Today’s coronavirus news: Ontario reporting 1,258 more cases, 28 deaths including 1 in long-term care; York Region to start vaccinating residents over 80 ahead of province

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.

10:35 a.m.: Ontario is also reporting one more death among residents in long-term care for a total of 3,743 since the pandemic began.

The number of long-term-care homes in outbreak remains unchanged at 111, or 17.7 per cent of all LTC homes in the province.

10:30 a.m.: York Region is getting a two-week head start on vaccinating the general population against COVID-19 - beginning with those over 80.

Regional council welcomed the good news Thursday morning from medical officer of health Dr. Karim Kurji.

Kurji said this age group will be able to book vaccine appointments through an existing online system as of March 1.

Retired Gen. Rick Hillier, provincial COVID-19 vaccine distribution task force chair, announced Wednesday that Ontario residents over 80 would start getting immunized March 15, the same date the provincial call centre and booking systems became operational.

But the region has different plans.

10:25 a.m.: Ontario is reporting that 21,805 more vaccine doses have been administered since its last daily update for a total of 643,765 as of 8 p.m. Thursday.

The province says 258,014 people have been fully vaccinated, which means they have had both shots.

10:16 a.m.: Locally, there are 362 new cases in Toronto, 274 in Peel and 104 in York Region.

10:12 a.m.: Ontario is reporting 1,258 more COVID-19 cases, with 28 deaths.

The seven-day average is up to 1,114 cases daily or 54 weekly per 100,000, and down to 17.7 deaths/day.

Labs report 64,049 completed tests with a 2.3 per cent positivity rate.

9:35 a.m. The viral video of shoppers crowding into a Thornhill HomeSense this week sent alarm bells ringing among many who worry that York Region opened the doors to business too soon.

Dr. Karim Kurji, the region's medical officer of health, said inspectors have been vigilant to ensure red zone rules are followed and visited the location promptly.

Apparently there were a lot of customers with multiple buggies causing a lot of delays and traffic issues on Feb. 22, which was the date of the complaint," he said.

The region checked to ensure their capacity of 150 patrons was being followed, but there was overcrowding in the cashier area that was quickly corrected.

9:15 a.m. Beck Taxi driver Jafar Mirsalari remembers one pandemic-era pickup clearly. It was 4 a.m. in COVID-19's early days, and he had picked up a customer from the hospital.

Though the customer was masked, they were coughing and seemed to have difficulty breathing. Don't worry, it's not corona," Mirsalari recalls the passenger saying before they opened the door.

As a part of our job, we are supposed to transport people from A to B, whether they're sick or drunk or whatever the case might be," Mirsalari said. So when the ill passenger asked for a ride, he didn't hesitate to open his doors. Later, Mirsalari drove around with his windows down to air out the vehicle and cleaned the surfaces inside.

After that, ride requests dropped substantially. The lack of people on the street meant fewer people taking a taxi to get around, while the customers that did exist took shorter trips for fear of encountering the virus. In an industry that has already grappled with the rise of ride-sharing and the high costs of licensing, the pandemic has meant yet another blow to taxi drivers trying to get by.

Read the full story from the Star's Jenna Moon and David Rider

9:10 a.m. The chief executive of the fund that manages Canada Pension Plan investments has resigned after it was revealed that he decided to travel to the United Arab Emirates, where he arranged to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

CPP Investments says Mark Machin tendered his resignation to the board Thursday night.

Machin joined CPP Investments in 2012 and was appointed president and chief executive in June 2016.

Prior to joining the pension fund manager, he spent 20 years at investment bank Goldman Sachs.

The Wall Street Journal first reported that Machin flew to the United Arab Emirates earlier this month, where he received the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and is awaiting the second dose.

The CPP Investments board has appointed John Graham as the new CEO. Graham was previously its global head of credit investments.

9 a.m. Ontario Parks says that reservations for its campsites have nearly doubled since the same time last year.

The provincial government agency says that bookings made between Jan. 1 and Feb. 5 have increased almost 100 per cent.

They say that campers have made 58,475 reservations in that span this year, up from 29,504 reservations in the same period in 2020.

The agency recommends that campers do their research well in advance of their reservation date becoming available on its website so they can book as early as possible.

They also suggest camping at a less popular park to ensure greater availability for sites.

Algonquin, Killbear, Pinery, Sandbanks and Bon Echo are Ontario's five busiest provincial parks.

8:30 a.m. Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie has pledged to push for her city to go right into the red category of Ontario's reopening framework when the current stay-at-home order ends March 8.

Crombie made the vow, which would skip past the province's lockdown measures and allow for broader reopenings in the city, first at a Mississauga council meeting the morning of Feb. 24 and then at her weekly COVID-19 update press conference later that day.

