Today’s coronavirus news: Many Ontario long-term-care homes keeping vax mandates; New Brunswick lifts all restrictions
The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world Monday. This file will be updated throughout the day. Web links to longer stories if available.
1:55 p.m. Canadian courts grappling with the aftermath of pandemic closures and restrictions will have to parse out how much of the delays during COVID-19 should be deemed reasonable and unavoidable as more cases approach or exceed the maximum time frame set for criminal trials, experts say.
The pandemic halted in-person court proceedings for months in many provinces over the last two years and put jury trials on hold for long periods of time, exacerbating existing backlogs. Measures such as virtual hearings were implemented to minimize the impact of the pandemic, though not all cases could proceed remotely.
Rules setting a mandatory cap on the length of trials make exceptions for delays caused by unforeseen and unavoidable events. But as the pandemic stretches on, what meets that definition becomes less clear-cut, said Daniel Brown, a Toronto-based defence lawyer and vice-president of the Ontario Criminal Lawyers' Association.
1:45 p.m. Germany's coronavirus infection rate hit a record for the third straight day on Monday, with the renewed surge prompting the country's top health official to issue a grim warning.
COVID-19 cases climbed to 1,543 per 100,000 people over seven days, continuing its steady rise since the beginning of March, according to data from the RKI public-health institute.
The outbreak shows signs of worsening and causing many deaths," Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said Sunday in a tweet. He urged vaccine holdouts to urgently get their COVID shots.
Europe's biggest economy started to unwind pandemic-related restrictions in mid-February after the previous peak, and most remaining curbs are set to expire on Sunday. The country hasn't seen the precipitous drop in transmission that has occurred in other countries, such as the U.K. and the U.S. and daily deaths from the virus are still around 250 to 300 people.
1:27 p.m. New Brunswick has lifted all COVID-19 restrictions as of Monday, but the province's chief medical officer of health stresses that doesn't mean the pandemic is over.
Dr. Jennifer Russell says that even though masks are no longer mandatory, she strongly encourages their continued use, especially for people at higher risk of severe outcomes from COVID-19.
She says there will still be cases of the disease, and vaccinations remain the chief protective measure.
1 p.m. Vaccination against COVID-19 will still be required for employees at many Ontario long-term-care homes even though the province has lifted its official mandate for the sector.
Workers in long-term care were the only ones required by the government to get vaccinated against the virus and Monday had previously been set as a deadline for staff to get third shots.
That policy has now ended today as part of a broader lifting of restrictions, although the province says homes can keep mandating the shots for existing staff and new hires if policies comply with the law.
Extendicare and Chartwell, two major long-term care chains in the province, both say they are retaining mandatory vaccination policies.
The City of Toronto says its mandatory two-shot vaccination policy for all workers and new hires, including at municipally run long-term care homes, will also remain in place.
12:30 p.m. The International Committee of the Red Cross has been unable to visit prisons in Myanmar since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in late 2019, a top official said Monday.
Speaking to The Associated Press, Red Cross director-general Robert Mardini said officials with his organization have, however, remained in contact with Myanmar.
We are in constant dialogue on this on this question," he said. "Our access to detention places has been unfortunately disrupted since the pandemic started, so we are now working to start again those important visits. And at the same time, we are stepping up significantly our humanitarian activities in the country."
12:15 p.m. Quebec health officials are reporting nine more deaths attributed to coronavirus and a slight increase in the number of hospitalizations due to the disease.
Health authorities say 1,077 people remain in hospital with COVID-19, a rise of three cases from the previous day based on 43 admissions and 40 patients discharged.
There are 61 people listed in intensive care, a drop of two patients.
10:45 a.m. Sugar shack owners across Quebec are reopening their dining rooms for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and strangely, they are crediting the coronavirus with revitalizing their industry.
The spring sugar shack experience - eating beans and ham at long tables with strangers, enjoying tractor rides through the melting snow and nibbling snow-chilled maple syrup on wooden sticks - was on the decline before the pandemic. But two years of COVID-19 lockdowns have forced the traditional industry to reinvent an outdated business model, and some say it is more sustainable than before the health crisis hit.
We've been doing the same thing for 50 years, Camelie Gingras, manager of sugar shack La Goudrelle in Mont-St-Gregoire, Que., southeast of Montreal, said in a recent interview. "When I told my 84-year-old grandfather that we were going to do boxed meals for online orders, I can tell you, oh boy, he looked at me with a question mark on his face."
10:30 a.m. (updated) Ontario is reporting 228 people in ICU due to COVID-19, according to its latest reports released Monday morning, the same number of patients reported in Sunday's numbers.
Overall hospitalization numbers for COVID were unavailable for the second day in a row, according to the province.
This marks the first stretch of unavailable hospitalization numbers since the province started reporting them in April 2020.
Read the full story from the Star's Simran Singh
9:45 a.m. COVID-19 shots could soon become an annual item on your to-do list.
Due to waning effectiveness, particularly on variants like Omicron, a fourth COVID vaccine shot will be needed to keep hospitals and morgues quiet, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said Sunday.
