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. 5:53 a.m.: A number of fishing crew who flew into New Zealand on chartered planes have the coronavirus. Health officials said Tuesday that 11 have tested positive so far and another 14 cases are being investigated. The crew members have been in quarantine at a Christchurch hotel since they arrived, and tested positive during routine testing, officials said. The news could deal a blow to New Zealand’s efforts to restart its fishing industry, which has struggled to find local workers to crew vessels. Jeremy Helson, the chief executive of Seafood New Zealand, said all the men tested negative before flying to New Zealand. “While we await to see how many cases there are, the fact that they were all detected in quarantine shows the system is working well,” Helson said in a statement. The origin of the infected crew members wasn’t immediately clear, although a number of fishing crew have been arriving in New Zealand in recent days from Russia and Ukraine. New Zealand has managed to stamp out community spread of the virus. 5:51 a.m.: Near the end of September, with coronavirus cases falling and more schools and businesses reopening, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration urged restraint, citing a statistical model that predicted a startling 89-per-cent increase in virus hospitalizations in the next month. That hasn’t happened. Instead, state data shows hospitalizations have fallen by about 15 per cent since that warning while the weekly average number of new cases continues to decline even as other more populous states like Florida, Ohio and Illinois see increases. California’s good news isn’t enough to change what Newsom calls his “slow” and “stubborn” approach to reopening the world’s fifth-largest economy. He again cautioned people against “being overly exuberant” about those coronavirus numbers, pointing to a “decline in the rate of decline” of hospitalizations. 5:50 a.m.: A Cabinet minister says Pakistan has witnessed a 140 per-cent increase in fatalities from COVID-19 in recent weeks due to widespread violations of social distancing rules. Asad Umar, the planning and development minister who oversees Pakistan’s response to coronavirus, warned on Twitter “We will lose both lives and livelihoods” if people did not adhere to social distancing rules. His comments Tuesday came shortly after the military-backed Command and Operations Center reported 14 deaths and 625 new cases in the past 24 hours. Prime Minister Imran Khan had warned on Monday that Pakistan’s big cities could face a second wave of COVID-19 in the coming weeks because of increasing pollution in winter. Pakistan has reported 324,084 cases, including 6,673 COVID-19 deaths. 5:49 a.m.: As Argentina passed 1 million virus cases Monday, it is now smaller cities like Ushuaia that are seeing some of the most notable upticks. Doctors have had to quadruple the number of beds for COVID-19 patients over the last month. At least 60 per cent of those tested recently are coming back positive for the virus. “We were the example of the country,” said Dr. Carlos Guglielmi, director of the Ushuaia Regional Hospital. “Evidently someone arrived with the coronavirus.” Across Latin America, three other nations are expected to reach the 1 million case milestone in the coming weeks — Colombia, Mexico and Peru. The grim mark comes as Latin America continues to register some of the world’s highest daily case counts. And though some nations have seen important declines, overall there has been little relief, with cases dropping in one municipality only to escalate in another. The trajectory is showing that the pandemic is likely to leave no corner of Latin America unscathed. 5:44 a.m.: Canadians continue to experience mental health difficulties due to the pandemic, with one in four saying their stress level is higher than during the first COVID-19 wave, according to a new poll. The online survey by Leger and the Association for Canadian Studies found that only 19 per cent of Canadians say their mental health is better now than in March and April as infection rates tick up and autumn sets in. However, about 54 per cent said their mental state is about the same as when the coronavirus first struck the country. Participants cited concerns about the length and severity of the pandemic as their biggest source of anxiety, followed closely by social isolation and family health. “If we cannot see extended family during the holidays and rekindle that positive energy that we get from family and friends, it might lead to a long winter,” said Leger executive vice-president Christian Bourque. “It’s almost like, when is this thing going to end?” Read the full story from the Canadian Press here. 4 a.m.: The latest numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Canada as of 4 a.m. EDT on Oct. 20, 2020: There are 200,939 confirmed cases in Canada. -Quebec: 94,429 confirmed (including 6,044 deaths, 79,529 resolved) -Ontario: 65,075 confirmed (including 3,050 deaths, 55,978 resolved) -Alberta: 22,673 confirmed (including 292 deaths, 19,243 resolved) -British Columbia: 11,687 confirmed (including 253 deaths, 9,753 resolved) -Manitoba: 3,382 confirmed (including 42 deaths, 1,597 resolved) -Saskatchewan: 2,396 confirmed (including 25 deaths, 1,973 resolved) -Nova Scotia: 1,097 confirmed (including 65 deaths, 1,026 resolved) -New Brunswick: 313 confirmed (including 3 deaths, 207 resolved) -Newfoundland and Labrador: 287 confirmed (including 4 deaths, 272 resolved) -Prince Edward Island: 63 confirmed (including 60 resolved) -Yukon: 17 confirmed (including 15 resolved) -Repatriated Canadians: 13 confirmed (including 13 resolved) -Northwest Territories: 5 confirmed (including 5 resolved), 3 presumptive -Nunavut: No confirmed cases Total: 201,440 (3 presumptive, 201,437 confirmed including 9,778 deaths, 169,671 resolved) Monday 6:35 p.m.: The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health has reported a COVID-19 outbreak at its Queen Street West site, with five patients testing positive for the virus. It is the first outbreak at Canada’s largest mental health hospital since April. Two patients were said to have COVID-19 on Sunday. By Monday at 5 p.m., CAMH updated their website to reveal three more patients had tested positive, bringing the total to five current patients with the virus. The new outbreak brings the number of patients who have tested positive for the virus at CAMH to 29 since the pandemic began. Nineteen have since recovered and three were discharged. Read the full story from Nadine Yousif here. |