Today’s coronavirus news: Ontario reporting 2,254 people hospitalized with COVID-19, 474 in ICU
The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world Tuesday. This file will be updated throughout the day. Web links to longer stories if available.
10:40 a.m. The City of Toronto is rolling out more vaccine clinics in an initiative called #VaxTheEast from Feb. 12-21 at Thorncliffe Park, Flemingdon Park and across Scarborough, says Mayor John Tory.
1st, 2nd, 3rd and kids doses are available as are walk-in appointments. As part of the "Vax the East" campaign, the Ontario Science Centre will be open this weekend for vaccinations.
"We will make more intense efforts where more intense efforts are required. Your vaccination status should not depend on your postal code," says Tory, speakig at Tuesday's update.
"It's important we not comfort ourselves with city-wide averages," says Tory, speaking to the efforts to get people vaccinated wherever they live.
At the presser, Medical Officer of Health Dr. Eileen de Villa says there is more evidence this week that the Omicron wave is subsiding in Toronto.
10:34 a.m. Spain is scrapping a mandate to wear masks outdoors, as COVID-19 infection rates drop and hospitals report lower admissions.
Mask-wearing will not be necessary outside beginning Thursday, government spokeswoman Isabel Rodriguez said Tuesday after a weekly Cabinet meeting. The rule change includes children at school during their breaks outside between classes.
However, masks remain mandatory in indoor public spaces, including public transportation, and when people are unable to keep a safe distance of 4 feet between them.
10:16 a.m. Ontario is reporting 2,254 people hospitalized with COVID-19, 474 people in the ICU.
82 per cent of patients admitted to the ICU were admitted for COVID-19 and 18 per cent were admitted for other reasons but have tested positive for COVID-19. There are 2,092 new cases of COVID-19, according to tweets from Health Minister Christine Elliott.
10:10 a.m. Some U.S. governors are taking broad steps to discontinue school masking, saying the pandemic precaution is outweighed by widespread vaccination, lower transmission and the need for unimpeded instruction.
Governor Ned Lamont late Monday recommended that Connecticut end its mask mandate for schools and daycares on Feb. 28. New Jersey, where more than 1-in-9 residents is a public-school student, will end its order next month for 1.3 million in kindergarten through high school. Similar moves may come soon in New York and California.
We're not going to manage COVID to zero," New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said Monday. We have to learn how to live with COVID as we move from a pandemic to the endemic phase of this virus. We are finally nearing this inflection point."
9:45 a.m. Canada's Wonderland will open April 30 and is now in the process of hiring 4,000 workers, the Vaughan theme park announced Tuesday.
The park continues to work closely with provincial and regional health officials and will provide updates to its COVID-19 safety protocols closer to opening day.
We may be in the depths of winter, but we're already looking ahead to the brighter, warmer days of spring when we can welcome guests back for the 2022 season," general manager, Norm Pirtovshek, said..
8:25 a.m. The Ambassador Bridge border crossing between Windsor, Ont. and Detroit has reopened to U.S.-bound traffic today morning after an anti-vaccine mandate demonstration blocked traffic in both directions on Monday evening.
Windsor police say U.S. bound is open at the bridge and can be accessed through the Wyandotte St. West entrance.
They say the traffic along Huron Church Road remains congested.
Ontario Provincial Police in Essex County sent out a release Monday evening telling drivers to avoid the area, and to take the Bluewater Bridge in Sarnia if travelling to the United States.
The demonstration blocking one of the busiest international crossings in the country began Monday afternoon.
7:50 a.m. The rise in business bankruptcies that the industry has been warning about may have finally begun.
Business bankruptcies rose sharply in the last quarter of 2021, driven by closures in the food services, accommodation and construction sectors, and experts say this trend will continue in 2022.
Canadian business insolvencies jumped 36.8 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2021, the highest increase in 35 years of records tracked by the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy, according to a news release from the Canadian Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Professionals (CAIRP).
Read the full story from the Star's Rosa Saba
7:35 a.m. Throughout the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, Torontonians have watched as neighbourhoods home to those experiencing some of the harshest outcomes of the pandemic have had among the lowest vaccination rates.
Now, as public health and community organizations work on the ground to improve third-dose uptake, new data from the Gattuso Centre for Social Medicine at University Health Network lays bare the stark demographic differences between the Toronto neighbourhoods with the highest rates of third-dose vaccination and those with the lowest.
What it shows in granular detail is that many of our most vulnerable citizens - immigrants, the working poor and essential workers in trades and manufacturing - live in areas where third-dose vaccinations just aren't happening anywhere near the rates seen in some of Toronto's richest and least-racialized neighbourhoods.
Read the full story from the Star's Kenyon Wallace
6 a.m.: The governors of four states announced plans Monday to lift statewide mask requirements in schools by the end of February or March, citing the rapid easing of COVID-19's omicron surge.
The decisions in Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey and Oregon were announced as state and local governments grapple with which virus restrictions to jettison and which ones to keep in place. The changes also come amid a growing sense that the virus is never going to go away and Americans need to find a way to coexist with it.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy called the move a huge step back to normalcy for our kids" and said individual school districts will be free to continue requiring masks after the state mandate ends March 7.
