Today’s coronavirus news: Ontario reporting 384 new cases of COVID-19, 12 deaths; Ontario hair salons urge province to allow industry to reopen; Ontario administers record number of vaccines

Star staff,wire services

from on 2021-06-16 10:18 (#5K5A7)

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.

1:25 p.m. Organizers of a national conservation program aimed at removing trash from the country's many shorelines say the COVID-19 pandemic has even changed how we litter.

The Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup 2020 annual report says litter from single-use food and drink packaging nearly doubled last year as restaurant takeout soared during lockdowns and physical distancing kept people outside and apart.

Julia Wakeling, spokeswoman for the shoreline cleanup, says in a statement that single-use containers jumped from 15.3 per cent of all litter collected in 2019 to nearly 27 per cent last year.

She says masks and other personal protective equipment were also plucked off beaches in 2020, the first time such items had been recorded in the cleanup's 27-year history.

There was no category for masks or disposable gloves on the cards used last year by volunteers tracking the type and amount of trash collected, but Wakeling says a line has been added this year and she expects the tally will be "very interesting."

Cigarette butts still topped the list of the 10 most commonly collected items as the annual report shows 15,000 volunteers removed more than 41,000 kilograms of litter from Canadian shorelines in 2020.

The pandemic forced suspension of planned cleanups for four months last year and resulted in a 70 per cent drop in participation, but organizers say they expect to see a rebound.

"Armed with COVID-safe cleanup guidelines, Shoreline Cleanup hopes to make up for lost numbers in 2021 and encourages all Canadians to organize or participate in a physically distanced cleanup," says the statement from the conservation partnership between Vancouver-based Ocean Wise and the World Wildlife Fund Canada.

1:15 p.m. Newfoundland and Labrador's chief medical officer of health says it appears the third wave of COVID-19 is subsiding across Atlantic Canada ahead of a resumption of regional travel next week.

Dr. Janice Fitzgerald reported one new case of novel coronavirus today and says the province now has 35 active cases ahead of its June 23 target to permit travellers from the other three Atlantic provinces.

Fitzgerald told a briefing people entering the province won't have to self-isolate, but will have to fill out a travel form before arrival and show identification at their point of entry to prove they are a resident of the Atlantic region.

Nova Scotia, which is also opening to regional travel along with Prince Edward Island on June 23, moved into Phase 2 of its five-step reopening plan, which allows such things as indoor dining at restaurants and bars, a 50 per cent customer capacity for retail stores and increased gathering limits.

The province reported eight new cases of COVID-19 today and has a total of 92 active cases.

Meanwhile, New Brunswick is now allowing travellers from P.E.I. and Newfoundland and Labrador after hitting its 75 per cent first-dose vaccination goal for those 12 years of age and over on Tuesday.

1 p.m. Royal Caribbean (RCL) is postponing a July cruise after eight crew members had positive COVID-19 tests.

Out of an abundance of caution, we are postponing Odyssey's inaugural sailing from July 3 to July 31, 2021," RCL Chief Executive Michael Bayley wrote in a Facebook posting. A simulation cruise, originally scheduled for late June, will also be rescheduled."

He was referring to the Odyssey of the Seas ship, which is to sail out of Fort Lauderdale.

During routine testing, eight crew members received a positive test result for COVID-19. All 1,400 crew on-board Odyssey of the Seas were vaccinated on June 4 and will be considered fully vaccinated on June 18," Bayley said.

The positive cases were identified after the vaccination was given and before they were fully effective. The eight crew members, six of whom are asymptomatic and two with mild symptoms, were quarantined and are being closely monitored by our medical team."

12:45 p.m. Newfoundland and Labrador is reporting one new case of COVID-19 Wednesday.

Chief medical officer of health, Dr. Janice Fitzgerald, says the case involves a person between 30 and 49 years old and is travel-related.

The province has 35 known active cases of novel coronavirus and there is no one currently in hospital as a result of being infected.

Fitzgerald says as of Monday 72 per cent of people eligible have had at least one shot of COVID-19 vaccine and it's anticipated the province will reach the 75 per cent mark later this week.

12:35 p.m. There are now fewer than 200 people hospitalized in Quebec with COVID-19 as the province's pandemic indicators continue to dip.

