Today’s coronavirus news: More than 70 March break vaccination clinics planned for Toronto; Lecce defends end date for school mask mandate
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.
2 p.m. Ontario's education minister is defending the province's plan to end mask rules along with other COVID-19 measures in schools on March 21 despite concerns from educators and health experts about the timeline.
Stephen Lecce says Ontario is following a handful of other Canadian jurisdictions that have already lifted mask mandates and based on that trend, he says it is one of the more cautious provinces.
Lecce pointed to ventilation improvements made in schools and says the province is following the recommendations of its chief medical officer.
Other pandemic measures including class cohorting and on-site symptom screening will end in Ontario schools on March 21, when people will no longer be required to wear masks in schools or child-care centres.
1:45 p.m. Public sector employees in non-high risk areas who refused to be vaccinated under Nova Scotia's COVID-19 mandates can return to the job when all remaining public health restrictions are lifted.
Colton LeBlanc, the minister responsible for the Public Service Commission, confirmed following a cabinet meeting today that 84 civil servants can go back to work March 21 when restrictions including the indoor mask requirement for public spaces are dropped.
However, Health Minister Michelle Thompson says there are no plans to allow unvaccinated health employees to return to work.
1:12 p.m. Prince Edward Island is launching financial programs to help Islanders struggling amid the COVID-19 pandemic and high gas prices.
The government said today it will distribute $150 cheques this month to every adult and dependant receiving social assistance or assured income.
It says the funding will total more than $1 million and is part of the $20-million support envelope announced earlier in the week.
12:50 p.m. Quebecers who have been in contact at home with someone who tests positive for COVID-19 will no longer have to self-isolate.
The province's interim public health director announced today the new isolation guidelines will go into effect on Saturday, when most of the province's COVID-19 public health measures come to an end.
Dr. Luc Boileau says people who have been in contact with a positive case will be able to go about their lives, but for 10 days they will have to monitor for symptoms, wear a mask and avoid situations where they have to remove their face covering or are in close contact with others, especially those at high risk.
12:40 p.m. Transat A.T. Inc. felt the pain of the Omicron variant last quarter, but saw bookings rebound as COVID-19 measures eased, leaving the tour operator's CEO cautiously optimistic" but wary of skyrocketing fuel prices.
Between mid-December and mid-January, cancellations outpaced bookings as the new coronavirus strain mushroomed, reversing an upward sales trend through the fall. The swerve forced the company to cancel 30 per cent of its January flights and prompted a $114-million net loss in the quarter ended Jan. 31, a drop of 89 per cent from losses a year earlier.
But reservations began to climb again seven weeks ago, said chief executive Annick Guerard.
12:20 p.m. Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the world has seen a dramatic improvement in infections, hospitalizations and death rates in recent weeks, signaling the crisis appears to be winding down. But how will it end? Past epidemics may provide clues.
The ends of epidemics are not as thoroughly researched as their beginnings. But there are recurring themes that could offer lessons for the months ahead, said Erica Charters of the University of Oxford, who studies the issue.
One thing we have learned is it's a long, drawn-out process" that includes different types of endings that may not all occur at the same time, she said. That includes a medical end," when disease recedes, the political end," when government prevention measures cease, and the social end," when people move on.
The COVID-19 global pandemic has waxed and waned differently in different parts of the world. But in the United States, at least, there is reason to believe the end is near.
12:07 p.m. On Friday, Tyler, the Creator, joined by Vince Staples, Kalis Uchis and Teezo Touchdown, will bring his 34-date stadium tour to Scotiabank Arena for one of the first major indoor concert events since the Omicron wave led to a slew of cancellations and postponements in December.
For hip hop fans, the show feels like a significant step toward normalcy for a live music industry that has been mostly on hold for two years.
The Star spoke to some ticket holders about how they are feeling ahead of the show.
Read the full story from the Star's Richie Assaly
10:25 a.m. (updated) Ontario is reporting 244 people in ICU due to COVID-19 and 742 in hospital overall testing positive for COVID-19, according to its latest report released Thursday morning.
Of the people hospitalized, 46 per cent were admitted for COVID-19 and 54 per cent were admitted for other reasons but have since tested positive. For the ICU numbers, 79 per cent were admitted for COVID-19 and 21 per cent were admitted for other reasons but have since tested positive.
The numbers represent a 1.2 per cent increase in the ICU COVID-19 count and a 1.2 per cent decrease in hospitalizations overall. 26 per cent of the province's 2,343 adult ICU beds remain available for new patients.
Read the full story from the Star's Dorcas Marfo
10:20 a.m. Coronavirus infections appear to be rising in older adults in England, with cases remaining at a high level despite a broad decline since a peak in January, according to a government-commissioned study published Thursday.
The REACT COVID-19 monitoring program, which looked at almost 95,000 home swab tests taken in February, showed that around 1 in 35 people in England was infected with the virus during the period and infections were rising among those aged 55 and older.
