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.
11:17 a.m. Toronto is launching #DaysofVaxtion — a blitz of pop-up COVID-19 vaccination clinics aimed at the roughly 314,000 Torontonians not yet fully protected from the virus and who are most at risk during the pandemic’s ongoing fourth wave.
Mayor John Tory on Wednesday announced the Thursday-to-Sunday campaign, in prepared speech notes calling it “a mega-event made up of a series of micro clinics — smaller pop-up clinics put exactly where we know people need to get vaccinated and where we know people will be over the coming days.”
Toronto Public Health and hospital partner staff will immunize people in TTC stations, parks, malls and schools, including three mobile pop-up sites along Yonge Street, a clinic at Trinity-Bellwoods Park and subway stations including Sheppard, Islington and Warden.
Read the full story from the Star’s David Rider
10:36 a.m. The debate over COVID-19 booster shots for all Americans remains intense with less than a week to go before the target rollout date desired by the White House and days before government advisers plan to vote on the issue.
Experts are eagerly parsing the data on booster shots after internal feuding at the Food and Drug Administration spilled into the public this week, with two top vaccine regulators arguing in a review of global data in The Lancet that there is not enough evidence to recommend them.
The drama comes days before a meeting Friday at which the agency’s vaccine advisers, the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, plan to decide whether to recommend that the FDA approve boosters for people who received the Pfizer vaccine.
“The timing [of the study] couldn’t be any more exquisite in terms of making a statement,” said Monica Gandhi, a professor of medicine at University of California, San Francisco who added that the review provides an unequivocal case that boosters are premature. “I doubt that it will go unnoticed.”
Meanwhile, preliminary data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not yet indicated a decline in effectiveness when it comes to severe disease and hospitalization, leading to anonymous accusations by White House officials in the press that the agency is withholding data.
10:22 a.m. Ontario is reporting 593 new cases of COVID-19 and a 2.5 per cent positivity rate; 447 cases are in individuals who are not fully vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status and 146 are in fully vaccinated individuals.
346 people are hospitalized with COVID-19; 311 are not fully vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status and 35 are fully vaccinated.
9:20 a.m. Statistics Canada says the consumer price index in August rose 4.1 per cent compared with a year ago, the largest year-over-year inflation increase since March 2003.
The jump compared with a gain of 3.7 per cent in July.
Fuelling much of the rise was higher gasoline and housing prices compared with the same month one year ago.
Excluding gasoline prices that rose year-over-year by 32.5 per cent in August, Statistics Canada says the annual inflation figure would have been 3.2 per cent last month.
The statistics agency also says homeowner replacement costs, which is related to the price of new homes, rose at an annual rate of 14.3 per cent in August.
8:20 a.m. Hamilton is tied for Ontario’s worst COVID vaccination rate.
Provincial data shows five public health units have just 74 per cent of eligible residents fully vaccinated with two doses — Hamilton, Chatham-Kent, Lambton, Porcupine, and Renfrew County and District.
It compares to 78 per cent for Ontario, while the top public health units are Leeds, Grenville and Lanark at 88 per cent and Halton at 83 per cent. Haldimand and Norfolk, which used to have the lowest rate, has now pulled ahead of Hamilton with 75 per cent.
“Modelling shows us if we don’t soon get to 90 per cent of Ontarians fully vaccinated we may risk many more months of these brutal waves of infection,” said Dr. Adam Kassam, president of the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) in a September briefing. “We have that ability to really control our fate.”
Hamilton hasn’t had a boost in COVID shots from the announcement of imminent vaccine passports coming on Sept. 22 — in sharp contrast to the province’s 29 per cent bump.
8:10 a.m. The TDSB released details Tuesday evening on their mandatory vaccination policy; it’s an 11-page document titled COVID-19 Mandatory Vaccine Procedure.
The policy applies to all school board employees, including daily and long-term occasional teachers and casual education workers, school board trustees and student transportation drivers.
All TDSB employees have until Nov. 1 to have received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.
8 a.m. Republican legislators in more than half of U.S. states, spurred on by voters angry about lockdowns and mask mandates, are taking away the powers that state and local officials use to protect the public against infectious diseases.
A Kaiser Health News review of hundreds of pieces of legislation found that, in all 50 states, legislators have proposed bills to curb such public health powers since the COVID-19 pandemic began. While some governors vetoed bills that passed, at least 26 states pushed through laws that permanently weaken government authority to protect public health. In three additional states, an executive order, ballot initiative or state Supreme Court ruling limited long-held public health powers. More bills are pending in a handful of states whose legislatures are still in session.
In Arkansas, legislators banned mask mandates except in private businesses or state-run health care settings, calling them “a burden on the public peace, health, and safety of the citizens of this state.” In Idaho, county commissioners, who typically have no public health expertise, can veto countywide public health orders. In Kansas and Tennessee, school boards, rather than health officials, have the power to close schools.
7:35 a.m. Ontario has confirmed more than 300 COVID-19 cases early into the school year — a number that one expert says indicates the virus is spreading faster than last year.
