Today’s coronavirus news: Ontario reports 1,106 people hospitalized with COVID-19, 319 in ICU; Criminal anthropologist says Alberta at heart of unrest and mandate protests
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.
10:17 a.m. Ontario is reporting 1,106 people are hospitalized with COVID-19 with 319 people in the ICU.
49 per cent were admitted to the hospital for COVID-19 and 51 per cent were admitted for other reasons but have tested positive for COVID-19. The province is also reporting at least 1,425 new cases of COVID-19.
10 a.m. It appears a protest against COVID-19 restrictions in front of the Manitoba legislature is winding down.
Caleb Brown, a co-organizer of the protest, says trucks and other vehicles have started to leave a street that has been blocked off for almost three weeks.
Brown says the protest will continue on a smaller scale, without vehicles, in nearby Memorial Park.
The move comes after Winnipeg police said the protesters could face charges or have their vehicles and other assets seized if they did not remove all vehicles by late this afternoon.
Brown says the protest has always been peaceful, although Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman and others said the occupation of the street and blaring of horns were harmful to area residents.
9:12 a.m.: Premier P.J. Akeeagok says Nunavut will begin easing public health restrictions over the next few weeks and months," following the lead taken recently by other provinces and territories in Canada.
Akeeagok made the remarks during his weekly COVID-19 press conference after he announced there are 310 cases as of Tuesday.
Since 2020, our strategy in dealing with the pandemic has been to keep our territory COVID-free," Akeeagok said. Today, we need a new approach."
Akeeagok said the government has learned more about how COVID-19 spreads, mutates and how to manage the impact on communities. The territory's specific needs will be included in the plans to open Nunavut up, he added.
8:15 a.m. Hong Kong residents are becoming increasingly annoyed with the administration's insistence on sticking to China's zero-COVID" strategy as the city posted another record number of cases Wednesday, bristling at ever-stricter regulations and a plan to test everyone for the virus.
Schools have already switched to online learning and summer holidays are being moved forward so that the buildings can be used as facilities for testing, isolation and vaccination. Hong Kong says it will go ahead with the plan to test every one of its 7.5 million residents three times in March.
Under the zero-COVID-19" strategy, every person testing positive case must be quarantined in a hospital or other government facility for 14 days regardless of symptoms. It's in contrast with most countries, which are reducing restrictions and allowing people with mild or no symptoms to remain at home.
The whole world knows we have to live with the virus, only the Hong Kong government does not know," said taxi driver Chan Tai-man. Actually it's not that they don't know, they only do what the Chinese government tells them to."
8 a.m. Members of the Peel community are talking about their experiences, hopes and fears during the pandemic.
10 ways the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the lives of Peel residents
7:45 a.m. In 1996, the average price for a home in the GTA was $198,150. Today, it's $1,095,475. Skyrocketing prices over the last 25 years were fuelled by strong demand and limited supply, a new report by Re/Max Canada found. Since 1996, residential unit sales have doubled and the average price has increased by 453 per cent.
Between 1996 and 2021, more than two million homes were sold in the GTA, representing a $1.1 trillion boom for the real estate market.
Performance of the GTA housing market over the 25-year period has been nothing short of remarkable," said Christopher Alexander, president of Re/Max Canada, in a press release. This is especially so when considering this time period was characterized by the tech meltdown of 2000, 9/11, SARS, the Great Recession of 2008, Ontario's Fair Housing Plan and the ongoing pandemic, he added.
Read the full story from the Star's Clarrie Feinstein
7:30 a.m. Poland is lifting most COVID-19 restrictions including limits on the people inside restaurants and theatres from March 1, but will continue with mandatory face masks indoors and isolation rules, the government said Wednesday.
Health Minister Adam Niedzielski said the lifting of most of the restrictions was possible because the number of new daily infections and hospitalizations was falling significantly, and herd immunity was above 90 per cent as a result of both vaccinations and infections.
Discos and clubs can reopen on Tuesday, and the 50 per cent capacity limit on the number of people on public transport and in malls, restaurants, theatres and sports venues will also be lifted. State and regional administration workers can return to work in the office.