Health officials also reported 153 new cases and one additional death.

Overall, hospitalizations fell by 17 to 192, while the number of people in intensive care dropped by five to 45.

Health Minister Christian Dube says the hospitalization curve in the province is flattening and the numbers are heading in the right direction.

The province also added another 87,000 vaccine doses to its tally, for a grand total of nearly 7 million doses administered.

The Health Department also announced that a number of additional vaccine sites across the province are now offering walk-in appointments for first and second doses.

12:20 p.m. Nova Scotia is reporting eight new cases of COVID-19 Wednesday.

Health officials say five cases are in the Halifax area and three have been identified in the eastern health zone which includes Cape Breton.

The province has 92 known active cases while there are five people in hospital, including four in intensive care, as a result of the virus.

The province says 715,070 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered as of Tuesday, with a total of 58,854 people having received their booster shot.

12:10 p.m. Manitoba is hoping to have everyone aged 12 and up eligible for second doses of COVID-19 vaccines by the end of next week.

Health officials say two large shipments of Moderna vaccine, expected this week and next, will allow the province to administer more than 20,000 doses per day.

The province is planning to allow more walk-ins at vaccinations sites, to make it easier for people who don't want to book an appointment in advance.

11:30 a.m. The Mexican resort of Cozumel on Wednesday welcomed the first arrival of a cruise ship carrying passengers since the coronavirus pandemic essentially collapsed the industry.

Officials in the Caribbean coast state of Quintana Roo welcomed Royal Caribbean's Adventure of the Seas as it arrived from Nassau in The Bahamas at the arrival at the world's busiest stopover for cruise ships.

The cruise line requires all passengers 16 and over to be fully vaccinated. Those that aren't have to get COVID-19 tests.

Gov. Carlos Joaquin said about 5% of passengers aboard the ship - about 150 youths or those with chronic health conditions - haven't been vaccinated and would be subject to special rules. State and federal health officials were on hand to oversee the arrival.

The company proposed that the non-vaccinated group can only disembark on excursion packages with sanitary bubble" protocols, not just to any place," Joaquin said. As you can see, these cruise ships have very strict conditions."

The cruise line touted the trip as a chance to venture into Maya history during a visit to Cozumel."

Quintana Roo is home to resorts like Cancun, Playa Del Carmen and Tulum. The state depends on tourism for 87% of its economic activity.

Alejandra Aguirre, the state health secretary, wrote of the cruise ship arrival, We are working together for an orderly revival of economic activity."

11:20 a.m. Hair salon owners are calling on Ontario to allow their industry to reopen, saying their establishments are safe and employ ample measures to guard against COVID-19.

The province entered the first phase of a three-step reopening plan last Friday. Non-essential retailers were able to reopen, patio dining resumed and outdoor fitness classes restarted, among other things.

Hair salons and other personal care services, however, are only slated to open in Step 2, which won't kick in until next month.

Stefania Capovilla, an Ottawa hairstylist and salon owner, said she and her industry colleagues are ready to reopen with precautions that include limiting capacity, accepting clients by appointment only, screening everyone for COVID-19, having plexiglass barriers in place, and following public health measures such as masking and handwashing.

"We are more than prepared when it comes to health and safety," she said.

Capovilla, who also teaches hairstyling at Algonquin College, said she has seen people leave the industry after being out for work for long stretches during the pandemic.

"It's been really difficult for their mental health, for their morale," she said.

The industry has been shut down since April, while salons in COVID-19 hot spots like Toronto and Peel Region have been closed since November.

Kathy Inch, founder of the Ontario Hairstylists Association, which advocates for industry members, said salon safety protocols "have been incredible" during the pandemic but many in the sector are now struggling due to prolonged closures.

10:15 a.m.: (updated) Ontario is reporting another 384 COVID-19 cases and 12 more deaths, according to its latest report released Wednesday morning.

Ontario has administered 202,984 vaccine doses since its last daily update, with 11,732,414 vaccines given in total as of 8 p.m. the previous night.

This is a record high number of vaccine shots administered in a single day in the province.

According to the Star's vaccine tracker, 9,533,699 people in Ontario have received at least one shot. That works out to approximately 64.7 per cent of the total population and the equivalent of 75.2 per cent of the adult population.

