Today’s coronavirus news: Federal modelling shows COVID-19 hospitalizations to surge; Immunocompromised Ontarians can book 4th shot
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.
12:10 p.m. Barberian's Steak House, in partnership with the University Health Network (UHN), will be holding a low-barrier vaccination clinic in support of front-line food and hospitality workers on Jan. 20 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The clinic will offer 1st, 2nd, and 3rd doses for all those in the food, restaurant, and hospitality industry. No appointments are required nor proof of address or identification.
12 p.m. Some Ontario school boards say classes could be cancelled with very little notice if they don't have enough teachers available due to high rates of COVID-19.
Classes are set to resume in-person on Monday after schools began the term with online learning.
In a message to parents, the Toronto District School Board -- the province's largest -- says it's taken numerous steps to ensure staffing levels are as high as possible, but last-minute class cancellations could happen.
The Rainbow District School Board in northern Ontario says it may have to cancel classes day-of if there aren't enough teachers.
And the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board says it will make "every effort" to keep classes and schools open, but if it cannot operate safely, a class or school may have to pivot to remote learning.
11:45 a.m. Boris Johnson's office apologized to Queen Elizabeth following revelations of partying in Downing Street the night before her husband's funeral, heaping further pressure on the prime minister as his government faces a string of allegations over pandemic rule-breaking.
The Daily Telegraph on Friday said that on April 16, 2021, two parties were held in Downing Street to mark the departures of two staffers, on the eve of Prince Philip's funeral. One of them was for Johnson's former spokesman James Slack. At the time, indoor mixing between households was still banned.
It's deeply regrettable that this took place at a time of national mourning," Johnson's spokesman, Jamie Davies, told reporters at a regular briefing, declining to comment on whether the government believes the events also breached COVID regulations. We acknowledge the significant public anger."
11:15 a.m. (updated) New federal modelling suggests an estimated peak of 170,000 new COVID-19 cases a day, even with the range of public health restrictions in place across the country.
The peak may come this month and then recede into February but the overall timing of the peak is likely to vary across the country, Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam said during a briefing Friday.
Those numbers aren't based on known case counts but what's believed to be the true spread of the Omicron virus in Canada, given that testing capacity is now restricted nationwide, Tam said.
Read the full story from the Star's Stephanie Levitz
10:42 a.m. An outbreak of COVID-19 at a large facility housing people with intellectual disabilities in Nova Scotia wasn't disclosed to the public, because the province says it wants to protect the privacy of residents.
Documents from the facility obtained by The Canadian Press say that in the days after Christmas, two workers at the Kings Regional Rehabilitation Centre in Waterville, N.S., and one resident had contracted COVID-19.
The centre, which is home to 159 residents, declined all comment, referring the matter to public health.
10:21 a.m. (updated) Ontario is reporting 3,814 people hospitalized with COVID-19, including 527 in intensive care.
That's an increase from 3,630 patients in hospital yesterday, and 27 more in ICU. The province is also reporting 41 new deaths today from the virus.
There are 288 people on ventilators due to COVID-19, 13 more than the previous day.
There are 10,964 new COVID-19 cases reported, though Public Health Ontario has noted that the total number is likely higher due to testing policy changes.
10:20 a.m. Australia canceled Novak Djokovic's visa for a second time, reversing a court decision that temporarily thwarted the federal government's bid to deport the unvaccinated tennis star.
Immigration Minister Alex Hawke exercised special powers to override the court ruling, just days before the world men's No. 1 is due to vie for a record 21st Grand Slam victory at the Australian Open. The visa was revoked on health and good order grounds and on the basis that it was in the public interest to do so, he said in a statement Friday.
Australians have made many sacrifices during this pandemic, and they rightly expect the result of those sacrifices to be protected," Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in a statement following the decision. Our strong border protection policies have kept Australians safe."
10 a.m. Alphonso Davies' return from a bout of COVID-19 has been put on hold with Bayern Munich saying the Canadian star shows signs of an inflammation of the heart muscle.
The 21-year-old from Edmonton has been sidelined, with his participation in doubt for Canada's World Cup qualifiers later this month.
Bayern manager Julian Nagelsmann told a pre-match news conference Friday that the problem was detected in the follow-up examination that all players who have had COVID undergo.
"He'll sit out training until further notice. He won't be available, also in the coming weeks," Nagelsmann said in German.