Ahmed Al-Jaishi, an epidemiologist and postdoctorate fellow at the Ottawa Health Research Institute, said he was shocked to see 328 confirmed cases in students and staff reported when the province released its initial set of data Tuesday.
“I don’t know what I was expecting,” Al-Jaishi said. “But my gut reaction was, ‘that’s a big number.’ ”
Based on his research, Al-Jaishi said community transmission for people younger than 20 years old is six times higher compared to last year. This year, Al Jaishi found that there are 60 COVID-19 cases per million for people younger than 20 years old. The number was 10 cases per million last year.
Read the full story from the Star’s Celina Gallardo
6:31 a.m.: Maybe you don’t think Dr. Matt Strauss is qualified to work in public health, but have you considered that famous public health dictum, live free or die? Strauss tweeted that in late August, and it’s an idea that lasted until the Romans came along, more or less, which is a pretty good run. Some places still follow it, to truly tragic results.
Anyway, the anti-lockdown, anti-restriction, anti-public health doctor was hired in early September to be the new interim acting medical officer of health in Haldimand-Norfolk in southwestern Ontario; that appointment was upheld 8-1 by the local board of health Monday night, which is also the local county council. There had been considerable consternation over Strauss’s qualifications before the council went behind closed doors, but it came out with a much softer approach, like people who had been told by the lawyers, well, you’d have to pay him anyway.
It is an absurd, backwards, political hire.
Read the column from Bruce Arthur.
6:28 a.m.: The U.K. plans to offer a third dose of coronavirus vaccines to everyone over 50 and other vulnerable people to help the country ride out the pandemic through the winter months.
The booster shots will be rolled out beginning next week. They were approved a day after the government backed plans to offer one dose of vaccine to children from 12 to 15 years old.
Booster shots are aimed at protecting against a modest waning in immunity among those who have received two jabs.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Tuesday “the result of this vaccination campaign is we have one of the most free societies and one of the most open economies in Europe.”
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization, which advises the government, recommended that booster shots be offered to everyone over 50, health care workers, people with underlying health conditions and those who live with people whose immune systems are compromised. They will be given no earlier than six months after a person received their second dose of vaccine.
Around 30 million people will be eligible for the booster shots, which aim to protect against a modest waning in immunity among those who have received two jabs.
Although the number of people now contracting COVID-19 is way higher than this time last year — over 30,000 new infections a day — the British government has opted not to re-introduce further virus restrictions for England, as the vaccine drive this year has reduced the number of people requiring treatment for COVID-19 and subsequently dying.
6:27 a.m.: Cambodia will launch a campaign Friday to begin giving COVID-19 vaccinations to children between 6 and 11 years of age.
Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday the action was being taken to allow children to return safely to school after a long absence due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In an audio message to province and municipality chiefs posted on his Facebook page, he said more than 1.8 million children were expected to get their jabs under the program, which will use Chinese-made Sinovac vaccine.
He also said he was considering having children 3-5 years-old be vaccinated soon.
6:27 a.m.: Health care workers in France face suspension from their jobs starting Wednesday if they haven’t been vaccinated against COVID-19. With about 300,000 workers still not vaccinated, some hospitals fear staff shortages will add to their strain.
Vaccines are now compulsory for medical care, home care and emergency workers in France, and Wednesday is the deadline for such staff to have had at least one shot. Failing that, they face having pay suspended or not being able to work. But a top court has forbidden staff to be fired outright.
6:27 a.m.: The World Health Organization said there were about 4 million coronavirus cases reported globally last week, marking the first major drop in new infections in more than two months. In recent weeks, there have been about 4.4 million new COVID-19 cases.
In its weekly update released on Tuesday, the U.N. health agency said every region in the world saw a drop in COVID-19 cases compared to the previous week.
Although the worldwide number of deaths decreased to about 62,000, with the sharpest decline in Southeast Asia, there was a 7% increase in deaths in Africa. The highest numbers of cases were seen in the U.S., Britain, India, Iran and Turkey and the highly contagious delta variant has now been reported in 180 countries.
WHO also said children and teenagers continue to be less affected by COVID-19 when compared to adults, adding that deaths of people under 24 due to the disease account for fewer than 0.5% of global deaths.
WHO has previously said children should not be prioritized for COVID-19 vaccinations given the extreme vaccine shortages globally.
6:25 a.m.: Statistics Canada will say this morning what reading the consumer price index registered for August.
The country’s headline inflation barometer clocked in at 3.7 per cent in July, which was the highest year-over-year increase since May 2011 as price growth accelerated from June.
Part of the elevated inflation reading for July was because prices are being compared to the lows seen one year ago during the early months of the pandemic, particularly gasoline and food.
BMO’s Benjamin Reitzes says although August is seasonally a weak month for the consumer price index, that may not hold true this year as he expects an annual inflation rate of 4.1 per cent in the month.
In a note, he says rising restaurant prices may push up food prices that tend to dip in August and early fall.
He also says the annual inflation rate could be pushed up in August by hot housing prices.