Our residents and our businesses have done a tremendous job driving down our numbers and we are averaging 73 cases per 100,000," she said at the press conference referring to Mississauga's new COVID-19 case weekly average.

It's 40 (cases per 100,000) to enter the red zone so I think we're there," she said.

The province requires a weekly COVID-19 case rate of 40 per 100,000 or more" in order to move a region to the Red-Control zone, which permits food and drink establishments, gyms, hair stylists and more to open with restrictions.

Crombie hedged her pledge slightly and said she would push for red unless we see a sudden increase in our numbers."

8:20 a.m. Health Canada has approved the COVID-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca, the third to be given the green light for national use.

Canada has pre-ordered 20 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which was co-developed by researchers at the University of Oxford.

It will also receive up to 1.9 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine through the global vaccine-sharing initiative known as COVAX by the end of June.

Health Canada is also reviewing two other vaccines.

Approval of Johnson and Johnson's vaccine will likely not come until late February or early March and Novavax is not expected until April.

7:50 a.m. Ontario universities have been hit with $1 billion in costs and lost revenue because of COVID-19 and are now making a public appeal to the province for help.

The Council of Ontario Universities, in a statement posted Friday on its website, says while institutions were able to find $500 million in one-time savings, they are still short the remaining $500 million and there is an urgent need for sector-wide cost recovery."

COVID has had a significant impact on the sector, which is why we are looking for short-term relief," said Steve Orsini, the council's president and CEO.

Read the full story from the Star's Kristin Rushowy

7:40 a.m. Workplace inspectors fanned out across Peel Region last week, targeting warehouses in the hard-hit manufacturing, logistics and distribution sectors. But even as the province was stepping up its own enforcement, some experts and advocates were wondering why the region itself wasn't doing more to publicize where exactly COVID-19 outbreaks in the workplace were occurring.

Earlier this month, the City of Toronto began publicly listing, by name, specific businesses that had been hit by a COVID outbreak. But for now, Peel, which has seen some of the worst workplace outbreaks in the province, isn't following suit.

The decision doesn't sit well with Gagandeep Kaur, an organizer with the Warehouse Workers Centre, an advocacy group in the region. Of course ... disclosing the names would be helpful," she said. We have been advocating for that since the beginning of the pandemic."

Read the full story from the Star's Richard Warnica

7:25 a.m. A vaccine strategy that prioritizes the province's hardest-hit postal codes - in addition to Ontario's oldest residents - will save more lives and flatten the curve more quickly than a rollout that only targets age, according to a new brief by the COVID-19 Science Advisory Table.

The province is starting to unveil details for Phase 2 of its vaccination rollout into the broader community and has so far announced a number of priority groups who will be first in line, including people aged 80 or older.

But a vaccination strategy that also prioritizes neighbourhoods with the highest COVID-19 rates would have a bigger impact than targeting people based on age alone, according to the new brief - preventing an additional 3,767 cases, 702 hospitalizations, 145 ICU admissions, and 168 deaths by the end of May, according to modelling projections.

Read the full story from the Star's Jennifer Yang

6:23 a.m.: Workplace inspectors fanned out across Peel Region last week, targeting warehouses in the hard-hit manufacturing, logistics and distribution sectors. But even as the province was stepping up its own enforcement, some experts and advocates were wondering why the region itself wasn't doing more to publicize where exactly COVID-19 outbreaks in the workplace were occurring.

Earlier this month, the City of Toronto began publicly listing, by name, specific businesses that had been hit by a COVID outbreak. But for now, Peel, which has seen some of the worst workplace outbreaks in the province, isn't following suit.

Some epidemiologists and public health experts, believe that publicly naming businesses helps keep workers safe. They argue that the risk of public exposure encourages employers to do everything they can to avoid outbreaks and that public scrutiny can help push bad actors to change.

Read the full story from the Star's Richard Warnica.

6:22 a.m.: Ontario universities have been hit with $1 billion in costs and lost revenue because of COVID-19 and are now making a public appeal to the province for help.

The Council of Ontario Universities, in a statement posted Friday on its website, says while institutions were able to find $500 million in one-time savings, they are still short the remaining $500 million and there is an urgent need for sector-wide cost recovery."

COVID has had a significant impact on the sector, which is why we are looking for short-term relief," said Steve Orsini, the council's president and CEO.

We want to work with the government over long-term sustainability, (which) would also be a goal," he added. Our focus now is getting COVID-19 relief to deal with the net impact on the sector so that we can continue to invest in students and communities and really help to support Ontario's economic recovery."

