Today’s coronavirus news: Ontario reporting 255 COVID-19 cases, 11 deaths; Nova Scotia protest against travel rules blocks highway on boundary with New Brunswick; Ontario administers record dose
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.
11:40 a.m. Quebec is reporting 127 new cases of COVID-19 Wednesday and three more deaths attributed to the coronavirus.
Health officials say the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations and intensive care patients remained stable, at 161 and 40, respectively.
The province says 97,047 doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered in the past 24 hours.
Quebec has reported a total of 374,222 COVID-19 infections and 11,198 deaths linked to the virus.
11:35 a.m. Manitobans will learn details today about what restrictions could be lifted in the first step of the province's COVID-19 reopening plan.
The provincial government's three-step plan will see public health orders loosened if vaccination rates are met by certain summer holidays.
Manitobans have met the first target of more than 70 per cent of people 12 and older getting their first dose - and more than 25 per cent a second dose - by Canada Day.
That means some businesses and other facilities will be able to open at 25 per cent capacity.
Premier Brian Pallister and Dr. Brent Roussin, the chief provincial public health officer, will outline today what other restrictions could be loosened.
The number of COVID-19 infections have been steadily falling in recent days after a delayed third wave saw surging case numbers and pressure on the health-care system last month.
11:25 a.m. As the U.S. emerges from the COVID-19 crisis, Missouri is becoming a cautionary tale for the rest of the country: It is seeing an alarming rise in cases because of a combination of the fast-spreading Delta variant and stubborn resistance among many people to getting vaccinated.
Intensive care beds are filling up with surprisingly young, unvaccinated patients, and staff members are getting burned out fighting a battle that was supposed to be in its final throes.
The hope among some health leaders is that the rest of the U.S. might at least learn something from Missouri's plight.
If people elsewhere in the country are looking to us and saying, No thanks' and they are getting vaccinated, that is good," said Erik Frederick, chief administrative officer at Mercy Hospital Springfield, which has been inundated with COVID-19 patients as the variant first identified in India rips through the largely non-immunized community. We will be the canary."
The state now leads the nation with the highest rate of new COVID-19 infections, and the surge is happening largely in a politically conservative farming region in the northern part of the state and in the southwestern corner, which includes Springfield and Branson, the country music mecca in the Ozark Mountains where big crowds are gathering again at the city's theaters and other attractions.
While over 53 per cent of all Americans have received at least one shot, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most southern and northern Missouri counties are well short of 40 per cent. One county is at just 13 per cent.
Cases remain below their winter highs in southwestern Missouri, but the trajectory is steeper than in previous surges, Frederick said. As of Tuesday, 153 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized at Mercy and another Springfield hospital, Cox Health, up from 31 just over a month ago, county figures show.
These patients are also younger than earlier in the pandemic - 60 per cent to 65 per cent of those in the ICU over the weekend at Mercy were under 40, according to Frederick, who noted that younger adults are much less likely to be vaccinated - and some are pregnant.
10:31 a.m. Ontario administered 227,318 vaccine doses Tuesday, which is a new record; 198,372 of those were second doses. 28,946 were first doses. Ontario is averaging 195,000 doses daily, according to the Star's Ed Tubb.
10:15 a.m. The Toronto International Film Festival is hoping COVID-19 will be more of an annoyance than a threat for moviegoers come September, as it cautiously prepares for a 10-day celebration of cinema that will be significantly bigger and more in-person than last year's event.
It's been a tough year and we're so glad to be back," said Cameron Bailey, TIFF artistic director and co-head, in a press statement Thursday heralding a return to something closer to normalcy for the fest.
TIFF announced Thursday that its 46th edition, running Sept. 9 - 18, will screen more than 100 feature films from around the world, including a special advance screening at Ontario Place's Cinesphere Theatre of Denis Villeneuve's eagerly anticipated sci-fi blockbuster Dune," which is due in theatres this fall.
Read the full story from Peter Howell
10:05 a.m. (will be updated) Ontario is reporting 255 COVID-19 cases and 11 deaths.
The seven-day average is down to 316 cases per day or 13 weekly per 100,000 and down to 15.3 deaths per day. Labs are reporting 27,364 completed tests and a 1.2 per cent positivity rate, according to the Star's Ed Tubb.
Locally, there are 57 new cases in Toronto, 53 in the Region of Waterloo, 25 in Peel Region, 23 in the North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit region and 14 in Ottawa.
10 a.m. France is adding Russia to its red list" of countries from which travels are banned unless imperious motives because they are struggling with virus surges and worrisome variants.
