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. 9:46 a.m. The French soccer league says Saturday’s game between Marseille and Nice has been postponed because of a coronavirus outbreak in the Nice squad. The league says at least 10 of the 30 listed players for Nice have tested positive for COVID-19 and will not be available. No new date has been set for the match. 9:45 a.m. A New England Revolution player has tested positive for COVID-19 ahead of the MLS team's playoff game Friday against the visiting Montreal Impact. The Revolution said the positive test came Sunday, with the first-team player, who was not identified, immediately self-isolating. All other members of the first team including players and staff tested negative on Sunday, as well as prior to a team session Friday. The Revolution resumed training as scheduled on Monday. New England (8-7-8) and Montreal (8-13-2) are meeting in an Eastern Conference play-in round match. 9 a.m. The Swiss soccer federation says it is waiting for UEFA to decide if its Nations League match will be played after several COVID-19 infections were found in the visiting Ukraine squad. Ukraine has had six players test positive in Switzerland. But the Ukrainian federation says two of the six should have UEFA clearance to play because Sergei Kryvtsov and Junior Moraes have antibodies after previously testing positive. Ukraine could be forced to forfeit the game. The match will decide which of the two teams is relegated to the second tier. The group also includes Germany and Spain. 8:50 a.m. Everyone participating in the provincial table that provides public health advice to senior government officials has been made to sign a non-disclosure agreement, Toronto’s board of health heard Monday. Dr. Eileen de Villa, the city’s medical officer of health, told a board of health meeting that Toronto Public Health has participated in the province’s public health measures table “since its inception.” But de Villa said she could not share any advice that table has provided to Ontario’s chief medical officer of health because TPH members have signed non-disclosure agreements, as have all other members of the table. Read the full story from the Star’s Jennifer Pagliaro 8:46 a.m. If Ontario’s hot-spot regions cannot get COVID-19 under control, stronger compulsory measures might be required to slow the spread and get a handle on the virus, epidemiologists warn. It’s a stark message that came on a day Toronto reported a record 538 new infections, four deaths and 176 hospitalizations, including 42 people in intensive care — numbers Eileen de Villa, the city’s medical officer of health, on Monday called “alarming.” “In my opinion, the walk-back of allowances has been insufficient to slow the spread in these regions,” said Raywat Deonandan, an epidemiologist at the University of Ottawa. “At the very least, targeted guidance is warranted in some regions. People must reduce their daily exposures, if not voluntarily then perhaps on a compulsory basis.” Colin Furness, an infection control epidemiologist at the University of Toronto, echoed Deonandan’s comments and suggested a lockdown is the only tool Ontario would have left if hospitals inch closer to becoming overwhelmed. Read the full story from the Star’s Jenna Moon and Kenyon Wallace 8:25 a.m. An area in the northeast corner of Brampton has a “shocking” 19 per cent COVID-19 test positivity rate — a rate double that of the U.S. — and is leading a list of 30 Greater Toronto neighbourhoods that are seeing alarming numbers of people testing positive for the virus, new data shows. Peel as a whole is recording a per cent positivity of 9.8 per cent — the highest in the GTA — while neighbourhoods in northwestern Toronto, Scarborough, and southern York Region are also reporting sky-high rates, according to a first-time look at an analysis conducted by the Toronto-based non-profit ICES (formerly the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences). The data covers the first week of November, the most recent time period of which per cent positivity rates are available, and is broken down by postal code to provide a detailed picture of the local severity of the pandemic. “It’s shocking,” said Dr. Jeff Kwong, a senior scientist at ICES, of the positivity rate in the Brampton neighbourhood north of Queen Street East and east of Airport Road where one in five people test positive for the virus. “It may not be as high as some countries like Italy, but it is five times higher than Ontario overall and double the positivity in the U.S.” Read the full story from Megan Ogilvie, Kenyon Wallace and Jennifer Yang 8:20 a.m. One week. Two vaccines heralding promise. Maybe three more months before COVID-19 vaccine jabs could start being delivered to somewhere in Canada. Canada took another step toward that milestone Monday when the federal government announced the names of four main bidders who have been selected to compete for the contracts to deliver a vaccine or vaccines — once approved by Health Canada — to Canadians. On Monday, the Canadian military also flagged that it is now on standby to help. And meanwhile, just as happened in the spring, Canadian companies and innovators with outside-the-box solutions are stepping up to offer to help in Ottawa’s looming dilemma of how to store, transport and distribute potentially more than 70 