Read the full story from the Star's Kristin Rushowy

6:14 a.m.: A crisis over the supply of medical oxygen for coronavirus patients has struck nations in Africa and Latin America, where warnings went unheeded at the start of the pandemic and doctors say the shortage has led to unnecessary deaths.

It takes about 12 weeks to install a hospital oxygen plant and even less time to convert industrial oxygen manufacturing systems into a medical-grade network. But in Brazil and Nigeria, as well as in less-populous nations, decisions to fully address inadequate supplies only started being made last month, after hospitals were overwhelmed and patients started to die.

The gap in medical oxygen availability is one of the defining health equity issues, I think, of our age," said Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, who said he survived a severe coronavirus infection thanks to the oxygen he received.

Doctors in Nigeria anxiously monitor traffic as oxygen deliveries move through the gridlocked streets of Lagos. Desperate families of patients around the world sometimes turn to the black market. Governments take action only after hospitals are overwhelmed and the infected die by the dozens.

6:13 a.m.: The thrills and chills of the big screen are back big-time in the world's largest film market.

With the coronavirus well under control in China and cinemas running at half capacity, moviegoers are smashing China's box office records, with domestic productions far outpacing their Hollywood competitors.

February marked China's all-time biggest month for movie ticket sales, which have so far totalled 11.2 billion yuan ($1.7 billion). China overtook the U.S. as the world's biggest market for movie ticket sales last year as the American box office took a massive hit from the closure of cinemas because of the pandemic.

Chinese theatres were able to reopen by midyear and have seen steady audience growth since then. Local movies have also benefited from periodic unofficial blackout" periods, when only domestic productions are allowed to be screened. A dearth of major Hollywood blockbusters over recent months appears to have also boosted the market for Chinese films.

6:12 a.m.: On the same day Brazil reached the grim milestone of 250,000 deaths by COVID-19, the country's health ministry signed a deal with Indian pharmaceutical company Bharat Biotech for the purchase of 20 million doses of the Covaxin vaccine, which is yet to be approved by local regulators.

The administration of President Jair Bolsonaro said the first 8 million Covaxin shots, which will be made by Brazilian company Precisa Medicamentos, will arrive in March. A second batch of another 8 million doses is expected for April and in May, another 4 million doses will be available.

So far Brazil has vaccinated less than 4% of its population of 210 million people, with some cities stopping immunization campaigns last week due to shortages.

Neither Precisa nor Bharat confirmed the deal or the delivery dates.

6:12 a.m.: Gov. Kate Brown on Thursday extended Oregon's declaration of a state of emergency until May 2 as confirmed COVID-19 cases drop but hundreds of new cases continue to be reported daily.

The Oregon Health Authority on Thursday reported 553 new confirmed COVID-19 cases, bringing the state total to 154,554. The state's death toll is 2,204.

The agency's weekly COVID-19 report, which was released Wednesday, shows a sharp decreases in daily cases, hospitalizations and deaths from the previous week. The health authority reported a 35% decrease in cases and a 42% decrease in hospitalization.

The emergency declaration is the legal underpinning for the executive orders the governor has issued, including her orders surrounding reopening Oregon, childcare, schools and higher education operations.

Oregon Republican state senators refused to show up to Thursday's floor session, objecting to the governor's COVID-19 restrictions and handling of reopening schools, vaccine rollout and economic recovery.

6:11 a.m.: Hong Kong has begun administering its first COVID-19 vaccines to the public, kicking off its mass inoculation targeting all 7.5 million residents.

People age 60 and older and health care workers are among some 2.4 million people prioritized to receive vaccines at community centres and outpatient clinics across Hong Kong.

The government said Friday registrations for the first two weeks of the program are full.

Participants so far will be receiving the vaccine by Chinese biopharmaceutical firm Sinovac. A million doses arrived in the city last week, and Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam and other top government officials were vaccinated first in a bid to bolster confidence in the program.

Hong Kong has struck deals to buy 22.5 million doses of vaccines from Sinovac, AstraZeneca and Fosun Pharma, which will deliver the shots developed by Pfizer-BioNTech.

6:10a.m.: Governments say getting vaccinated and having proper documentation will smooth the way to travel, entertainment and other social gatherings in a post-pandemic world.

But it also raises the prospect of further dividing the world along the lines of wealth and vaccine access, creating ethical and logistical issues that have alarmed decision-makers around the world.

Other governments are watching Israel churn through the world's fastest vaccination program and grapple with the ethics of using the shots as diplomatic currency and power.

Inside Israel, green passports or badges obtained through an app is the coin of the realm. The country recently reached agreements with Greece and Cyprus to recognize each other's green badges, and more such tourism-boosting accords are expected.