French government spokesperson Gabriel Attal said Wednesday that Russia, Namibia and Seychelles are being added to the list of now 21 countries.
The red list" notably includes India, South Africa and Brazil and implies that vaccinated travelers arriving in France must justify their trip, show a negative test and self-isolate for a week. Those not vaccinated must go on a quarantine for 10 days, risking a 1000-euro fine, equivalent to $1,194.
Attal also called for enhanced vigilance about the more contagious delta variant, first identified in India.
The delta variant is estimated to represent 9 to 10% overall in France, he said. But authorities are closely monitoring the situation in a region of southwestern France, the Landes, where 70% of confirmed infections are due to the delta variant, he added.
The epidemic situation in France has rapidly improved in recent weeks, with about 2,300 new daily infections reported each day, down from 35,000 in the March-April peak.
9:40 a.m. Police say traffic is at a standstill today along the Trans-Canada Highway at Nova Scotia's boundary with New Brunswick as a protest continues over COVID-19 travel restrictions.
Nova Scotia RCMP Cpl. Chris Marshall says traffic was shut down in both directions overnight after a protest that began Tuesday at Exit 7 near the Cobequid Pass moved to the border area outside Amherst, N.S.
Marshall says police are hoping to begin talks with the protesters to get the highway reopened.
The protest began after the Nova Scotia government announced that starting today, travellers from New Brunswick will need to self-isolate upon arrival even though people visiting the province from Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador won't have to.
New Brunswick travellers are subject to isolation requirements based on their vaccination status and COVID-19 test results.
Premier Iain Rankin has said the health measures are necessary because of New Brunswick's move last week to open its boundaries to Canadian travellers without requiring them to self-isolate as long as they have had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
9:35 a.m. Attention all Snowbirds, international students, newcomers, and millennials who moved back with their parents in another province during the pandemic.
Toronto Public Health has developed a system for registering COVID-19 vaccine doses administered outside of Ontario.
Announced Monday, it allows people who got both doses in other places to record them, so that they will be reflected in official records.
Dr. Vinita Dubey, associate medical officer of health, said in an email that this information will be fed into the provincial COVax vaccine management system.
By creating this record we can also help residents of Toronto to get dose two of their vaccinations when eligible," she said.
Read the full story from the Star's May Warren
9:30 a.m. Statistics Canada says retail sales in April posted their largest drop since April last year at the start of the pandemic as governments moved to deal with its third wave.
The agency says retail sales fell 5.7 per cent to $54.8 billion in April.
Statistics Canada says the drop in sales was concentrated in retailers deemed "non-essential" as sales fell in nine of 11 subsectors.
Core retail sales - which exclude gasoline stations and motor vehicle and parts dealers - fell 7.6 per cent.
Sales at clothing and clothing accessories stores plunged 28.6 per cent in April, while general merchandise stores dropped 8.1 per cent.
Retail sales in volume terms fell 5.6 per cent in April.
9:13 a.m. To support Toronto Vaccine Day on June 27, the TTC will be providing free rides to and from appointments at vaccination clinics in the city - including Scotiabank Arena. Customers will be asked for proof of appointment or appropriate ID as a staff member or volunteer.
8:40 a.m. Seven researchers whose work contributed to designing COVID-19 vaccines have won Spain's prestigious Princess of Asturias award for scientific research.
The award panel announced Wednesday it had chosen Hungary's Katalin Kariko, Americans Drew Weissman and Philip Felgner, Germany's Uur ahin and Ozlem Tureci, Canadian Derrick Rossi and Sarah Gilbert of the United Kingdom as this year's prizewinners.
The panel said the seven were leading figures in one of the most outstanding feats in the history of science."
With their long careers in pure research, they led the way to innovative applications such as obtaining, in an extraordinarily short space of time, effective vaccines to fight against the COVID-19 pandemic," the citation said.
Their work constitutes a prime example of the importance of pure research for the protection of public health the world over," it added.
8:30 a.m. Ontario is on pace to reopen a few days" ahead of the July 2 target for haircuts and other amenities in the next stage of its COVID-19 recovery plan, says retiring chief medical officer Dr. David Williams.
I'm thinking we could. Our data's looking good," the 70-year-old Williams told the Star in an interview as he reflected on a long career in public health, his most frightening moment of the pandemic, the criticisms he faced, and the setback that pushed the province into a third wave shutdown and hospital capacity to the brink.