million vaccine doses that have unique cold storage requirements. Read the full story from Tonda MacCharles 8:13 a.m. It was like a light bulb went off. Except instead of a light bulb, it was a mouse’s leg. Instead of electricity, the faint glow was emanating from a tiny biological process that, Derrick Rossi hoped, might have just proven his argument. It was summer 2010, and the Toronto-born stem cell biologist, then a professor at Harvard University, was trying to show that you could use a modified version of what’s called messenger RNA (or mRNA) to coax the cells of a living animal to produce a protein of your choosing. In this case, he and his team had injected the mice with the mRNA instructions to make the protein that fireflies use to light up the night. When they put the mouse under a machine designed to detect bioluminescence? A small white glow. It worked. Read the full story from Alex Boyd 7:34 a.m. George Weston Ltd. raised its dividend as it reported its latest quarterly results. The company, which operates through Loblaw, Choice Properties and Weston Foods, says its quarterly dividend will be increased to 55 cents per share, up from 52.5 cents per share. In its quarterly report, George Weston says it earned a profit available to common shareholders of $303 million or $1.96 per diluted share for its latest quarter, up from $69 million or 44 cents per diluted share a year earlier. The company says the increase was due to the favourable year-over-year net impact of adjusting items totalling $263 million. On an adjusted basis, George Weston says it earned a profit available to common shareholders of $362 million or $2.35 per diluted share, down from $391 million or $2.54 per diluted share in the same quarter last year. Revenue in the 16-week period ended Oct. 3 totalled $16.21 billion, up from $15.23 billion a year ago. 7:25 a.m. Toronto police say they had to shut down a large birthday party at a commercial storage unit that flouted COVID-19 restrictions early Monday. Police say they responded to reports of a large gathering at the building shortly after 1 a.m. and discovered over 100 people inside the storage unit. They say a 27-year-old woman was fined $750 for failing to comply with the Reopening of Ontario Act, which limits indoor gatherings to 10 people per facility. Police say their investigation is ongoing and officers are working with fire services to determine whether any fire codes were violated. 6 a.m. The Danish government said Tuesday that a majority in parliament backed its decision to cull the country’s 15 million minks over concerns about a mutated version of the virus that has spread among the animals. The government had announced the cull despite not having the right to order the killing of healthy animals, an embarrassing misstep that caused it to scramble to build political consensus for a new law. The one-party Social Democratic, minority government made a deal late Monday with four left-leaning and centre parties to support a law proposal that would allow for the culling of all mink, including those outside northern Denmark where infections have been found. The law proposal also bans mink farming until the end of 2021. “There is now an agreement that will take care of that,” Mogens Jensen, the agriculture minister, said parliament. “I would like to apologize to the Danish mink breeders that it was not made clear that there was no legal basis.” It was unclear when a parliamentary vote would take place. The mutated version of the coronavirus found among the mink can be transmitted to people, though there is no evidence so far that it is more dangerous or resistant to vaccines. Earlier this month, authorities said that 11 people were sickened by it. The government began last month killing farmed minks in the north of the country and later announced that all minks in the country should be culled, though it did not yet have the legal basis for it. There are 1,139 mink farms in Denmark, employing about 6,000 people, according to the industry. They account for 40% of global mink fur production and are the world’s biggest exporter. Most exports go to China and Hong Kong. 5:52 a.m. Austria has started a new tough lockdown meant to slow the surging spread of the coronavirus in the Alpine nation. As of Tuesday, people are only allowed to leave their homes to purchase groceries, to go to jobs deemed essential, to exercise or to help people who need assistance. All restaurants, shops, hair salons and other services have been ordered closed, and the nation’s schools have been moved to remote learning programs. Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said Monday ahead of the lockdown, which is to run through Dec. 6, that “all of social and public life will be brought down to a minimum.” Austria currently is registering more than 527 new cases per 100,000 residents over seven days — more than 10 times the rate that authorities say is sustainable. Over the last seven days it has reported 46,946 new coronavirus infections. 