The province says 2,198,715 people have completed their vaccinations, which means they've had both doses. That works out to approximately 14.9 per cent of the total population and the equivalent of 18.1 per cent of the adult population.

The seven-day average is at 475 cases daily, or 23 weekly per 100,000. Ontario's seven-day average for deaths is at 9.4 daily.

Read the full story from the Star's Akrit Michael

9:50 a.m. Ontario administered 202,984 vaccines Tuesday, a new record. The total number of vaccines registered so far in Ontario is 11,732,414.

9:45 a.m. U.S. home construction rose 3.6 per cent in May as builders battled a surge in lumber prices that have made homes more expensive

The May increase left construction at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.57 million units, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday.

Applications for building permits, looked to for indications of activity ahead, fell 3 per cent in May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.68 million units.

Housing has been one of the standout performers during the pandemic-triggered recession.

But many economists believe that the surge in home building and sales over the past year may begin to slow, especially for single-family homes.

We expect starts to mostly move sideways over the balance of 2021," said Nancy Vanden Houten, lead economist for Oxford Economics. Strong demand, a need for inventory and homebuilder optimism will keep a floor under activity, but builders continue to face supply constraints that may hamper or at least postpone construction."

9:30 a.m. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is being allowed to check out from his quarantine hotel roughly 12 hours after checking in.

Trudeau's office says he received his negative COVID-19 test Wednesday morning and can now leave the three-star Ottawa lodging.

Members of his delegation to Europe who landed in Ottawa around 7 p.m. were tested on arrival and received negative test results the next day at about 8 a.m.

Those in the hotel were told to remain in their rooms, and were given lunch boxes on arrival and a boxed breakfast at their door.

Trudeau was overseas from last Thursday until Tuesday for summits with other G7, NATO and European leaders.

His office says Trudeau will follow public health rules and advice for Canadians returning from abroad during the pandemic, as will the officials and journalists who also went overseas.

The rules include quarantining for 14 days and taking another COVID-19 test about seven days after arrival.

9:20 a.m. Malaysia's king has urged parliament to reconvene as soon as possible amid growing public anger over the government's handling of the pandemic that has left democracy suspended all year.

The statement from the national palace late Wednesday followed a meeting of the country's royal leaders chaired by King Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad and comes as daily Covid-19 infections averaged about 5,800 in the past seven days, nearly double than when Malaysia declared emergency rule in January.

The parliament was an important platform for elected representatives to convene to discuss various issues, particularly related to the spread of the Covid-19 epidemic," the statement said. His Majesty also expressed the view that there should bea stable and strong government administration" to restore the country's economy.

Embattled Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin's move to declare a state of emergency, which is set to end on Aug. 1, was the first in more than half a century. It allowed him to suspend parliament and enact emergency laws without legislative approval, with the aim of bringing the outbreak under control. That also meant no snap polls could be called during that period.

9:10 a.m. The U.K. is set to extend its ban on evictions of commercial tenants until next year to protect COVID-19-hit businesses from losing their premises while pandemic restrictions are still in place.

The ban had been due to end on June 30, but Chief Secretary to the Treasury Steve Barclay is likely to announce an extension of at least six months when he addresses the House of Commons later on Wednesday, according to two people familiar with the matter who requested anonymity discussing unannounced proposals. The planned extension was earlier reported by the Daily Telegraph.

Some U.K. businesses are facing delays to a return to business as usual after Prime Minister Boris Johnson pushed back a full lifting of restrictions due to rising coronavirus cases. Nightclubs have been closed for 15 months and social distancing rules are preventing pubs and entertainment venues from operating at full capacity, denting their profitability.

9 a.m. Statistics Canada says the consumer price index in May was up 3.6 per cent compared with a year ago, its largest yearly increase since May 2011.

The reading for May compared with a year-over-year gain of 3.4 per cent in April.

Excluding gasoline, the consumer price index in May was up 2.5 per cent compared with a year ago.

8:45 a.m. Thailand plans to fully reopen to foreign visitors in 120 days and give at least one dose of vaccine to the majority of residents by early October to revive the tourism-reliant nation's economy, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha said.