9:45 a.m. The highly transmissible Omicron variant is forcing mathematicians to rework the models that have helped shaped Canada's understanding of COVID-19, as well as the country's response to the pandemic.
Everything from who gets tested to who's most likely to contract the virus has changed with the latest wave of the pandemic, and that's posing distinct challenges for those who model its impact, says Caroline Colijn, an associate professor of mathematics at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia.
In particular, Colijn said it will be difficult to understand the severity of the disease as it spreads through a mostly vaccinated public.
"We're still adapting to flying blind in terms of reported cases," she said in an interview. "Hospitalizations are lagging and there's not always good data on them, and (hospitalization numbers) won't tell you as directly about infections as reported cases will."
9:30 a.m. Children in Romania aged between 5-11 will be able to get vaccinated against COVID-19 starting late January, authorities said, as the country grappled Friday with a virus surge and low adult vaccination rates.
Parents or legal guardians can schedule appointments starting this week to get their children inoculated with Pfizer jabs that will be available from Jan. 26, the national vaccination committee said Thursday.
Health authorities said 219 pediatric vaccination centers are configured in the national programming platform and shots can also be administered without appointments at dedicated centers, and in some general practitioners' surgeries. The jabs will be administered in 21-day intervals.
9:15 a.m. The last quarter of the year is traditionally the slowest in real estate. But last year's record-breaking sales and prices bucked tradition through to the end, according to the Royal LePage House Price Survey.
It shows that more than half of Canadian property markets - 61 per cent - saw a quarterly increase of 3 per cent or more in the final quarter, including a 4.1 per cent rise in the Toronto area. Among 62 regions surveyed, 87 per cent experience double-digit annual home price growth in the fourth quarter of 2021.
That portends a busier-than-usual spring, said CEO Phil Soper. Thanks to the reinstatement of pandemic restrictions, he expects the upcoming season to look a lot like a less frenetic version of last year - Too many buyers, no enough homes, multiple offers, upward pressure on prices."
Read the full story from the Star's Tess Kalinowski
9 a.m. Concerns about schools reopening are outweighed by the need for kids to get back to class because they have suffered significant harms" with online learning, says Toronto's medical officer of health.
What this comes down to is the criticality or essentiality of in-person learning for kids," Dr. Eileen de Villa said in an interview with the Star on Thursday, just days before schools are to reopen for students across the province.
The evidence shows school closures and shifts to online learning are associated with pretty significant harms - particularly from an educational perspective, but also from a mental health and developmental perspective," she said.
Read the full story from the Star's Kristin Rushowy
8:45 a.m. Thousands of students have been absent from class for no reason," according to recent data from Toronto's public school board.
It's unclear why they were away last week after the province's last-minute decision to move schools to remote learning due to rising COVID cases. But figures reveal absences were particularly high amongst elementary students.
It's definitely interesting to see the change, but it's difficult to say what it all means," said Ryan Bird, spokesperson for the Toronto District School Board.
Read the full story from the Star's Isabel Teotonio
8:06 a.m. The Russian government on Friday decided to delay adopting unpopular legislation restricting ccess to public places for the unvaccinated, despite surging coronavirus cases and warnings from top officials about the spread of the highly-infectious omicron variant.
Russia reported 23,820 new infections Friday, a 12% increase from the previous day, and 739 deaths.
Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said the legislation was postponed due to the high uncertainty" as the draft bill was originally prepared in response to the delta variant but new challenges" have arisen.
The bill required Russians willing to access certain public places to have a QR code either confirming vaccination, recent recovery from COVID-19, or a medical exemption from immunization.
The initiative, along with another bill proposing a similar system for both domestic and international planes and trains, was met with high resistance amid a largely vaccine-skeptical population. The transport bill was withdrawn from Parliament last month, but the one on public places passed the first reading.
7:35 a.m. Immunocompromised Ontarians can book appointments for a fourth dose of a COVID-19 vaccine starting this morning.
Ontario's chief medical officer of health, Dr. Kieran Moore, says appointments for moderately to severely immunocompromised people will be made available through the provincial vaccine contact centre at 8 a.m.
Moore said the move aims to provide further protection for vulnerable populations.
The province has already started administering fourth doses in long-term care homes, retirement homes and other congregate settings.
In a news conference Thursday, Ontario's top doctor also said transplant patients are lagging in getting their third doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, which is considered part of their primary series of shots.