Right now, the way that we have seen, it is necessary, a fourth booster right now," he said on Meet the Press."
The protection that you are getting from the third, it is good enough, actually quite good for hospitalizations and deaths. It's not that good against infections, but doesn't last very long. But we are just submitting those data to the FDA and then we will see what the experts also will say outside Pfizer."
8:45 a.m. As the latest coronavirus surge fades, health officials are keeping watch on a new mishmash of the Delta and Omicron variants.
Dubbed Deltacron" by some, it's essentially a blend of both the variants that fueled last summer's and this winter's COVID-19 waves, California State Epidemiologist Dr. Erica Pan said in a briefing to the California Medical Association this week.
But this coronavirus crossover event isn't setting off blaring alarm bells among health officials just yet. Only a handful of cases have been documented nationwide, including at least one in California, Pan said.
8:31 a.m. Local government officials in Hawaii announced the state would become the last in the United States to lift its mask mandates on March 26.
According to The Associated Press, Hawaii Gov. David Ige revealed earlier this month that the state's coronavirus cases and hospitalizations have decreased and the data suggest the numbers will continue to decline.
As a result, Hawaii is the last to drop the indoor mask mandates implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. The safety measures were added in April 2020 and have been in place ever since to protect the local communities.
7:30 a.m. A key participant in the trial of four men accused of plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has tested positive for COVID-19, forcing the judge to halt one of the nation's most important cases of alleged extremism.
Chief U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker postponed the trial in federal court in Grand Rapids until at least Thursday, according to an order filed in federal court on Sunday afternoon.
The judge's order does not identify who tested positive for COVID-19 and instead refers to an "essential trial participant."
7:20 a.m. France lifted most COVID-19 restrictions on Monday, abolishing the need to wear face masks in most settings and allowing people who aren't vaccinated back into restaurants, sports arenas and other venues.
The move had been announced earlier this month by the French government based on assessments of the improving situation in hospitals and following weeks of a steady decline in infections. It comes less than a month before the first round of the presidential election scheduled on April 10.
But in recent days, the number of new infections has started increasing again, raising concerns from some scientists it may be too soon to lift restrictions. The number of new infections have reached more than 60,000 based on a seven-day average, up from about 50,000 a week before.
Starting from Monday, people aren't required anymore to show proof of vaccination to enter places like restaurants and bars, cinemas, theaters, fairs and to use interregional transport. The so-called vaccine pass had taken effect at the end of January.
5:40 a.m. Chinese authorities reported 1,337 locally transmitted cases of COVID-19 across dozens of mainland cities Monday as the fast-spreading variant commonly known as stealth omicron" fuels China's biggest outbreak in two years.
The vast majority of the new cases - 895 - were in far northeastern Jilin province, where the COVID-19 task force effectively banned movement throughout the province. People can leave the province or travel from one city to another only with permission from the police, according to the government notice.
The surge is infecting people in cities ranging from Shenzhen to Qingdao on the coast, to Xingtai in the north and the numbers have crept steadily higher since early March. While the mainland's numbers are small relative to numbers reported in Europe or in the U.S., or even the city of Hong Kong, which had reported 32,000 cases Sunday, they are the highest since the first big outbreak of COVID-19 in the central city of Wuhan in early 2020.
5:25 a.m. Eight-year-old Brooklynn Chiles fidgets on the hospital bed as she waits for the nurse at Children's National Hospital. The white paper beneath her crinkles as she shifts to look at the medical objects in the room. She's had coronavirus three times, and no one can figure out why.
Brooklynn's lucky, sort of. Each time she has tested positive, she has suffered no obvious symptoms. But her dad, Rodney, caught the virus - possibly from her - when she was positive back in September, and he died from it.
Her mom, Danielle, is dreading a next bout, fearing her daughter could become gravely ill even though she's been vaccinated.
Read more from The Associated Press.
5:15 a.m. Former President Barack Obama said on Sunday that he had tested positive for the coronavirus, though he's feeling relatively healthy and his wife, Michelle, tested negative.
I've had a scratchy throat for a couple days, but am feeling fine otherwise," Obama said on Twitter. Michelle and I are grateful to be vaccinated and boosted."
Obama encouraged more Americans to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, despite the declining infection rate in the U.S. There were roughly 35,000 infections on average over the past week, down sharply from mid-January when that average was closer to 800,000.
5 a.m. At a time when COVID-19 restrictions are lifting and booster vaccines are flowing, many Canadians are still feeling significantly more depressed and anxious than before the pandemic - a trend that signals the mental health impact of the last two years will linger.
The findings come from the most recent Mental Health Research Canada poll on COVID-19, which surveyed more than 3,500 Canadians between Feb. 15 and 22. In it, people have reported feeling less concerned about the virus as a whole than at any other point in the pandemic, and less worried about catching it.
But the percentage of people reporting high rates of anxiety and depression has remained consistent since October, with 23 per cent reporting high anxiety and 16 per cent reporting high depression. This is up from five per cent and four per cent respectively before the pandemic.