Some tourist destinations should be ready for fully vaccinated visitors without any quarantine requirement sooner than the wider reopening, with Phuket as the pilot," Prayuth said in a national address on Wednesday. The country aims to vaccinate 10 million people a month from July and has ordered 105.5 million doses of vaccines for this year, more than the country's target, he said.

The time has now come for us to look ahead and set a date for when we can fully open our country and start receiving visitors because re-opening the country is one of the important ways to start reducing the enormous suffering of people who have lost their ability to earn an income," Prayuth said. I am, therefore, setting a goal for us to be able to declare Thailand fully open within 120 days from today, and for tourism centers that are ready, to do so even faster."

Thailand's urgency to reopen stems from its dependence on tourism sector that, pre-pandemic, contributed about one-fifth of the nation's economic output. Worldwide travel restrictions decimated jobs and businesses in the past year and Thailand's gross domestic product has contracted for five straight quarters. Policymakers have warned the trend is likely to continue in the absence of billions of dollars earned from foreign tourists.

We cannot wait for a time when everyone is fully vaccinated with two shots to open the country or for when the world is free of the virus," the premier said. We must be ready to live with some risk and just try to keep it at a manageable level, and let people go back to being able to earn a living."

8:35 a.m. The European Union is recommending that member countries start lifting restrictions on tourists from the United States.

EU members agreed Wednesday to add the United States to the list of countries from which restrictions on non-essential travel should be lifted. The move was adopted during a meeting in Brussels of permanent representatives to the 27-nation bloc.

The recommendation is non-binding, and national governments have authority to require test results or vaccination records and to set other entry conditions.

Some EU countries have already started allowing in American visitors.

In addition to the U.S., the representatives of EU nations added five other countries - North Macedonia, Albania, Serbia, Lebanon and Taiwan - to the tourist travel list. The European Council updates the list based on epidemiological data. It gets reviewed every two weeks, .

The representatives also decided to remove a reciprocity clause for the special administrative regions of China Macau and Hong Kong.

The recommendations are expected to be formalized on Friday.

8:25 a.m. France on Wednesday eased several COVID-19 restrictions, with authorities saying it's no longer always mandatory to wear masks outdoors and halting an 8-month nightly coronavirus curfew this weekend.

The announcement by French Prime Minister Jean Castex comes as France is registering about 3,900 new virus cases a day, down from 35,000 a day in the March-April peak.

Castex welcomed very good news" and said the curfew will be lifted on Sunday, 10 days earlier than expected.

Wearing a mask will still remain mandatory outdoors in crowded places like street markets and stadiums, he said. People are required to wear a mask indoors in public spaces, including at work - with an exception for restaurants and bars.

We have not known such a low level of virus spreading since last August," Castex said, adding that the situation was improving in all of France's regions.

Those positive evolutions are due to the mobilization of the French and to the vaccination campaign," he said.

Over 58% of France's adult population has received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose. On Tuesday, the European Union nation opened its vaccination programs to those 12 to 18 as part of a push to protect residents as restrictions are gradually being lifted.

The French have been living under night-time curfews since mid-October. When the numbers of infections were at their highest level from mid-January to mid-May, the curfew was from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., with shops closed down and exceptions only for workers and quick walks for pets. It had been gradually pushed back to start at 11 p.m.

Terraces at restaurants and cafes, theaters, cinemas and museums all reopened on May 19. Last week, France reopened indoor spaces in restaurants and cafes as well as gyms and swimming pools.

Major sports and cultural events can have a maximum of 5,000 people, and all need to show a vaccination certificate or a negative test within the last 48 hours.

The nation has reported 110,563 confirmed virus deaths, one of the highest tolls in Europe.

8:15 a.m. San Francisco will eventually require workers in hospitals, nursing homes and jails to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, with limited exceptions.

The order is notable as some companies have internally debated whether to impose vaccination requirements for workers.

Many companies have generally avoided requiring workers to be vaccinated. But the University of California and California State University systems have announced they will eventually require COVID-19 vaccinations for all students, faculty and staff on campus properties.

Dozens of colleges nationwide also have announced they will require vaccination for enrollment this fall, including Yale, Princeton, Columbia and, in Los Angeles County, Pomona and Claremont McKenna.