6 a.m.: The United Nations' independent investigator on human rights in North Korea has called for the international community to provide 60 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to the isolated authoritarian nation, which has recently showed signs of easing one of the world's most restrictive pandemic border closures.
Tomas Ojea Quintana said Wednesday the doses would be enough to inoculate North Korea's population of more than 25 million people at least twice. He said the shots would possibly encourage Pyongyang's leadership to open up more after the country's self-imposed lockdown of the past two years created challenges for outside monitors, aid groups and diplomats.
The move could be the key to opening (North) Korea's border and resuming its interaction with the international community and bringing it out of isolation," Quintana said at a news conference on Wednesday in Seoul.
It's unclear whether Quintana's plan is feasible. The North has so far shunned millions of shots offered by the UN-backed COVAX distribution program, possibly because they come with international monitoring requirements.
5:36 a.m.: A criminal anthropologist suggests looking to the West to find the heart of protests and blockades that gripped the nation for more than a month.
Alberta appears to have been the epicentre of unrest that started with truckers over cross-border vaccine mandates, but quickly attracted other groups with their own agendas. Most prominent were demands to lift all pandemic public health measures, complaints about the federal Liberal government and rallying cries for freedom.
Two people arrested for leading the noisy three-week standoff in downtown Ottawa call Alberta home. A third is from Saskatchewan.
There are 13 people with alleged violent motives facing serious charges in relation to the southern Alberta border blockade at Coutts. Four are accused of conspiracy to commit murder of RCMP officers.
Another convoy destined for Ottawa originated in northern Alberta, but was turned away at the Manitoba-Ontario boundary in recent days, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday.
5:35 a.m.: Cambodia began vaccinating 3- and 4-year-olds with Chinese-made Sinovac shots Wednesday after finding young children accounting for many new infections.
Prime Minister Hun Sen appealed for parents to get their children vaccinated as soon as they can and said five of his 21 grandchildren and one of his daughters have tested positive for the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.
To overcome COVID-19 depends not just on the government or the Health Ministry, but needs the participation of all the people," Hun Sen said at a groundbreaking ceremony for a wastewater treatment facility on the outskirts of the capital Phnom Penh.
He had endorsed the vaccination plan for the younger children last week after health officials found at least 25% of newly reported infections involved children under 5.
5:34 a.m.: Is Omicron leading us closer to herd immunity against COVID-19?
Experts say it's not likely that the highly transmissible variant - or any other variant - will lead to herd immunity.
Herd immunity is an elusive concept and doesn't apply to coronavirus," says Dr. Don Milton at the University of Maryland School of Public Health.
Herd immunity is when enough of a population is immune to a virus that it's hard for the germ to spread to those who aren't protected by vaccination or a prior infection.
For example, herd immunity against measles requires about 95% of a community to be immune. Early hopes of herd immunity against the coronavirus faded for several reasons.
One is that antibodies developed from available vaccines or previous infection dwindle with time. While vaccines offer strong protection against severe illness, waning antibodies mean it's still possible to get infected - even for those who are boosted.
Then there's the huge variation in vaccinations. In some low-income countries, less than 5% of the population is vaccinated. Rich countries are struggling with vaccine hesitancy. And young children still aren't eligible in many places.
As long as the virus spreads, it mutates - helping the virus survive and giving rise to new variants. Those mutants - such as omicron - can become better at evading the protection people have from vaccines or an earlier infection.
4 a.m.: On Tuesday night, the Pentagon approved the deployment of 700 unarmed National Guard troops to D.C. as the nation's capitol prepares for trucker convoys that are planning protests against pandemic restrictions beginning next week.
Modelled after recent trucker protests in Canada, separate truck convoys have been planned through online forums with names like the People's Convoy and the American Truckers Freedom Fund - all with different starting points, departure dates and routes.
A statement from the Pentagon says Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin approved the request Tuesday from the District of Columbia government and the U.S. Capitol Police.
It also noted that the troops would be used to assist with traffic control during demonstrations expected in the city in the coming days - adding Guard members will not carry firearms or take part in law enforcement or domestic-surveillance activities.
5:32 a.m.: South Korean health officials on Wednesday approved Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine for children aged 5 to 11, expanding the country's immunization program in the face of a massive omicron outbreak that is driving up hospitalizations and deaths.