Today’s coronavirus news: COVID-19 cases on the rise again in U.S.; Freeland met with pleas from small businesses for help with pandemic debt
The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world Friday. This file will be updated throughout the day. Web links to longer stories if available.
12:46 p.m. Yet again, the U.S. is trudging into what could be another COVID-19 surge, with cases rising nationally and in most states after a two-month decline.
One big unknown? We don't know how high that mountain's gonna grow," said Dr. Stuart Campbell Ray, an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins University.
No one expects a peak nearly as high as the last one, when the contagious omicron version of the coronavirus ripped through the population.
But experts warn that the coming wave - caused by a mutant called BA.2 that's thought to be about 30% more contagious - will wash across the nation and push up hospitalizations in a growing number of states in the coming weeks. And the case wave will be bigger than it looks, they say, because reported numbers are vast undercounts as more people test at home without reporting their infections or skip testing altogether.
At the height of the previous omicron surge, reported daily cases reached into the hundreds of thousands. On April 14, the seven-day rolling average for daily new cases rose to 39,521, up from 30,724 two weeks earlier, according to data from Johns Hopkins collected by The Associated Press.
10:27 a.m. A Toronto public school board committee that advocates on behalf of students with special needs wants to bring back mandatory masking and vaccination for those who work with medically fragile children.
The Special Education Advisory Committee has written to the province's top doctor requesting permission for the board to reintroduce masking rules and its vaccination policy at congregated schools that serve students with complex special needs, many of whom have multiple disabilities.
Recent changes to COVID-19 safety measures, specifically regarding masking and vaccination requirements, have put these students at great risk of contracting the virus," say SEAC members in a letter to the chief medical officer of health, Dr. Kieran Moore. The COVID-19 virus poses great risks for any of these students, as it may exacerbate existing symptoms of their already complex disabilities and medical fragilities."
Read the full story from the Star's Isabel Teotonio
5:58 a.m.: Small business owners have made a plea to the federal finance minister to consider more help paying off their pandemic-related debts as the sixth wave of COVID-19 causes customers to stay home and sales to fall.
The request is one Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has faced repeatedly in recent days during a cross-country post-budget tour.
Her response has been that emergency measures are no longer needed with the crisis passed, the economy running hot and the government needing to tighten its fiscal belt.
Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, said underneath the headline economic numbers only two in five of his members report being back to normal sales.
He said more are worried about the impact on revenues and their ability to repay loans with people staying home despite provinces removing public health restrictions.
His members put those concerns to Freeland during a webinar on the budget and Kelly said he walked away believing the finance minister heard their concerns.
The budget doesn't include any further extensions of emergency benefit programs that will come to a close on May 7, but Freeland told those on the webinar, I hear you," when asked about debt relief, adding a moment later, let's keep on talking."
Thursday, 9:35 p.m.: California is sticking with its coronavirus vaccine mandate for schoolchildren, but it won't happen until at least the summer of 2023, Gov. Gavin Newsom's administration announced Thursday.
Last year, California was the first state to announce it would require all schoolchildren to receive the coronavirus vaccine. But it hasn't happened yet because Newsom said he was waiting for regulators at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to give final approval to the vaccine for school-aged children.
At the time, Newsom estimated the mandate would take effect for the start of the 2022-23 school year. But while federal regulators have authorized use of the coronavirus vaccine for children as young as 5 in an emergency, it has still not given final approval to anyone younger than 16.
As the calendar inches closer to the fall, school administrators had worried they would not have enough time to implement the vaccine mandate.
So based on these two facts - we don't have full FDA approval, and we recognize the implementation challenges that schools and school leaders would face - that we are not moving to have a vaccine requirement for schools in this coming academic year and no sooner than July 2023," California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said in an interview.