Anyone unwilling or unable to get the jabs that confer immunity will be left behind," said Health Minister Yuli Edelstein.

6:09 a.m.: The state of emergency Japan set up to curb the spread of the coronavirus will be lifted in six urban areas this weekend and remain in the Tokyo area for another week, a government minister said Friday.

Partially lifting the emergency, and just a week early, underlines Japan's eagerness to keep business restrictions to a minimum to keep the economy going.

The emergency, which began in January, centres around asking restaurants, bars and other businesses to close at 8 p.m.

Japan has never had a mandatory lockdown, but has managed to keep infections relatively low, with deaths related to COVID-19 at about 7,700 people.

6:09 a.m.: With new infections soaring due to a highly contagious coronavirus variant and hospitals filling up, one of the hardest-hit countries in the European Union is facing the inevitable: a tighter lockdown.

The Czech Republic's Prime Minister Andrej Babis has announced a plan to radically" limit free movement of the citizens and further measures, including the closure of nursery schools and schools for children with disabilities that until now have remained open.

We need to limit movement for three weeks because the new variants are more aggressive," Babis said Thursday night. We can see a dramatic increase of patients in hospitals."

The government is set to announce the details of the new lockdown on Friday. The minority Cabinet first wants to win support from the opposition to extend the state of emergency, a powerful tool that makes it possible to limit people's travel and other basic rights.

Another option is to declare a new state of emergency after the current one expires on Sunday. A vote in Parliament's lower house is expected Friday.

6:07 a.m.: There has been a chorus of seniors and caregivers who are pushing for in-home inoculations lest thousands of vulnerable Canadians be left behind.

Some geriatricians are also dismissing the suggestion that unique storage and handling requirements prevent home-based deploymentof the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, both often described as delicate and tricky to transport.

Specific details about where and how Ontario will administer shots were absent when retired Gen. Rick Hillier outlined the rollout earlier this week, but he insisted the evolving plan would include a variety of venues and that seniors would mostly likely be vaccinated in their own neighbourhood.

Quebec Health Minister Christian Dube seemed to dismiss the prospect of in-home vaccinations outright when he detailed that province's plans earlier this week, citing precise cold-storage and handling requirements.

But that doesn't mean at-home inoculations can't occur, counters Ottawa physician Dr. Alykhan Abdulla, who says thawed vaccines can survive six hours - plenty of time for a paper-route style delivery to housebound seniors in the same neighbourhood.

6 a.m.: As British Columbia teachers argue for broader mask requirements in elementary schools, some families and educators say it's been easy for kids to adapt to the rules in other provinces.

Heather Thompson, a special-education teacher at Whitehorn Public School in Mississauga, Ont., said masks were introduced to students from grades 1 through 12 in September in Peel's school district.

Kids are easier than adults, frankly," said Thompson, who works with Grade 4 and 5 students.

I find once they're told a rule, they're pretty compliant. We don't often give kids credit where credit is due."

B.C. Education Minister Jennifer Whiteside announced an expansion of indoor mask-wearing rules for middle and high schools on Feb. 4, but elementary students were excluded.

While elementary teachers are required to wear masks in common indoor areas, it remains a personal choice for elementary students and their families.

Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry has said young children don't get as sick with COVID-19 and don't pass it on as well as others. Data from around the world support the importance of other safety measures, but masks are more complicated for kids, she said.

4 a.m.: The latest numbers on COVID-19 vaccinations in Canada as of 4 a.m. ET on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2021.

In Canada, the provinces are reporting 55,116 new vaccinations administered for a total of 1,707,398 doses given. The provinces have administered doses at a rate of 4,505.094 per 100,000.

There were 3,510 new vaccines delivered to the provinces and territories for a total of 2,043,599 doses delivered so far. The provinces and territories have used 83.55 per cent of their available vaccine supply.

4 a.m.: The latest numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Canada as of 4 a.m. ET on Friday, Feb. 26, 2021.

There are 858,217 confirmed cases in Canada (30,335 active, 806,017 resolved, 21,865 deaths).The total case count includes 13 confirmed cases among repatriated travellers.

There were 3,094 new cases Thursday. The rate of active cases is 79.82 per 100,000 people. Over the past seven days, there have been a total of 20,722 new cases. The seven-day rolling average of new cases is 2,960.

There were 59 new reported deaths Thursday. Over the past seven days there have been a total of 367 new reported deaths. The seven-day rolling average of new reported deaths is 52. The seven-day rolling average of the death rate is 0.14 per 100,000 people. The overall death rate is 57.53 per 100,000 people.

There have been 24,030,155 tests completed.