Today’s coronavirus news: Ontario reporting 1,403 COVID-19 hospitalizations; Canada’s annual inflation rate rises to 5.1% in January

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.

10:20 a.m. Ontario reporting 1,403 COVID-19 hospitalizations and 364 in ICU. 54 per cent were admitted to the hospital for COVID-19 and 46 per cent were admitted for other reasons but have tested positive for 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.

There are 2,532 new cases of COVID-19, according to Health Minister Christine Elliott.

8:50 a.m. Statistics Canada says the annual pace of inflation topped five per cent for the first time in more than 30 years.

The agency says the annual inflation rate rose to 5.1 per cent in January compared with a gain for 4.8 per cent in December.

Driving much of the increase in January were prices for housing, gasoline and groceries.

Gasoline prices were up 31.7 per cent last month compared with January 2021.

8:40 a.m. Turkey's foreign minister announced Wednesday that he tested positive for the coronavirus. Mevlut Cavusoglu, 54, said on Twitter that his symptoms were mild and that he planned to continue to work from home.

The announcement came a day after Cavusoglu returned from the United Arab Emirates, where he had accompanied Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on an official visit. Erdogan, 67, himself traveled to the UAE after recovering from COVID-19 last week.

Daily COVID-19 infections in Turkey have been hovering around the 100,000 mark in recent weeks, due to the spread of the highly transmissible omicron variant. In late December, the number of daily cases stood at about 20,000.

8 a.m. The Austrian government said Wednesday that it plans to end the country's main COVID-19 restrictions on March 5, though wearing masks will remain obligatory in some places.

Chancellor Karl Nehammer announced the decision at a news conference in Vienna, stressing that the pandemic is not yet over but the situation allows Austria to open up step by step.

In a first step starting Saturday, proof of vaccination or recent recovery will no longer be required to attend events, go to restaurants, bars or hairdressers and various other activities. Proof of a negative test will suffice for those things. From March 5, most restrictions will be dropped, with night clubs reopening and restrictions on opening hours for restaurants and bars ending.

7:20 a.m. The Netherlands was inadequately prepared for the onslaught of the coronavirus pandemic two years ago and the government paid insufficient attention to the threat to people in care homes, according to an independent inquiry released Wednesday.

The Dutch Safety Board said authorities in the Netherlands, where more than 21,000 people are confirmed to have died of COVID-19, became overly fixated" on hospitals in the early days of the pandemic while focusing too little attention on what it called an unprecedented impact" on nursing homes, education, cultural institutions, and business.

The safety board's chairman, former Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, called the pandemic the country's biggest social crisis n decades.

The Netherlands proved to be vulnerable," Dijsselbloem said. "This was due to the structures the government had in place for the health sector and the crisis response: they fell short given the nature and scope of the crisis."

6 a.m.: As a virus-weary world limps through the third year of the outbreak, experts are sending out a warning signal: Don't expect omicron to be the last variant we have to contend with - and don't let your guard down yet.

In the midst of a vast wave of milder infections, countries around the world are dialing back restrictions and softening their messaging. Many people are starting to assume they've had their run-in with COVID-19 and that the pandemic is tailing off.

That's not necessarily the case.

The crisis isn't over until it's over everywhere. The effects will continue to reverberate through wealthier nations - disrupting supply chains, travel plans and health care - as the coronavirus largely dogs under-vaccinated developing countries over the coming months.

Before any of that, the world has to get past the current wave. Omicron may appear to cause less severe disease than previous strains, but it is wildly infectious, pushing new case counts to once unimaginable records. Meanwhile, evidence is emerging that the variant may not be as innocuous as early data suggest.

There's also no guarantee that the next mutation - and there will be more - won't be an offshoot of a more dangerous variant such as delta. And your risk of catching COVID-19 more than once is real.

5:55 a.m.: Omicron restrictions in late 2021 significantly impacted foot traffic, consumer spending and employment in Toronto's downtown core just as businesses were on their way to recovery. Small businesses and workers in certain sectors were hit harder than others, new data shows.

The Toronto Region Board of Trade published new data Wednesday showing that in-person spending declined after November 2021, especially in the metropolitan centre, where spending was 44 per cent below 2019 levels as workers continued to telecommute instead of returning to the office.

Read the full story from the Star's Rosa Saba.

5:52 a.m.: The Biden administration is telling Congress that it needs an additional $30 billion to press ahead with the fight against COVID-19, officials said.

Two people familiar with the administration's plan confirmed key details on Tuesday: $17.9 billion for vaccines and treatments, $4.9 billion for testing, $3 billion to cover coronavirus care for uninsured people, and $3.7 billion to prepare for future variants. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss deliberations between the administration and lawmakers over the supplemental funding.

