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.
7:23 a.m. Halton Region is reporting a new COVID-19 outbreak in Burlington. The outbreak at a congregate living space in the city was declared May 2 but revealed Tuesday.
Unless there is a broader public safety risk or an appeal for contact tracing, the Halton Region generally doesn’t reveal the names or addresses of certain places with outbreaks, including workplaces and congregate living spaces.
Outbreaks in congregate living settings include places where people live together, such as shelters, group homes or prisons, but not private households.
6:42 a.m. India said that deaths in 2020 rose at a slower pace than previous years despite the proliferation of the novel coronavirus, in a data release that will likely add to long-standing skepticism over the government’s official COVID figures.
The country recorded a total of 8.12 million deaths in 2020, a 6.2% increase from the year before. That compares with a year-on-year increase of almost 10% in 2019 and 7.5% in 2018 — the pre-pandemic, COVID-free years — data show.
While India’s most devastating infection wave was in 2021 and not 2020, the first year of the pandemic saw most countries report a substantial uptick in overall fatalities as the virus raced through populations before vaccines became available. In 2020, India recorded almost 10.3 million infections and 148,738 deaths. Its modest mortality figures are likely to add to controversy over the government’s attempts to play down the scars COVID has left on the country. Several models have pegged India’s fatality count many times higher.
Officials have clashed with the World Health Organization over a yet-to-be-released report that says India’s official COVID death toll is at least 4 million, the highest in the world, the New York Times reported last month. India, which officially acknowledges a little over 523,900 COVID deaths so far, criticized WHO’s method of calculating COVID mortality data soon after NYT’s report was published.
6:41 a.m. Shanghai’s final exit from a punishing five-week lockdown is being delayed by COVID-19 infections persistently appearing in the community, despite China’s hard-line strategy of isolating all positive cases and their close contacts.
While total cases in the financial hub keep falling — 4,982 infections were reported for Tuesday, down from 5,669 on Monday — community spread remains stubbornly present. After briefly hitting zero late last week, the count has bounced back to more than 50 a day this month.
6:40 a.m. Severe COVID-19 may cause long-lasting cognitive impairment, similar to how much brainpower 70-year-olds typically have lost compared to age 50, a new study found, adding to preliminary evidence that infections may inhibit survivors’ intellectual capabilities.
The study of 46 patients, who were assessed six to ten months after being hospitalized, showed slower and less accurate responses than what was expected for their age and demographic profile. Those patients who required ventilators and organ support scored even worse. The effect was sudden, as it was the equivalent of aging 20 years intellectually within the span of a few months.
The impairment is equivalent to losing about 10 IQ points, said co-author Adam Hampshire, a professor of restorative neurosciences at Imperial College London, in an interview. He added that his team observed a very slow recovery among the case subjects, if any at all. “That will have an impact on the person’s daily function, their ability to work and go on about their lives.”
In England alone, over 40,000 COVID-19 survivors could encounter these cognitive difficulties, according to estimates by the research team. That’s a conservative estimate, Hampshire said.
The study, which was published in the journal eClinicalMedicine, adds to a growing body of research that suggests that people who have recovered from COVID-19, including patients with milder symptoms, may struggle with cognitive functions like problem solving and could have difficulties finding words or possibly suffer “brain fog.”
6:40 a.m.: Beijing on Wednesday closed around 10% of the stations in its vast subway system as an additional measure against the spread of the coronavirus.
The subway authority in a brief message said only that the closure of 40 mostly downtown stations was being taken as part of epidemic control measures. No date for resumption of service was given.
Beijing has been on high alert for the spread of COVID-19, with restaurants and bars limited to takeout only, gyms closed and classes suspended indefinitely. Major tourist sites in the city, including the Forbidden City and the Beijing Zoo, have closed their indoor exhibition halls and are operating at only partial capacity.
A few communities where cases were discovered have been isolated. People residing in “controlled” areas have been told to stay within city limits, including 12 areas considered high-risk and another 35 considered medium-risk.
City residents are required to undergo three tests throughout the week as authorities seek to detect and isolate cases without imposing the sort of sweeping lockdowns seen in Shanghai and elsewhere. A negative test result obtained within the previous 48 hours is required to gain entry to most public spaces.
Beijing on Wednesday recorded just 51 new cases, five of them asymptomatic.
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