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- The study finds that COVID-19 deaths in Canada may be twice as high as what has been reported.
- A woman in her 50s is the 11th coronavirus patient in Manitoba to die in the intensive care unit outside the province.
- The new long-term care minister acknowledges Ontarians and their ‘failed’ families during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Dr. Dina Henshaw offers a positive outlook as Alberta has recorded its lowest number of active cases since August.
- Analysis | Saskatchewan has yet to reach the threshold I set to drop the mask, but the plan is still in place.
- Do you have a question about COVID-19? You can contact us at COVID@cbc.ca
Ontario is moving to the next step of its reopening plan on Wednesday and the province’s chief medical officer says he’d prefer to wait a full 21 days before rolling back restrictions further.
“The two- to three-week cycle is very important to maintain so that we open Ontario in a gradual way, always moving forward and not having to take a step back,” Dr. Kieran Moore said on Tuesday.
Moore made the comments in his first pandemic briefing since he formally took over as chief medical officer of health for Ontario.
Ontario has exceeded its COVID-19 vaccination targets to enter the second step of its reopening plan, which will allow more outdoor activities and more indoor services such as haircuts to resume Wednesday.
More than 77 percent of people had had at least one dose of the vaccine as of Tuesday morning, and 37 percent had been fully vaccinated.
The county has set 21 days between each step of economic reopening to monitor public health trends and allow vaccines to take full effect. It ramped up the plan’s second step by a few days based on vaccination rates and other positive COVID-19 trends.
Ontario has also passed the target set for entering the third step of its reopening plan, which would increase capacity for indoor gatherings.
But Moore, like his predecessor Dr. David Williams, stressed on Tuesday that vaccination is not the only measure. It was advised to proceed with caution with the prevalence of the most contagious delta variant.
Waterloo area does not move to step 2
People who receive a single dose of the vaccine are less protected from this type, and it also contributes to increased local infections in Gray Bruce and Waterloo. Waterloo will not reopen with the rest of the county on Wednesday as it manages a rising number of infections.
Moore said he is monitoring the impact of the variable locally and internationally and that reopening should be done with caution to avoid losing the progress made in fighting the virus so far.
“He’s a tough opponent. He’s aggressive. He wants to spread quickly,” he said of the alternative.
“We need to be wise and we need 21 days to be able to understand the impact of openness on our societies.”
-From The Canadian Press, last updated at 6:45AM ET
What’s happening all over Canada
While many Canadians celebrate getting back to normal, the pain is still intense for many. Laina Tuckanow lost her mother and grandmother to COVID-19 and tells her, life will never go back to normal again. 2:44
As of early Wednesday morning, Canada had reported 1,414,746 confirmed cases of COVID-19, of which 7,400 were active. CBC News’ death toll is 26,274. More than 36.7 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered so far across the country, according to the CBC Vaccine Tracker.
A total of five cases of COVID-19 were reported in Atlantic Canada on Tuesday, including:
No new cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Newfoundland and Labrador Tuesday.
at Quebec, health officials reported four additional deaths and 71 new cases of COVID-19.
in the prairie provinces, Manitoba On Tuesday, there were no new deaths and 61 new cases of COVID-19. SaskatchewanMeanwhile, it has reported two additional deaths and 52 additional cases of COVID-19.
at Alberta, health officials reported four deaths and 61 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday.
“Across the board, our numbers are moving in the right direction,” Dr. Dina Henshaw said Tuesday, ahead of a wider reopening later this week.
“Cases, hospitalizations, ICU admissions and our positivity rate are the lowest since last summer, early fall.”
Dr. Dina Henshaw, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, provided a positive outlook on the province’s future as she gave a regularly scheduled final briefing on COVID-19 on Tuesday. 3:13
Across the north, no new cases have been reported in Nunavut or the Northwest Territories On Tuesday, 10 new cases and one more death were reported Yukon.
“We are in a new phase of this pandemic, one we hoped we would never see,” Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Brendan Hanley said in a statement on Tuesday. But we are here and we will continue to work together to contain this wave.”
British Columbia It will move to Step 3 of the plan to reopen the pandemic on Thursday, lifting the county’s mask mandate and declaring a government emergency. The news came as British Columbia reported 29 new cases and no new deaths on Tuesday.
— From CBC News and The Canadian Press, last updated at 7:10 a.m. ET
What is happening around the world
As of early Wednesday morning, more than 181.8 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported worldwide, according to data published by Johns Hopkins University in the United States of America. The reported global death toll was more than 3.9 million.
In the Asia Pacific In the region, Australian officials extended lockdown and physical distancing measures to more parts of the country on Wednesday, with four major cities already under strict lockdown in a race to contain the outbreak of the highly contagious delta coronavirus.
On Wednesday, the government said Bangladesh is deploying its army from Thursday to enforce a strict lockdown amid a record rise in coronavirus cases due to the delta type first detected in India.
“No one will be allowed to go out except in case of emergency during this period,” the government said in a statement, adding that military forces would be deployed alongside law enforcement agencies to enforce the lockdown.
In the Americas, the US Supreme Court has left behind the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s ban on home evictions imposed last year to combat the spread of COVID-19 and prevent homelessness during the pandemic.
at AfricaOn Tuesday, the Tunisian government extended the hours of a night-time curfew in an effort to stem the rapid spread of COVID-19, as the North African country reached a record daily number of cases since the start of the pandemic last year.
Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Tuesday imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew, banning intercity travel and slashing working hours with immediate effect in response to the surge in coronavirus infections.
at EuropeThe Greek government said, that Greece will allow people who have been fully vaccinated against the Corona virus inside restaurants without masks, as part of measures to increase vaccination rates.
The Kremlin said Russia will fail to vaccinate 60 percent of its population by the fall as planned due to slowing demand for injections, after the country recorded the highest number of daily deaths from the virus.
In the Middle eastOman said it is expanding its vaccination campaign to anyone over the age of 18, as it speeds up what has been the slowest deployment in the Gulf.
-From Reuters, last updated at 7:30 a.m. ET
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