Separately, Republican Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri told reporters he'd spoken with Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, and that I think they are going to be proposing a $30 billion supplemental."

White House press secretary Jen Psaki addressed the need for more money without specifying the amount being sought.

5:51 a.m.: South Korea will distribute free coronavirus rapid test kits at schools and senior care facilities starting next week as it weathers an unprecedented wave of infections driven by the fast-moving Omicron variant.

Health officials on Wednesday reported its highest daily jump in coronavirus infections with 90,443 new cases, shattering the previous one-day record set on Tuesday by more than 33,000 cases. The figure represents more than a 20-fold increase from the levels seen in mid-January, when omicron emerged as the country's dominant strain, and some experts say the country could see daily cases of around 200,000 in March.

While experts say omicron appears less likely to cause serious illness or death compared to the Delta variant, which rattled the country in December and early January, hospitalizations have been creeping up amid the greater scale of outbreak.

5:51 a.m.: German vaccine maker BioNTech, which developed the first widely approved shot against COVID-19 together with Pfizer, unveiled plans Wednesday to establish manufacturing facilities in Africa that would boost the availability of much-needed medicines on the continent.

The modular design presented at a ceremony in Marburg, Germany, consists of shipping containers fitted with the equipment necessary to make the company's mRNA-based vaccine from start to finish, save for the final step of filling doses into bottles.

BioNTech has been criticized by some campaign groups for refusing to suspend its vaccine patents and let rivals manufacture the shots as part of an effort to make them more widely available, especially in poor countries. The company argues that the process of making mRNA vaccines is difficult and it prefers to work with local partners to ensure consistent quality of the shots worldwide.

5:50 a.m.: Chancellor Olaf Scholz is conferring with Germany's 16 state governors Wednesday to map a way out of coronavirus restrictions as official figures show new infections beginning to drift downward.

Germany saw infections caused by the Omicron variant, which is highly contagious but generally causes milder illness than previous variants, surge later than in several other European countries.

Officials have attributed this to restrictions that include curbs on private gatherings, the closure of night clubs and requirements for people to show proof of vaccination or recovery to enter restaurants and bars.

But other countries, including neighbouring Denmark, also have moved faster to lift restrictions, and there are growing calls for Germany to follow suit. Already, many German states have moved to scrap rules that prevented people without proof of vaccination or recovery from visiting non-essential stores.

5:50 a.m.: Hospitals in Hong Kong were struggling Wednesday to keep up with an influx of new coronavirus patients amid record numbers of new infections as the city's leadership doggedly sticks to its zero-COVID" strategy, and China's leader Xi Jinping said it was the local government's overriding task" to control the situation.

Hong Kong is facing its worst outbreak of the pandemic, topping 2,000 new COVID-19 cases per day this week. The city government has already instituted strict rules, banning gatherings of more than two households.

But health care facilities are beginning to overflow, forcing the city's Caritas Medical Center on Wednesday to treat some patients in beds outside the building.

Xi personally issued instructions and directed Vice Premier Han Zheng to express to Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam the high level of concern Chinese Communist Party leaders had about the city's ongoing outbreak, according to Wen Wei Po, a pro-Beijing news outlet.

5:45 a.m.: Members of the Ottawa blockade that has kept the capital at a standstill for nearly three full weeks are calling the federal government's use of the Emergencies Act a scare tactic.

Trucks, RVs and other vehicles with Canadian flags or banners with the word freedom'' in giant letters along their front grilles remain on Wellington Street in front of Parliament Hill, with drivers saying they will stay put until all COVID-19 vaccine mandates and restrictions are lifted.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the act on Monday for the first time in Canadian history, with details of the regulations contained in cabinet orders published Tuesday night.

Under the act, bringing children to the antigovernment blockades, participating in the protests directly, or bringing aid such as food or fuel to those involved could result in a fine of up to $5,000 or five years in prison

Blockades are not allowed on Parliament Hill and surrounding streets, official residences, war monuments, airports, harbours, border crossings, piers, lighthouses, canals, interprovincial and international bridges, hospitals and COVID-19 vaccine clinics, trade corridors and infrastructure needed for the supply of utilities including power generation and transmission.

The cabinet orders are now in effect but must all be confirmed by motions to be put to both the House of Commons and the Senate for a vote.

The government could take until next week to table the motion invoking the act itself, but has only until Thursday to do so for the motions on the specific powers being enacted, which will remain in place for 30 days unless the government revokes them sooner.