Acknowledging pressure from the public and politicians, Williams said Tuesday that key pandemic indicators - including daily new infections, hospital intensive care unit occupancy and vaccination levels - are falling into line, with enough time for people getting jabs to develop immunity.
Read the full story from the Star's Rob Ferguson
7:45 a.m. After seven months of being stuck at home, George Iliadis is looking forward to next week. So, too, he says, are the customers of his small, east-end barber shop, eager to get their now-shaggy manes trimmed.
They call up and say, George, we miss you.' Well, I miss them, too. After this long, customers are like family. I've been seeing some of the same people for 50 years," said Iliadis, who's eager for Step 2 of the Ontario government's loosening of COVID-related restrictions.
In Step 2, barbershops and nail salons will open for the first time since Nov. 23. Non-essential retailers in malls will also be allowed to reopen, at 25 per cent capacity. It had been expected to happen next Friday, but could come a few days" earlier, the province's retiring chief medical officer of health, Dr. David Williams, said Tuesday.
Read the full story from the Star's Josh Rubin
7:35 a.m. An engineer for one of the world's largest car manufacturers in Ontario, Syeda Umar says a Canadian passport will be handy for her to travel for work assignments - and crucial for advancing her career.
So as soon as the Pakistani immigrant met all the citizenship requirements, she submitted her application in September 2019.
Now, almost 22 months later, she is still waiting to be scheduled a citizenship exam stalled amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Her job as a senior quality engineer requires her to deal with the company's global supply chain and, at times, she's expected to spend weeks and months overseas on assignment.
Read the full story from the Star's Nicholas Keung
7:25 a.m. Some Ontario residents are refusing to take a shot of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. And as the need for second doses becomes urgent with the spread of the highly infectious Delta variant, pharmacists worry vaccine shopping could slow efforts to immunize the population.
While the hesitancy around Moderna seems to be subsiding (most doses given out Monday were Moderna), pharmacists and health professionals are seeing residents abandon their Moderna vaccine appointments despite clear evidence the vaccine is just as safe and effective as Pfizer.
This past weekend, pharmacies across Ontario noticed residents being picky about which vaccine they take and saw people only hunting for a shot of Pfizer-BioNTech, said Justin Bates, CEO of the Ontario Pharmacists Association.
Some were cancelling appointments at pharmacies and I heard people turning out of the lineups at mass immunization clinics when they heard it was Moderna being offered and not Pfizer," said Bates.
Read the full story from the Star's Kenyon Wallace and Olivia Bowden
7:12 a.m. Premier Doug Ford, Mayor John Tory, Caroline Mulroney and MPP Stan Cho will be making an announcement in Scarborough at 1 p.m. Wednesday.
6:41 a.m.: More than 150 employees at a Houston hospital system who refused to get the COVID-19 vaccine have been fired or resigned after a judge dismissed an employee lawsuit over the vaccine requirement.
A spokesperson for Houston Methodist hospital system said 153 employees either resigned in the two-week suspension period or were terminated on Tuesday.
The case over how far health care institutions can go to protect patients and others against the coronavirus has been closely watched. But it won't be the end of the debate.
Earlier this month, a federal judge threw out the lawsuit filed by 117 employees over the requirement. The hospital system's decision in April to require the vaccine for workers made it the first major U.S. health care system to do so.
The Houston Methodist employees who filed the lawsuit likened their situation to medical experiments performed on unwilling victims in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes called that comparison reprehensible" and said claims made in the lawsuit that the vaccines are experimental and dangerous are false.
6:40 a.m.: Pandemic restrictions tightened in Sydney as Delta variant cluster has increased.
Residents who live in the worst-effected parts of Sydney cannot travel outside Australia's largest city unless it's absolutely essential," New South Wales state Premier Gladys Berejiklian said.
Masks are compulsory outside homes, patrons must be seated while drinking in bars and household visitors are limited to five people.
The cluster began last week when a Sydney airport limousine driver tested positive. He was not vaccinated and is suspected to have been infected while transporting a foreign air crew. The cluster had grown to 31 cases by Wednesday.
Please abandon non-essential activities, please don't attend social gatherings unless you absolutely must," Berejiklian said. I'm not going to rule out further action."
Queensland and Victoria states, that share borders with New South Wales, have banned travellers from much of Sydney. South Australia and Western Australia states have banned travel from anywhere in New South Wales, except for travellers with exemptions for approved purposes.
Western Australia Premier Mark McGowan said travellers who were already in the air when the ban was announced could either go into hotel quarantine when they arrived in Perth or fly back.
I just urge the New South Wales government to get this under control because it's a threat and a risk to the rest of the country. If that means a lockdown, well, then that's what should happen," McGowan added.
