Today’s coronavirus news: Ontario reporting 355 COVID-19 cases and 13 deaths on Saturday; Downtown Montreal bar and music venue Turbo Haus begins reopening
The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world Saturday. This file will be updated throughout the day. Web links to longer stories if available.
10:24 a.m.: Ontario is reporting 355 COVID-19 cases and 13 deaths on Saturday.
The 7-day average is down to 389 cases/day or 19 weekly per 100,000, and down to 8.1 deaths/day.
Labs report 25,368 completed tests - up slightly from last Saturday - and 1.4% positive - lowest for a Saturday since Sept. 26.
10:20 a.m.: Downtown Montreal bar and music venue Turbo Haus has begun to reopen after one of Canada's longest COVID-19 lockdowns, but remaining restrictions mean last call is at midnight, patrons must remain seated and dancing is forbidden. Like many other small music venues in the city, Turbo Haus isn't putting on concerts.
Things are "still a long way from being back to normal," co-owner Michelle Ayoub says.
People like to think nightlife is part of what defines Montreal, but there are questions about how it will bounce back from the pandemic.
Daniel Seligman, the creative director of POP Montreal, an annual music festival, said putting on a show at a small venue wasn't particularly lucrativebefore the pandemic, and health restrictions have only added costs and lowered capacity, reducing potential ticket revenue.
It makes putting on shows in smaller venues financially much more difficult," he said.
He's planning a few concerts over the summer, including some performances outdoors. This year's festival is scheduled to go ahead, as usual, in September, but it will be in a more limited form, he said in a phone interview Thursday. Most artists will be from the Montreal area due to uncertainty around border restrictions.
One thing I've learned this past year and a half is instead of planning to do things four months from now, five months from now, you can only really look a month, six weeks in the future to have any kind of real idea of what is possible," he said.
10:19 a.m.: Afghanistan's is racing to ramp up supplies of oxygen as a deadly third surge of COVID-19 worsens, a senior health official told The Associated Press in an interview Saturday.
The government is installing oxygen supply plants in 10 provinces where the increase in COVID cases in some areas is hovering around 65%, health ministry spokesman Ghulam Dasigi Nazary said.
By WHO recommendations, anything higher than 5% shows officials aren't testing widely enough, allowing the virus to spread unchecked. Afghanistan carries out barely 4,000 tests a day and often much less.
Afghanistan's 24-hour infection count has also continued its upward climb from 1,500 at the end of May when the health ministry was already calling the surge a crisis," to more than 2,300 this week. Since the pandemic outbreak, Afghanistan is reporting 101,906 positive cases and 4,122 deaths. But those figures are likely a massive undercount, registering only deaths in hospitals - not the far greater numbers who die at home.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan received 900 oxygen cylinders from Iran on Saturday, part of 3,800 cylinders Tehran promised to deliver to Kabul last week. The shipment was delayed by Iran's presidential elections, said Nazary.
Afghanistan has even run out of empty cylinders, receiving a delivery of 1,000 last week from Uzbekistan.
Meanwhile hospitals are rationing their oxygen supplies. Afghans desperate for oxygen are banging on the doors of the few oxygen suppliers in the Afghan capital, begging for their empty cylinders to be filled for COVID infected loved ones at home.
Saturday 7:54 a.m.: Texas COVID-19 hospitalizations are at their lowest point in more than a year as the state surpasses more than half of eligible residents vaccinated against the coronavirus, a promising sign that comes months after Gov. Greg Abbott lifted his statewide mask order and moved to open businesses at 100% capacity.
Abbott has touted the state's vaccine numbers and declining COVID-19 cases, but parts of Texas are still reporting low vaccination rates. Interest in the vaccine has waned and health experts warn that COVID-19 could continue to spread unless local and state health officials find a way to inoculate more of the state.
Roughly 200 of Texas' 254 counties have yet to reach 50% of eligible residents vaccinated with at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, a benchmark set by the Texas Department of State Health Services. That number declines further when including children younger than 12, who aren't yet authorized to receive the vaccine but can still spread the virus.
Even the state health agency's goal of 50% is significantly lower than experts' estimates of the per cent of the population that must be protected from the virus to reach herd immunity, the point at which each infected person transmits the disease to an average of fewer than one other person, and it starts to die out. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, has said the number could be as high as 85%.