5:50 a.m.: It was summer 2010, and the Toronto-born stem cell biologist, then a professor at Harvard University, was trying to show that you could use a modified version of what’s called messenger RNA (or mRNA) to coax the cells of a living animal to produce a protein of your choosing. In this case, he and his team had injected the mice with the mRNA instructions to make the protein that fireflies use to light up the night. When they put the mouse under a machine designed to detect bioluminescence? A small white glow. It worked. It’s possible to draw a line, albeit a long and winding one, from that glowing mouse to promising early results released Monday for an experimental COVID-19 vaccine made by the Massachusetts-based company Moderna. The company released data, which must still be published and peer-reviewed, suggesting its vaccine candidate could be almost 95 per cent effective in preventing COVID-19. It’s a promising step in the search for a vaccine to end the coronavirus pandemic, though the study must still reach a conclusion and face the scrutiny of Canadian regulators. Moderna’s results, alongside those announced last week by Pfizer — whose RNA technology is the brain child of its partner, German startup BioNTech — are nonetheless a major validation of a brand new way of creating vaccines that has been years in the making, and which could one day be used to make other types of drugs. Read the full story by Star reporter Alex Boyd here: How this Canadian’s glowing mouse may lead to a COVID-19 vaccine 5:45 a.m. As he toured the Athletes Village on Tuesday, IOC President Thomas Bach issued a gentle plea to all competitors to get vaccinated before the Tokyo Olympics — if a vaccine is available. Bach, who is visiting Tokyo this week for the first time since the Olympics were postponed, again said the vaccine would not be a requirement, but he urged athletes and fans to help protect themselves and others. “The IOC will appeal to the athletes and other participants — in particular all those who are living here in the village — to have a vaccination,” Bach said, wearing a white mask with the Olympic rings on the right side. “But it will be their free decision. “I’m sure many, many of the athletes and the participants will follow this advice, or maybe don’t even need it and will do it on their own.” Bach also said a “reasonable number” of fans should be able to attend the Tokyo Olympics with or without a vaccine. And, before heading to the new $1.4 billion National Stadium in central Tokyo, he said confidently that the postponed games will open on July 23. Japan has controlled the virus comparatively well, with about 1,900 deaths attributed to COVID-19 in a country of about 125 million. However, cases have been rising lately, particularly in Tokyo and the northern island of Hokkaido. In a more private setting, Bach has spoken directly about Olympic athletes’ responsibility to consider the vaccine. In an on-line session last month with the IOC’s Athletes’ Commission, Bach was asked — among other things — if athletes would be “forced” to be vaccinated. The Associated Press obtained a 90-minute recording of the session, which included more than 100 athletes or their representatives. It was monitored by Kirsty Coventry, a two-time Olympic gold medallist and chairperson of the Athletes’ Commission. In that session, Bach said “we are not there yet” in terms of requiring a vaccine, but he made his feelings clear that athletes owe it to each other — and themselves — when thinking about a vaccination. “Every athlete should look at his fellow athletes and take this into consideration,” Bach said to the commission. “Because the vaccination is not just about the individual. It’s a protection for the entire community. “And there I think each and everyone of us has a responsibility in this crisis, a responsibility not just for us individually but for all of the people who surround us and who are our fellow team members, who are fellow Olympians.” Two vaccine makers have said preliminary results from their late-stage studies suggest their experimental vaccines are strongly protective. Early results provide strong signals that the vaccine could prevent a majority of disease when large groups of people are vaccinated. Not all athletes are likely to want to take the vaccine. For some it will be a question of individual liberty. Others will fear vaccines against COVID-19 are being rushed, and possibly unsafe. Some could fear falling ill after taking the vaccine, jeopardizing their Olympic chances. “We can solve this crisis like other challenges only if we are in solidarity, and if we all take responsibility,” Bach said in the online conference with athletes in early October, acknowledging some athletes would see taking the vaccine as a “sacrifice.” In Tokyo, Bach said that nurses, doctors and health care workers should be first in line for a vaccine, ahead of healthy, young athletes. As well as the 11,000 Olympic athletes, there could be tens of thousands of officials, judges, VIPs, and media and broadcasters travelling to Japan for the games. Tokyo Olympic officials and the International Olympic Committee have said that athletes testing positive at the games could be barred from competing, similar to the way a doping suspect is removed. 