Meanwhile, California announced plans to end its indoor masking requirement for vaccinated people next week, but masks will still be the rule for schoolchildren in the nation's most populous state.
The four states are among a dozen with mask mandates in schools, according to the nonpartisan National Academy for State Health Policy. New Jersey's requirement has been in place since classes resumed in person in September 2020.
6 a.m.: Hong Kong's leader announced on Tuesday the city's toughest social-distancing restrictions yet, including unprecedented limits on private gatherings, as new daily cases surge above 600.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam said gatherings in private premises of more than two families will be banned starting Thursday.
Public gatherings will be restricted to two people, and hair salons and places of worship will be closed until Feb. 24, when the city launches a vaccine pass" that will require people to show proof of vaccination to enter shopping malls, markets and eateries.
The tightened measures come as the city grapples with a new wave of the coronavirus driven by the omicron variant. Over 600 local cases were reported on Tuesday.
I appeal to the public to join us in the fight against the virus," Lam said at a news conference. Please try to avoid going out as far as possible."
5:58 a.m.: Hundreds of people protesting vaccine and mask mandates drove in convoy to New Zealand's capital on Tuesday and converged outside Parliament as lawmakers reconvened after a summer break.
The mostly unmasked protesters had driven from around the country, and their vehicles clogged the central Wellington streets for hours as they got out to meet and speak on Parliament's forecourt.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern elected not to meet with them as she delivered a speech to lawmakers outlining her priorities for the year.
Among the protesters' grievances is the requirement in New Zealand that certain workers get vaccinated against the coronavirus, including teachers, doctors, nurses, police and military personnel.
5:58 a.m.: China has ordered inhabitants of the southern city of Baise to stay home and suspended transportation links amid a surge in COVID-19 cases at least partly linked to the omicron variant.
Classes have been suspended, non-essential businesses closed and mass testing of residents ordered. Restaurants are only permitted to serve take-out. Traffic lights have been switched to red only to remind drivers to stay home.
As of Tuesday, 135 cases had been reported in the city - at least two of them found to be omicron, health authorities said.
The city has become the latest to be placed under lockdown in keeping with China's zero-tolerance" approach to the pandemic. The policy requires strict measures be applied even when only a small number of cases have been found.
5:57 a.m.: Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe and the province's chief medical health officer are expected to provide an update on COVID-19.
Moe said on the John Gormley talk radio show Monday that he would likely announce a plan today about removing or reducing provincial public health orders.
For weeks, the premier has stated that it's time to lift COVID-19 measures, but wouldn't commit on a date as health officials continued to monitor COVID-19 hospitalizations.
Moe said with hospitalizations starting to drop significantly, the province is going to chart a course forward without public health orders.
Saskatchewan's COVID-19 measures include a mask mandate, a requirement to isolate if you test positive, and a proof of vaccination or negative test policy to enter most establishments.
On Monday, the city of Saskatoon agreed to remove its own vaccine policy for city facilities if the province rescinds its public health order.
5:56 a.m.: Almost two-thirds of Canadians oppose the Ottawa protest against COVID-19 measures, with more than four in 10 saying they strongly consider the demonstration a selfish display, a new poll suggests.
But almost 30 per cent of Canadians surveyed by Leger disagreed with that characterization of the demonstration against COVID-19 measures that has seen hundreds of large trucks create gridlock and incessant noise in the national capital.
In addition, 44 per cent of those polled said they sympathized with the frustrations being voiced by the protesters.
The survey highlights the extent of divisions within Canada, said Andrew Enns, executive vice-president of Leger, suggesting the protesters might have tapped into broader concerns than just the grievances of a small minority.
The Leger survey of 1,546 adults was carried out between Feb. 4 to 6. No margin of error can be assigned because web-based polls are not considered random samples.
5:55 a.m.: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the ongoing anti-vaccine mandate protest in Ottawa is trying to blockade our economy, our democracy and our fellow citizens' daily lives."
He says, It has to stop."
Trudeau appeared in the House of Commons last evening to take part in an emergency debate on the protest in Ottawa, which is now in its second week.
Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said in the House the government had approved a request by the RCMP for additional resources to police the protests.
It's estimated the demonstrations in the central core are costing the city $1.8 million to $2.2 million per day for police alone, and Watson said the city is keeping a tally of all extraordinary costs associated with the protest and will seek compensation from higher levels of government when the protest finally ends.
5:55 a.m.: Anti-vaccine mandate protesters are once again preventing traffic from passing through the Coutts border crossing in southern Alberta.
Alberta RCMP tweeted late Monday evening that both north and southbound lanes at the crossing on Highway 4 were blocked by the demonstration and asked motorists to avoid the area.
Trucks and other vehicles began parking on the highway near Coutts on Feb. 5 in solidarity with similar protests in Ottawa and across the country over COVID-19 vaccine mandates for cross-border truck drivers and broader public health measures.
One blockade became two when a second one appeared further up the highway.
The impasse stranded travellers and cross-border truckers for days, compromised millions of dollars in trade and impeded access to basic goods and medical services for area residents.
Last week, protesters agreed to open a single lane in each direction for traffic and so truckers could haul cargo across the border.