The order by San Francisco, as well as the UC and Cal State systems, will go into effect only after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gives formal approval to one of the vaccines. Currently, all three vaccines being distributed in the U.S. have received "emergency use authorization."

Health experts expect full approval of at least one of the vaccines by fall.

8:10 a.m. More than 600,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the U.S. since the start of the pandemic, Johns Hopkins University said Tuesday.

To put that in perspective, the national death toll is now greater than the number of people living in Wyoming and roughly the population of Baltimore.

The staggering figure was reached even though mass vaccinations have driven down daily case rates, and hard-hit states such as California have dropped most of the physical distancing requirements that reshaped American life during the last 15 months.

Overall, the U.S. COVID-19 death rate now compares with the country's annual cancer death toll, which topped 606,000 in 2019, according to the American Cancer Society.

On Monday, the U.S. reported 12,710 new confirmed coronavirus cases and 170 new deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.

The worldwide COVID-19 death toll stands at about 3.8 million.

8 a.m. The Biden administration is urgently working to get coronavirus vaccines to Haiti, but is concerned that the country's weak health care infrastructure may not be able to deal with a large shipment, the Miami Herald and the McClatchy Washington Bureau have learned.

A White House official said the administration is in active" conversations with the Haitian government on the complexities of delivering a significant number of U.S. vaccine doses to the country, including Haiti's storage capacity and the logistics of shipping the vaccines in proper conditions.

But there is an urgency" within the White House to get doses delivered in short order, the official said.

After reporting few COVID-19 cases and fatalities last year and perplexing the medical community, Haiti is seeing a deadly surge in infections. The list of the dead from COVID-19 read like a who's who of Haitian society, and new cases are stretching hospital capacity and the country's oxygen supply. Antiviral treatments, readily available in the United States, remain out of reach, and on an almost weekly basis at least one hospital in the metropolitan Port-au-Prince area announces it is full and cannot accept any more patients..

Meanwhile, testing capacity remains low and the country remains the only one in Latin America and the Caribbean where the government has yet to administer a single shot of a COVID-19 vaccine. A shipment of 132,000 AstraZeneca vaccine doses from the U.N.-backed global sharing program, COVAX, was supposed to arrive on Monday, but has been delayed, the Pan American Health Organization said.

7:45 a.m. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday that 70 per cent of adults in New York have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, a threshold he said the state would celebrate by easing many of its remaining social distancing rules and shooting off fireworks.

What does 70 per cent mean? It means that we can now return to life as we know it," Cuomo told an invitation-only crowd at the World Trade Center in Manhattan.

Effective immediately, he said, the state is lifting rules that required many types of businesses to follow cleaning protocols or take people's temperatures or screen them for recent COVID-19 symptoms.

Movie theaters will no longer have to leave empty seats between patrons. Restaurants will no longer be forced to sit parties at least 6 feet apart. Stores won't have to limit how many customers they admit. New York had previously allowed businesses to stop enforcing social distancing and mask rules for vaccinated patrons.

Some rules will remain: New Yorkers, for now, will continue to have to wear masks in schools, subways, large sports arenas, homeless shelters, hospitals, nursing homes, jails and prisons. Unvaccinated New Yorkers will still be subject to a mask mandate while indoors in public places.

Cuomo, a Democrat, said there would be fireworks displays around the state Tuesday evening to celebrate and honor essential workers.

7:35 a.m. Ontario ramped up its vaccination effort Monday, accelerating second dose eligibility for some residents in hot spot regions across the province. Although many are eager to get their second shot faster, confusion over eligibility and wait times, as well as vaccine supply limitations, have left some feeling frustrated.

All 60,000 new second-dose vaccination appointments created for Toronto clinics Monday morning were taken within hours, leaving many unsure of when they can finally be fully vaccinated. According to the Ministry of Health, nearly 100,000 vaccine appointments across Ontario were booked through the provincial portal by noon Monday.

We know that appointments in some Public Health Units (PHUs) have booked up quickly and we continue to work with the PHUs to bring more appointments online," said a spokesperson for the MOH in a statement to the Star, adding that appointments may be still available through other channels, such as pharmacies and pop-up clinics.

