurse practitioner, and Urraro, a licensed practical nurse, entered the false information into the state's immunization database, he said.
9:45 a.m. The daily count of new coronavirus infections in Russia spiked above 110,000 on Saturday as the highly contagious Omicron variant races through the vast country.
The state coronavirus task force reported 113,122 new infections over the past 24 hours - an all-time high and a sevenfold increase from early in the month, when daily case counts were about 15,000. The task force said 668 people died of COVID-19 in the past day, bring Russia's total fatality count for the pandemic to 330,111, by far the deadliest toll in Europe.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday that it is obvious that this number is higher and possibly much higher," because many people don't get tested" or have no symptoms.
8:30 a.m. Two weeks ago, Hugo Croft-Levesque was staring down imminent bankruptcy for his once-thriving Toronto kick-boxing gyms.
Even with $250,000 in government subsidies since COVID-19 restrictions began crushing his business, Croft-Levesque was more than $80,000 in debt.
For the first time since the pandemic began, he couldn't pay rent.
On the verge of collapse, he managed to buy himself more time - his landlords agreed to wait until the next round of subsidies hit his bank account.
Just how much time he's got, it's not clear, with federal programs designed to give businesses a fighting chance during waves of lockdowns and restrictions set to phase out in the coming months.
Pandemic aid has kept even unsuccessful businesses afloat, with bankruptcies down. As supports draw to an end, experts say to expect a torrent of insolvencies - and that's not a bad thing.
Read more from the Star's Rosa Saba.
8:15 a.m. Nova Scotia has issued a highway blockade ban, citing the areas near the border with New Brunswick, ahead of demonstrations that are expected to be held in parallel with Saturday's trucker Freedom convoy" protest in Ottawa.
In a directive released under the province's Emergency Management Act late Friday afternoon, Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister John Lohr prohibited partial or complete blockades on all the roads in the province, before specifically citing the provincial border and the trucker protest.
It is a criminal offence to blockade a highway anywhere at any time," said ministry spokesperson Krista Higdon in an email.
Read more from the Star's Steve McKinley.
8 a.m. Physicians and outreach workers at St. Michael's Hospital are seeing an alarming rise in the number of homeless individuals coming to the emergency department seeking shelter and suffering from severe cold-related injuries, including frostbite, painful foot infections and life-threatening hypothermia.
Hospital staff say the crisis has escalated in the last two weeks due to a critical lack of space in the city's shelter system, hit hard by the Omicron variant.
The extreme winter temperatures gripping the city, combined with at-capacity shelters, mean more homeless people need emergency care after prolonged exposure outdoors. And more in the unhoused population are seeking shelter in the ER as a place of last resort, hospital staff report.
They quite literally have no place else to go," said LP Pavey, an outreach worker in St. Michael's emergency department.
Read more from the Star's Megan Ogilvie.
7:45 a.m. Austria plans to loosen coronavirus restrictions in February, government officials announced Saturday.
Starting Feb. 5, restaurants will be allowed to remain open until midnight, as opposed to 10 p.m, Chancellor Karl Nehammer said at a Saturday news conference.
In addition, rules effectively barring unvaccinated people from stores and restaurants will be phased out. Starting Feb. 12, proof of vaccination or recovery will no longer be required to enter shops. A week later, on Feb. 19, entry into restaurants will be allowed for all who can prove vaccination, recovery or a negative coronavirus test.
7:30 a.m. Toronto is moving from trying to eradicate COVID-19 to learning to live with the virus while minimizing its negative impacts - just as we do every year with influenza, says public health chief Dr. Eileen de Villa.
She told reporters at a Friday briefing that public health officials around the world are concluding that, given how many people are being infected with COVID-19's Omicron variant, a COVID zero strategy" no longer makes sense.
People are talking about eventually getting to a point where COVID is more endemic - it's part and parcel of our background. You may see some flare-ups over time," that will strain the health system and kill some people, she said.
That suffering will be minimized with vaccinations, masking, distancing and ventilation, de Villa said, adding that learning to live with COVID can be seen as akin to something along the lines of how we manage influenza on a yearly basis.
Read more from the Star's David Rider.
7 a.m. Thousands of protesters are expected to continue a weekend-long rally to oppose COVID-19 restrictions and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government in Ottawa's downtown core on Saturday.
Protesters descended on Parliament Hill Friday morning, and the crowd grew steadily in size throughout the day as big rigs rolled into downtown to oppose vaccine mandates, including cross-border requirements for truckers.
Police have warned their intelligence is flagging the potential for violence.
But the atmosphere Friday was more like a festival, as protesters danced in front of the Centennial Flame to Stevie Wonder's "Superstition," carrying signs that read "coercion does not equal consent" and "mandate freedom."
6 a.m. In Sainte-Anastasie-sur-Issole, a village that curls catlike in verdant Provence hillocks, voters are making an early start on France's presidential election.
From their ballot box this weekend and next will come the name of the candidate - picked from among dozens - that they want their mayor to endorse.
Normally, the choice would be Mayor Olivier Hoffmann's alone, under a right that, at election time, turns small-potato public office-holders into hot properties - wooed by would-be candidates who need 500 endorsements from elected officials to get onto the April ballot.
But in an inflamed climate of election-time politics, and with fury among opponents of COVID-19 vaccinations increasingly bubbling over into violence directed at elected representatives, Sainte-Anastasie's staunchly apolitical mayor doesn't want to be seen taking sides.
Read more from The Associated Press.
5:45 a.m. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said late Saturday she is self-isolating after coming into close contact with a person infected with the coronavirus.
The exposure came on a flight from the town of Kerikeri to the largest city of Auckland. New Zealand's Governor-General Cindy Kiro was also on the Jan. 22 flight and has also gone into isolation.
Both women had been in the Northland region to do some filming ahead of New Zealand's national day, Waitangi Day, on Feb. 6.
The Prime Minister is asymptomatic and is feeling well," her office said in a statement. In line with Ministry of Health advice she will be tested immediately tomorrow and will isolate until Tuesday."
4 a.m. Indonesia is bracing for a third wave of COVID-19 infections as the highly transmissible Omicron variant drives a surge in new cases, health authorities and experts said Saturday.
The country reported 9,905 new infections and seven deaths on Friday in the latest 24-hour period. It was the highest daily caseload since August last year when the country was struggling to contain a delta-driven wave.
Indonesia had recovered from last year's spike in cases and deaths that was among the worst in the region, and daily infections had fallen to about 200 by December. But cases are rising again just weeks after the country reported its first local Omicron case.