7 a.m. A wave of unvaccinated workers have filed wrongful dismissal claims in protest of their employers' vaccine mandates, but lawyers say the courts are likely to prioritize public safety measures over the predicaments of terminated employees.
Canadian employers began firing unvaccinated workers in late October after a string of corporate titans - including several of the largest banks, airlines, railway operators and automakers - warned employees over the summer they had a matter of months to get fully vaccinated or face penalties.
In the time since, workplaces across the country have faced pushback from employees and their unions over vaccine mandates they say breach their pre-existing agreements with their employers.
Read the full story from the Star's Jacob Lorinc
5:59 a.m.: Homeless and vulnerable people in British Columbia and Alberta have been approached with offers of payment to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by those attempting to fraudulently get a vaccine card.
Vancouver Coastal Health said Thursday those who have been approached have been asked to get vaccinated while falsely using that person's name and information.
This behaviour is deplorable and we're disappointed that anyone would take advantage of vulnerable people in this way in an attempt to circumvent the process for receiving a BC Vaccine Card," the health authority said in a statement.
Future instances of fraud may be forwarded to local police authorities for follow up."
5:59 a.m.: An imminent return to in-class learning has prompted some Manitoba parents to book early COVID-19 followup shots for their young children, but public health officials say it is worth the wait.
Both Canada and Manitoba, per the National Advisory Committee on Immunization and the Manitoba Pediatric Vaccine Advisory Committee, initially recommended an eight-week interval or 56 days between first and second shots for youth aged five to 11, the latest population to became eligible for a jab. The above recently reaffirmed their support for that time frame, following reviews of the guidance and consideration of Omicron.
With that in mind, and Nov. 24 being the first day child-sized doses were administered in Manitoba, second doses will start to ramp up later this month.
5:58 a.m.: Winnipeg schools are requesting families only accept rapid tests being distributed to K-6 students if they plan to use them and return unused kits they have no intention of utilizing, in order to address high demand and limited supply.
Before classes were dismissed at the end of 2021, the Manitoba government announced the launch of an optional return-to-school testing program that would see elementary students supplied with rapid antigen tests.
The province indicated it had ordered more than 90,000 kits, each containing five tests, from the federal government - enough to ensure every student enrolled in kindergarten through Grade 6 in a public or division-administered First Nations school in Manitoba could receive a kit.
Officials did not confirm Wednesday how many of the kits have been obtained and distributed to schools.
5:57 a.m.: China further tightened its anti-pandemic measures in Beijing and across the country on Friday as scattered outbreaks continued ahead of the opening of the Winter Olympics in a little over two weeks.
The actions appear to reflect nervousness about a possible surge in cases ahead of the Beijing Games.
Beijing has ordered children at international schools to be tested starting next week and is barring air passengers who transited via a third point. Citizens are being told only to travel if absolutely necessary, with no guarantee they will be permitted to return if found to have visited a city or region where an outbreak occurred.
The city of Tianjin, about an hour from the capital, has ordered a third round of mass testing starting Saturday morning to be completed within 24 hours.
A port and manufacturing centre with 14 million people, Tianjin is one of a half dozen cities where the government is imposing lockdowns and other restrictions as part of a policy to track down every virus case.
5:54 a.m.: Israel has administered a 4th vaccine dose to more than 500,000 people, the Health Ministry said Friday.
Israel began administering second boosters to the most vulnerable late last month and later began offering them to everyone over 60.
Authorities hope the additional boosters will blunt a wave of infections driven by the omicron variant. Health Ministry figures show Israel currently has some 260,000 active cases. But only 289 patients are listed as seriously ill, far fewer than during previous waves.
Israel was among the first countries to roll out vaccines a year ago and began widely offering third doses last summer in a bid to contain the Delta variant. Nearly half the population has received at least one booster shot.
5:53 a.m.: Tens of thousands of devout Hindus, led by heads of monasteries and ash-smeared ascetics, took a holy dip into the frigid waters of the Ganges River in northern India on Friday despite rising COVID-19 infections in the country.
Hindu pilgrims congregated at the Sangam, the confluence of three rivers - the Ganges, the Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati - in Prayagraj city, 200 km (124 miles) northeast of Lucknow, the state capital of Uttar Pradesh, to participate in the Magh Mela festival, one of the most sacred pilgrimages in Hinduism. They bathed in the Ganges waters, a ritual Hindus believe will wash away their sins and free them from the cycle of death and rebirth.