Researchers said the increase could be driven by more socializing since all coronavirus restrictions were lifted in late February, as well as waning protection from the vaccine booster.
10:10 a.m. At a news conference in Toronto, representatives from several business and tourism organizations are calling on the federal government to remove remaining COVID-19 travel restrictions by April 1.
Members of the Canadian Travel and Tourism Roundtable, the Toronto Region Board of Trade, the Global Business Travel Association, and American Express Global Business Travel have gathered to appeal for the lifting of all travel restrictions.
10 a.m. Ontario has officially confirmed the province will drop most mask mandates by March 21, and scrap all remaining COVID-19 directives by the end of April.
The Star first reported the move to lift measures on Tuesday, and the information was confirmed the following day during a press conference by Ontario's chief medical officer of health.
Here's a timeline of the changes by the province from the Star's Ivy Mak
9:15 a.m. The TTC with Women's College Hospital is hosting a vaccine clinic at Union Station from March 15 to 17 from 12:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Thank you to the TTC and Women's College Hospital for working to host this vaccine clinic in Union Station during March Break," said Mayor John Tory in a release. The TTC continues to be a great partner and a key part of our Team Toronto vaccination efforts. Thousands of COVID-19 vaccine doses have been delivered to residents who need them thanks to our TTC clinics and I encourage anyone who still needs a vaccine dose to visit Union Station next week."
9:12 a.m. It's been roughly one year since Team Toronto opened our City-run clinics! Now, almost 6.8 million doses later, we're reopening our city thanks, in large part, to these City-run clinics - which administered more than 1.6 million doses. That's one-quarter of the doses in Toronto," Mayor John Tory tweeted Thursday morning.
9:10 a.m. (updated) Mayor John Tory is announcing March break vaccination clinics during Thursday's morning update, the last regular COVID-19 update he says.
Team Toronto is continuing to help residents get vaccinated during March Break from March 14 to March 20," a release from the City of Toronto says. There will be 72 vaccine clinics at March break camps, schools, libraries and transit hubs. Read the full list of clinics.
The city's Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Eileen de Villa, alongside Tory, says that lifting mask mandates doesn't mean masks aren't useful tools against COVID-19 but rather an important part of Toronto's COVID-19 response.
She recommends the use of well-fitted and high-quality masks, especially for those who are at high risk of COVID-19 and those in high-risk indoor settings.
She says hospitals, long-term-care homes, and public transit, in alignment with the provincial response, will prioritize the use of masks until further notice.
Toronto has entered a new phase and as we go forward, cases are expected to go up, but Toronto is prepared to adapt to these changes, de Villa says.
I hope other Torontonians will do, as they have done over the last two years, to make the best decisions, using good judgment, using the knowledge that we have, that we've acquired over the last two years to guide their actions."
She says Toronto's COVID-19 indicators and trending in the right direction and Toronto Public Health is continually monitoring trends.
8:30 a.m. Canada's ailing health systems need some drastic intervention from federal and provincial governments if there is any hope of reviving them post-pandemic, an emergency summit of nearly 40 health-worker organizations concluded at an emergency meeting Wednesday.
Health workers have now endured two difficult years of pandemic conditions, leading to serious burnout across nearly all sectors of the health-care system.
The real shared experience across health-care workers and professionals is that the level of burnout is to a point now where it's really starting to threaten the sustainability of the system," said Canadian Medical Association president Dr. Katharine Smart.
8:10 a.m. As mask mandates lift in most states and coronavirus cases continue to drop, the stealth" Omicron subvariant, BA.2, is becoming more prevalent in the United States.
But what does this mean and is it a reason to worry amid easing virus restrictions?
Cases of this particular Omicron subvariant, one of a few, keep popping up and have roughly doubled the past few weeks in the U.S., according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data estimates. It now makes up 11.6 per cent of overall virus cases as of March 5.
All in all, I think we're really gonna be okay and I don't think BA.2 is gonna be problematic like omicron," Dr. Thomas Russo, an infectious disease doctor and professor and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Buffalo, told McClatchy News over the phone. He referenced the Omicron COVID-19 wave that hit after its discovery in November.
7:40 a.m. The city's Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Eileen de Villa will update the city's masking policy at 9 a.m. on Thursday.
7:30 a.m. President Donald Trump rolled out the Paycheck Protection Program to catapult the U.S. economy into a quick recovery from the coronavirus pandemic by helping small businesses stay open and their employees working. President Joe Biden tweaked it to try to direct more of the money to poorer communities and minority-owned companies.
Now, almost two years after the program made its debut, the question is what taxpayers got for the $800 billion. The Biden administration says its version of the program helped prevent racial inequality from worsening, while a prominent academic study suggests the overall price tag was high per job saved and most of the benefits accrued to the affluent.
Nearly a year after the implementation of its $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, the Biden administration is arguing that it made critical adjustments to the forgivable loan program, pointing to internal figures showing that more benefits went to poorer communities, racial minorities and the smallest of businesses - those in which the owner is the sole employee.