5:30 a.m.: Canada has reached a troubling milestone, surpassing 300,000 total COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began Health experts are alarmed — but not surprised — by the rapid growth we’ve seen over the last few weeks. The marker comes less than a month after the country reached 200,000 overall cases on Oct. 19. It took about four months for Canada to leap from 100,000 to 200,000, suggesting that even as some cases are being resolved, the spread is quickening. Caroline Colijn, an infectious disease modeller and epidemiologist with Simon Fraser University, says the growth trajectory is worrying. “We’ve seen this with Europe and the U.K. and U.S., and now across Canada — the pattern is very consistent,” she says. “This is something that can overwhelm the health-care systems in western democracies. And it can do it very rapidly.” Colijn projects Canada will reach the 400,000 total case milestone by early December, if the current trajectory holds up. 4:01 a.m.: A new poll suggests the proportion of Canadians planning to get vaccinated for COVID-19 is on the rise after encouraging initial results from Pfizer’s vaccine trial. Sixty-nine per cent of respondents said they plan to get inoculated against the novel coronavirus once Health Canada approves a vaccine that is broadly available and free, according to a survey by Léger and the Association for Canadian Studies. The number is a jump from the 63 per cent who said they would take up such an offer one month ago, and a return to levels of vaccine enthusiasm reported in a similar poll in July. Nonetheless, 22 per cent of respondents said they did not intend to receive doses of the Pfizer vaccine in particular if it were ready in the spring, despite early results that suggest a 90 per cent efficacy rate. Another 22 per cent said they did not know. Léger executive vice-president Christian Bourque attributed the apprehension to lack of familiarity with the pharmaceutical giant rather than a wave of anti-vaccination fever. “It worries me that if the vaccine or vaccines were available, we might have 20 per cent of Canadians who would reject it,” he said in an interview. “I think the public authorities will need a concerted communications effort to convince Canadians to jump on the bandwagon.” Nonetheless, only nine per cent of respondents said they think vaccines are dangerous and should not be taken or given. Meanwhile, 79 per cent said they do not hold such a belief. The proportion of Canadians who expect anti-pandemic measures to remain in place even after a vaccine becomes widely available is also notably high, Bourque said. Nearly two-thirds said they anticipated that requirements such as physical distancing, limited social gatherings and face masks in public spaces would continue after vaccination becomes widespread, while one in four weren’t sure. “It’s not like it’s going to be that great night where everybody parties all night long. People will still want themselves and their neighbours to be disciplined about this,” Bourque said. The proportion of Canadians opposed to mandatory vaccination remains higher than earlier this year, with only 42 per cent in favour — roughly in line with figures from last month but down from the nearly 60 per cent who supported the idea in May. Conducted Nov. 13 to 15, the online poll surveyed 1,522 Canadians. It cannot be assigned a margin of error because internet-based polls are not considered random samples. 4 a.m. At this point during last year’s flu season, Canada had already recorded 711 positive cases of influenza. So far this year, there have been just 17. “Influenza is way behind the eight ball here,” said Dr. Gerald Evans, chair of infectious disease in the department of medicine at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. Many health experts feared that a fall wave of COVID-19 would not only be worse than the first wave in the spring, but it would come just as seasonal flu infections started to spread, making it impossible for hospitals to keep up. COVID-19 is proving to be worse this fall, with more than 1,400 people in hospital, about one-fifth of them in critical care. The flu, however, is not. In the first week of November, not one province or territory reported a single patient hospitalized with the flu, compared with 60 during the same week a year ago. In 2019, provinces reported 147 lab-confirmed cases of flu the first week of November. This year, they reported four. This despite testing more than twice as many people for flu than usual — almost 10,000 tests done in the first week of November, compared to a six-year average of about 4,500. “The percentage of laboratory tests positive for influenza has remained at exceptionally low levels,” says the Public Health Agency of Canada’s weekly flu watch report. Signs from the Southern Hemisphere, which gets hit with flu season first, were reason to hope the “twindemic” wasn’t going to happen here. New Zealand said its flu infections were down 99.8 per cent and in Australia lab-confirmed cases of flu were down 93 per cent. In 2019, more than 800 Australians died of the flu. In 2020, that number to date is 36. South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases reported only one case of the flu out of about 4,000 random surveillance tests performed. Most years the program detects about 1,000 cases. While Canada’s flu season is still in the early days — it typically starts in late August and dies out in April — Evans said all the signs here suggest Canada will report similar numbers in the end. He said most of the credit goes to the public health measures taken to slow COVID-19, the hand washing, social distancing and mask-wearing, as well as the dramatic drop in international travel. Evans said even if travellers