A similar gathering at a Hindu festival last year in the Himalayan town of Haridwar, in neighbouring Uttarakhand state, helped spread the Delta variant that ravaged the country and made India one of the world's worst-hit countries. Epidemiologists described the festival as a superspreader event."
5:52 a.m.: To mask or not to mask is a question Italy settled early in the COVID-19 outbreak with a vigorous yes." Now the one-time epicentre of the pandemic in Europe hopes even stricter mask rules will help it beat the latest infection surge.
Other countries are taking similar action as the more transmissible - yet, apparently, less virulent - omicron variant spreads through the continent.
With Italy's hospital ICUs rapidly filling with mostly unvaccinated COVID-19 patients, the government announced on Christmas Eve that FFP2 masks - which offer users more protection than cloth or surgical masks - must be worn on public transport, including planes, trains, ferries and subways.
That's even though all passengers in Italy, as of this week, must be vaccinated or recently recovered from COVID-19. FFP2s also must now be worn at theatres, cinemas and sports events, indoors or out, and can't be removed even for their wearers to eat or drink.
5:51 a.m.: Cambodia on Friday began a fourth round of vaccinations against the coronavirus in response to the omicron variant, with high-risk groups being among the first to receive the additional boosters.
Frontline medical staff and members of the armed forces were among those lining up at hospitals and clinics. Government ministers, including Prime Minister Hun Sen, also received booster doses on Friday.
Hun Sen has appealed to all Cambodian people to get fully vaccinated, including a booster, saying on his Facebook page that it is the only way to make sure to keep their families and communities safe from COVID-19. A campaign to have people get their third jabs is still ongoing.
5:50 a.m.: Two members of the U.S. Marine Corps have been given religious exemptions from the Pentagon's vaccine mandate, the first of their kind since the mandate was introduced last summer.
According to officials, 95% of active-duty Marines - the military branch with the greatest number of holdouts against COVID-19 vaccines - are inoculated against COVID. About 97% of the 1.3 million active-duty service members in the United States have had at least one dose of the vaccine.
Thousands of U.S. troops across the military have sought religious exemptions from the vaccine, but none had been approved until this week. There have been 3,350 requests for religious accommodation across the Marines.
The Marine Corps recognizes COVID-19 as a readiness issue. The speed with which the disease transmits among individuals has increased risk to our Marines and the Marine Corps' mission," Maj. Jim Stenger, a Marine Corps spokesman, said Thursday in a written statement.
Friday 5:49 a.m.: South Korea will slightly ease its coronavirus gathering restrictions starting next week but continue to maintain a 9 p.m. curfew on restaurants and entertainment venues, as it braces for a possible surge in infections driven by the contagious omicron variant.
Health Minister Kwon Deok-cheol said Friday the four-person limit on private social gatherings between fully vaccinated people will be raised to six for at least three weeks starting Monday.
While officials have acknowledged frustration and fatigue with prolonged virus restrictions and the damage on small businesses, they say they couldn't afford to loosen social distancing rules further when the country may face a huge wave of cases in coming weeks as omicron continues to spread.
Friday 4 a.m. Some areas of the country are easing pandemic restrictions while others are tightening them depending on their perceptions of whether the COVID-19 curve is flattening or has yet to peak.
Quebec announced its controversial 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew will be lifted on Monday because researchers there believe the latest wave of the pandemic, fuelled by COVID-19's highly infectious Omicron variant, is cresting.
And Nunavut says the tough measures it implemented just before Christmas have been so effective that it's cancelling travel restrictions on Monday, allowing businesses to reopen and schools will resume in-person learning on Jan. 24.
It's a different story in New Brunswick where new restrictions come into effect today limiting residents to a single-household bubble while also closing gyms, entertainment venues and indoor dining at restaurants.
In neighbouring Prince Edward Island where chief medical health officer Dr. Heather Morrison says the "worst of this wave" is yet to come, current restrictions that include business capacity limits and remote learning for school students will be extended.
Across the country, new COVID case counts and related hospitalizations remain at or near record levels.
Ontario recorded a jump in hospitalizations of 182 to an all-time high of 3,630 on Thursday. About 6,000 new cases were reported in Alberta and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe announced he has tested positive for COVID-19.