7:10 a.m. The coronavirus may have killed one in every 200 South Africans. Excess deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic, seen as a more accurate way of measuring its impact than official statistics, climbed to 301,106 in the week ended March 5, according to South African Medical Research Council data released on Wednesday. That's triple the official fatality rate of just under 100,000.
The number of deaths per 100,000 people was 506 in a nation of 60 million, according to the council. Researchers say almost all of the excess deaths, which plots mortality against a historical average, are due to the virus.
The level of deaths in the country with the highest official COVID-19 infections and deaths in Africa compares with about 200 per 100,000 in the U.K., but is well below the 680 in Peru and 760 in Russia, according to the World Mortality Dataset. Across Africa, South Africa is the only country to compile the data.
6:07 a.m. Canadian workers have spoken: they don't want to return to the office full time, and they'll move on if their employer orders them to.
A recent Amazon Business survey of 1,595 Canadian office workers found flexibility is increasingly important, to the point that two in five said they would look for a more flexible job if mandated to come back in person full time.
And if a prospective employer mandated full-time in-person work, more than half would be less likely to accept a job offer.
Read more from the Star's Rosa Saba.
6 a.m. As Ontario moves to drop mandatory masking in public settings, wastewater surveillance levels across the province continue to show high, albeit stable, numbers of COVID-19 infections, but experts caution it's too soon to see the impact of the recent lifting of public health measures.
In the absence of widespread polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing, wastewater surveillance is now Ontario's best early indicator in the tracking of COVID spread.
At any other time of the pandemic, what wastewater surveillance currently shows would be alarming: an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 new infections a day, according to provincewide analysis by the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table. This is four times higher than where daily cases were at the height of the second wave last April, and around where they hit in late December, while the province was still doing widespread PCR testing.
Read more from the Star's Kenyon Wallace and May Warren.
5:45 a.m. Toronto high school student Stephanie De Castro has no intention of dropping mask use at school - at least not in the near future.
But the 16-year-old suspects plenty of students will do just that, eager to go maskless in class for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Wednesday, the province announced an end to mandatory masking in schools and most indoor public spaces - exceptions include public transit, nursing homes and retirement homes - starting in about two weeks, and immediate changes to isolation guidelines for close contacts of those with COVID.
Read more from the Star's Isabel Teotonio.
5:30 a.m. China is tackling a COVID-19 spike with selective lockdowns and other measures that appear to slightly ease its draconian zero tolerance" strategy.
In Hong Kong, which recorded more than 58,000 new cases on Thursday, barber shops and hair salons were reopening. Many are seeing that as an example of mixed messages from the government of the semi-autonomous Chinese territory that has been ordered to follow the zero tolerance" approach used on the mainland.
The 402 cases of local transmission recorded on the mainland Thursday were quadruple the number of cases a week ago.
5:25 a.m. Ontario schools have been told to hold in-person graduation ceremonies and proms for Grade 12 this year, and that all assemblies should also be in person, the Star has learned.
Students in this year's graduating class have only had one normal year of high school - Grade 9. They were in Grade 10 when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, shutting down schools for more than 27 weeks over the next three years.
A memo will be going out to school boards on Wednesday with the directive, sources familiar with the move told the Star.
We must restore these experiences," a source told the Star.
Read more from the Star's Kristin Rushowy.
5:15 a.m. British Columbian's public health officer was scheduled to hold a COVID-19 briefing today after indicating earlier this month that more restrictions could be lifted by mid-March.
Dr. Bonnie Henry said last week the province was better positioned to consider removing pandemic restrictions before students begin spring break on Monday.
She said hospitalization numbers were down, immunity from vaccines was up and more at-home rapid tests were being distributed. But Henry has also said there was still a lot of the virus circulating in some parts of the province.
Unlike some other provinces, B.C. still requires masks in indoor public places and vaccine cards must be shown.
5:05 a.m. Pilots say a Transport Canada backlog is holding up medical certification, leading to months-long delays before they can return to the skies.
Air Line Pilots Association president Tim Perry says a significant number of pilots who have been deemed fit to fly by aviation medical examiners have been waiting a year or more to have Transport Canada greenlight their approvals, calling the delays ludicrous."
The bottleneck comes amid a surge in demand for pilots as travel begins to rebound after two years of depressed business due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Along with unions, pilots say the backlog is costing them by way of higher insurance premiums caused by the greater number of employees who are on long-term disability while awaiting their medical certificates.
5 a.m. From masking to vaccinations, Ontario is lifting all COVID-19 restrictions by April 27 as part of its plan to live with the virus that has claimed more than 12,600 lives across the province in the last two years.
That starts with an end to mandatory masking in schools and most indoor public places March 21, as first reported by the Star.
Amid concerns that mandatory masking is being dropped too soon - especially in schools - businesses and institutions are welcome keep masking and mandatory vaccination policies as COVID-19 infection levels decline but the virus continues to circulate, provincial officials said in outlining the plan Wednesday.