Read the full story from the Star's Irelyne Lavery and Ben Cohen

7:22 a.m. Jaskaran Sandhu says the community vaccine clinic he helped lead at a Peel Region gurdwara had something the average mass clinic may lack - immediate comfort and familiarity to residents.

Those booking appointments there were essential workers, they were people from the community, and people who trusted the gurdwara," said Sandhu, who's also director of administration for the World Sikh Organization.

But the clinic, held at the Ontario Khalsa Darbar gurdwara in Mississauga in early May, was only temporary and is no longer open. It ran due to available vaccine supply from Peel Region and resources from Amazon, which Peel brought in as a corporate partner providing resources like immunizers and signage.

The gurdwara provided the location and hundreds of volunteers. Over the span of two weeks, 5,000 residents were vaccinated there.

Read the full story from the Star's Olivia Bowden

6:10 a.m.: Ontario's borders with Quebec and Manitoba fully reopen Wednesday.

A provincial order restricting interprovincial travel between those provinces expired at midnight.

The regulation was introduced in April as Ontario battled a third wave of COVID-19.

It applied to land and water borders.

Travel between the regions was limited to essential reasons such as health care, custody or compassionate grounds like attending a funeral.

It also allowed law enforcement to stop and question people about their reasons for entering Ontario.

6 a.m.: The chorus for a clear plan on how to reopen Canada's borders to international travellers grew louder Tuesday as Canada was on the brink of hitting a vaccine milestone.

With nearly 75 per cent of eligible Canadians having a first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, Western premiers demanded the Trudeau government come up with a clear, science-based" plan with dates and exactly what fully vaccinated Canadian and foreign travellers should expect in terms of vaccine proof, testing or quarantine requirements.

Come Thursday, we expect the federal government to have a plan and then we'll work on building consensus around that," B.C. Premier John Horgan said ahead of a planned first ministers meeting.

We need to have a targeted approach to this."

Yet even though the federal government touted hitting the vaccination threshold of nearly 75 per cent with a first dose, and its expectation that 20 per cent will be fully vaccinated in the coming weeks, it warned the highly contagious Delta variant may prolong some COVID-19 restrictions and require a slower phased-in approach to borders.

5:55 a.m.: Ontario ramped up its vaccination effort Monday, accelerating second dose eligibility for spe residents in hot spot regions across the province. Although many are eager to get their second shot faster, confusion over eligibility and wait times, as well as vaccine supply limitations, have left some feeling frustrated.

We ask everyone to be patient as more appointments are brought online by PHUs."

Here's a list from the Star's Irelyne Lavery and Ben Cohen on everything you need to know about accelerated second doses and when you should be eligible.

5:40 a.m.: The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 has topped 600,000, even as the vaccination drive has slashed daily cases and deaths and allowed the country to emerge from the gloom.

The number of lives lost has been recorded by Johns Hopkins University. The number of lives lost is greater than the population of Baltimore or Milwaukee. It is about equal to the number of Americans who died of cancer in 2019.

The milestone came the same day that California and New York lifted most of their remaining restrictions, joining other states in opening the way, step by step, for what could be a fun and close to normal summer for many Americans.

With the arrival of the vaccine in mid-December, COVID-19 deaths per day in the U.S. have plummeted to an average of around 340, from a high of over 3,400 in mid-January. Cases are running at about 14,000 a day on average, down from a quarter-million per day over the winter.

The real death tolls in the U.S. and around the globe are thought to be significantly higher.

More than 50 per cent of Americans have had at least one dose of vaccine, while over 40 per cent are fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But demand for shots in the U.S. has dropped off dramatically, leaving many places with a surplus of doses and casting doubt on whether the country will meet Biden's target of having 70 per cent of American adults at least partially vaccinated by July 4. The figure stands at just under 65 per cent.

5:30: As COVID cases plummet in the rest of Ontario, the remote northeastern First Nation of Kashechewan has seen a troubling surge in the disease.

As of Tuesday, there are 232 active cases in the community of 1,800 along the James Bay coast. The majority are among children under 18, including at least one baby, Chief Leo Friday told the Star.

They are very scared," he said of his community members.

Many people there, including kids, are at risk, as they have lung problems from black mould, he said. It's a chronic problem in the houses, which are also overcrowded, making it easy for the virus to spread.

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