6:40 a.m.: Three Indian states have been asked to strengthen containment measures, increase testing and vaccinations after the federal government classified a newly identified version of the virus that is closely related to the delta variant as a variant of concern."
Viruses mutate all the time and not all changes are worrisome. But this classification implies that there is some evidence the variant has genetic tweaks that allow it to spread more easily, make people sicker or vaccinations less effective.
The delta variant, which was first identified in India and has since spread to many parts of the world, is more infectious and vaccines are slightly less effective against it. This new variant, named delta plus, has an additional genetic tweak that could allow it to evade the human immune system.
Around 40 cases of the delta plus variant has popped up in three Indian states - Maharashtra, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh.
6:40 a.m.: Colombia reached 100,000 confirmed deaths from COVID-19 this week, becoming just the tenth country in the world to hit the unwanted milestone.
The South American nation of 50 million has been registering a growing number of daily cases since April and over the past seven days it had the world's third-highest per capita death rate from COVID-19, according to data published by Oxford University.
President Ivan Duque blamed antigovernment protests that began at the end of April for many of the fatalities, saying that more than 10,000 deaths could have been avoided" if Colombians had not held large gatherings over the past seven weeks.
But epidemiologists in Colombia said it's too soon to tell how much of an impact the protests had on the current surge in COVID-19 deaths.
The protests definitely played a role" in coronavirus contagion, said Diego Rosselli, a professor of epidemiology at the Javeriana University in Bogota. But at this moment putting any number on how many deaths they caused is mere speculation."
6:40 a.m.: Italy's leader is pitching for tourists to start coming from the United States, Canada and Japan to give a vitally needed boost to Italian hotel and restaurant businesses.
In a speech to lawmakers on Wednesday, Premier Mario Draghi noted that Italy has recently allowed people from those three countries to now come for tourism, previously not allowed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tourists must be vaccinated, have certification that they have recovered from the illness or have a negative COVID-19 test taken within 48 hours of entering Italy.
We want to allow them to come safely into Italy to help our hoteliers and restaurateurs bounce back after a year-and-a-half of difficulty,'' Draghi said.
Tourism accounts for 13 per cent of Italy's GDP. Many restaurants and hotels were closed for months, and some hotels, including those who cater heavily to U.S. tourists, have yet to re-open.
6:35 a.m.: More Ontarians living in designated hot spots for the Delta COVID-19 variant are eligible to book earlier second vaccine doses starting today.
Health units covering Toronto, Peel, Halton, Porcupine, Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph, Waterloo and York, Hamilton, Simcoe-Muskoka and Durham are considered hot spots for the more infectious virus variant.
People in those health units who received a first dose of an mRNA vaccine on or before May 30 can move up their second shots today.
The provincial vaccine booking portal will open to those eligible at 8 a.m. this morning.
The province says sometime next week, all adults who received a first dose of Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna's product can book a second appointment as soon as 28 days after their initial shot.
Second doses were initially booked four months after the first in Ontario but the province is shortening that timeline as more vaccine is expected in province.
4 a.m.: The latest numbers on COVID-19 vaccinations in Canada as of 4:00 a.m. ET on Wednesday, June 23, 2021.
In Canada, the provinces are reporting 482,991 new vaccinations administered for a total of 33,049,022 doses given. Nationwide, 7,818,433 people or 21 per cent of the population has been fully vaccinated. The provinces have administered doses at a rate of 87,202.249 per 100,000.
There were 1,953,600 new vaccines delivered to the provinces and territories for a total of 37,033,950 doses delivered so far. The provinces and territories have used 89.24 per cent of their available vaccine supply.
4 a.m.: The latest numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Canada as of 4:00 a.m. ET on Wednesday, June 23, 2021. Some provinces and territories do not report daily case numbers.
There are 1,410,206 confirmed cases in Canada (10,162 active, 1,373,889 resolved, 26,155 deaths). The total case count includes 13 confirmed cases among repatriated travellers.
There were 627 new cases reported Tuesday. The rate of active cases is 26.74 per 100,000 people. Over the past seven days, there have been a total of 6,115 new cases reported. The seven-day rolling average of new reported cases is 874.
There were 71 new reported deaths Tuesday. Over the past seven days there have been a total of 184 new reported deaths. The seven-day rolling average of new reported deaths is 26. The seven-day rolling average of the death rate is 0.07 per 100,000 people. The overall death rate is 68.82 per 100,000 people.
There have been 36,287,490 tests completed.