from abroad are getting in, they’re less likely to bring the flu with them because influenza is so low elsewhere as well. Canada is also pushing the flu vaccine harder than ever, and Canadians are listening. Although Canadian provinces ordered almost 25 per cent more flu shots than last year, many can’t keep up with demand. Alberta has already vaccinated 1.14 million people, less than a month after the vaccine became available there. In 2019, the province vaccinated 1.4 million total. Evans said a more-vaccinated population fighting back a virus that is less prevalent, is going to make this flu season a non-event. “It’s the perfect storm not to have a very good influenza season,” he said. Not only will that help hospitals cope with COVID-19, it means fewer Canadians are going to die. 2:51 a.m. South Korea said Tuesday that it will tighten social distancing rules in the greater Seoul area and some parts of eastern Gangwon province to try to suppress a coronavirus resurgence there. The announcement came as South Korea’s daily virus tally stayed above 200 for a fourth straight day. The country has been experiencing a steady increase in virus infections since it relaxed its social distancing guidelines last month. Health Minister Park Neung-hoo said it was necessary to adjust the distancing rules for two weeks to prevent a spread of the virus across the country. Under the new rules to be effective in those areas starting Thursday, authorities are banning gatherings of more than 100 people during rallies, festivals, concerts and academic events. Customers at theatres, concerts and libraries are required to sit at least one seat apart from each other, while audiences at sporting events will be limited to 30% of the stadium’s capacity. The new rules also ban dancing and moving to others’ seats at nightclubs and other high-risk entertainment facilities, and drinking and eating at karaoke rooms and concert halls. South Korea added 230 more virus cases on Tuesday, raising the country’s total to 28,998 since the pandemic began, including 494 deaths. In other developments in the Asia-Pacific region: — India’s number of new coronavirus infections in the last 24 hours dropped to 29,164 new infections, continuing a downturn. The Health Ministry on Tuesday also reported 449 new fatalities, raising the overall death toll to 130,519. With nearly 8.9 million reported cases since the pandemic began, India is the second worst-hit country behind the U.S., but it has been witnessing a steady fall in daily cases. In the last 10 days, there have been fewer than 50,000 new cases every day. In New Delhi, however, the there is still concern about the number of new infections. The city reported 3,797 new coronavirus cases and 99 fatalities in the past 24 hours, fewer than last week’s daily average of nearly 7,000 cases. But health experts say the numbers in the capital have come down because fewer tests were conducted over the weekend. Monday 10:13 p.m.: Alberta has reported its deadliest day with 20 COVID-19 deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing its total fatalities to 427 since the pandemic began. The province reported 860 new daily infections on Monday and a test positivity rate of seven per cent. There are 264 COVID-19 patients in hospital, including 57 in intensive care. The province has seen a sharp upswing in cases, recording more than 1,000 new cases for the first time on Saturday. 10:12 p.m.: British Columbia’s top doctor says she is not in favour of instituting fines for people who don’t follow the rules for wearing masks or maintaining physical distancing. Dr. Bonnie Henry said they know that certain sections of the population are disproportionately targeted when fines are handed out, including those with disabilities, the homeless and racialized communities. People need to follow common-sense rules just as they adhere to fire codes and sanitation requirements, she said at a news conference Monday. “You wouldn’t ask a business owner to operate outside of the posted business hours, nor should you expect them to bend the COVID-19 rules for you,” she said. 10:10 p.m.: Texas surpassed 20,000 confirmed coronavirus deaths Monday, as COVID-19 continues to surge in the United States. That is the second-highest death count overall in the U.S., trailing only New York, according to researchers from Johns Hopkins University. It’s the 22nd-highest per capita at 69.7 deaths per 100,000 people. So far, Texas leaders have given no indication of forthcoming restrictions to keep people from gathering and spreading the virus. Instead, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in recent days has been emphasizing that new therapeutics and vaccines are expected to become available soon. A state appeals court last week sided with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and lifted a local shutdown order in El Paso, where mobile morgues are being trucked in to help overwhelmed hospitals and funeral homes. 6:40 p.m.: Canada’s total COVID-19 case load has surpassed 300,000. It’s the latest sign of the rapidly accelerating pace of the pandemic in most of the country. The bleak milestone comes less than a month after Canada crossed the 200,000-case threshold on Oct. 19. The national tally passed 300,000 after British Columbia reported 1,959 cases this afternoon. Read Monday’s developments here. |