The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world on Thursday. This file will be updated throughout the day. Web links to longer stories if available.
6:43 am: Canada’s top physician says urgent action is needed to curb the spread of Omicron, which is now the dominant strain of COVID-19 in several provinces.
Public Health Director Dr. Theresa Tam said Wednesday that there were more than 11,300 new infections nationwide the day before, compared to an average of 5,000 cases per day last week.
She said modeling shows that the case count could be “very high” in early January.
On Wednesday night, Quebec Prime Minister Francois Legault announced new restrictions as the province recorded approximately 9,000 new COVID-19 cases.
Starting on Boxing Day, he said, private gatherings in the province will be limited to six people or bubbles from two families.
The restaurants, which are already operating at half capacity and must close at 10 p.m., will also have to limit groups at tables to six people or two families.
Several provinces have recently reinstated stricter public health measures in response to Omicron, including limits on social gatherings and the closure of some businesses.
Meanwhile, a self-isolating prime minister, Justin Trudeau, is rebuffing critics who say his government has foiled the Omicron wave of COVID-19.
Trudeau told reporters Wednesday that they have been hard at work and learning a lot about COVID for the past two years. He added that the government tried to curb the introduction of Omicron into Canada by instituting border restrictions and testing requirements.
6:23 am: Australia reports a major spike in coronavirus infections a day after Prime Minister Scott Morrison rejected lockdowns or masking mandates to slow the spread of the omicron variant.
The country’s most populous state, New South Wales, recorded 5,715 new cases on Thursday. That was up from 3,763 the day before and nearly as many as was recorded across Australia on Wednesday.
There were 347 people in NSW hospitals, up from 302 the day before, and 45 in intensive care units, up from 40.
The state of Victoria also saw a sharp increase, reporting 2,005 new infections on Thursday.
Morrison called for a cabinet meeting with leaders of Australia’s states and territories on Wednesday, but ruled out closures.
6:23 am: South Korea has set a record for daily deaths from COVID-19 as it struggles to resolve a hospital bed shortage amid weeks of increasing cases.
The Korea Disease Prevention and Control Agency said on Thursday that 109 people died in the last 24-hour period. That brought the country’s total number of pandemic deaths to 5,015.
The agency reported 6,919 new cases of coronavirus, the vast majority of them related to the Delta variant.
Infections spiked after South Korea significantly relaxed its pandemic restrictions in early November as part of its efforts to restore pre-pandemic normalcy. Alarmed by the increase, health authorities on Saturday reinstated the country’s strictest distancing rules, such as a four-person limit in private gatherings and a 9 p.m. curfew for restaurants and cafes.
6:23 am: An Israeli hospital says a man reportedly killed by the omicron variant of the coronavirus was found to have the Delta variant.
Israeli health officials reported the death earlier this week. He would have been the first omicron victim in the country.
Soroka Hospital, located in the southern city of Beersheba, said Thursday that final test results from the Israeli Health Ministry indicated the man was infected with delta.
Israel has identified 341 cases of omicron. It has significantly restricted air traffic in and out of the country and is imposing a series of public restrictions to prevent the spread of the highly contagious variant.
The director of the Ministry of Health is also considering the possibility of administering a second booster vaccine to groups at risk, following a recommendation from a medical advisory group.
Israel, a country of 9.3 million people, has reported more than 8,200 deaths from COVID-19 during the pandemic.
6:23 am: Germany’s health minister expects an increase in coronavirus cases around the New Year.
Health Minister Karl Lauterbach told the WDR 2 public radio network on Thursday that Germany has not seen a large and rapid wave of new infections of the omicron variant, which has already affected other European countries such as Britain.
Lauterbach said that would change “around the New Year and in the first week of January.”
The government is urging Germans to limit their contacts during the holiday period and get vaccinated, even with booster doses if they already had the starting doses.
Official figures show that 70.7% of Germany’s population received a first round of vaccines, while 35% have received boosters.
Police said some 5,000 people gathered in central Munich on Wednesday night to protest against pandemic restrictions and a planned vaccine mandate. Some participants attacked the officers and 11 people were detained, police said.
6:22 am: China is redoubling its efforts to control new virus outbreaks by blocking the 13 million residents of the northern city of Xi’an following a surge in coronavirus cases.
The move comes just weeks before the country hosts the Winter Olympics in Beijing, roughly 1,000 kilometers (625 miles) to the northeast.
There was no information on whether the virus was the newly emerging omicron variant or the much more common delta. China has reported just seven cases of omicron: four in the southern manufacturing hub of Guangzhou, two in the southern city of Changsha and one in the northern port of Tianjin.
China has also been grappling with a substantial coronavirus outbreak in several cities in eastern Zhejiang province, near Shanghai, although isolation measures there have been more specific.
Authorities have adopted strict measures to control the pandemic under their policy of trying to zero out new transmissions, leading to frequent blackouts, universal masking and mass testing. While the policy has not been entirely successful and has led to massive disruptions to travel and trade, Beijing is largely credited with containing the spread of the virus.
Xi’an’s restrictions are some of the toughest since China imposed a strict lockdown on more than 11 million people in and around the central city of Wuhan in 2020, where the coronavirus was first detected in late 2019. .
Xi’an reported another 63 locally transmitted cases on Thursday, bringing the city’s total to at least 211 over the past week. Xi’an is the capital of Shaanxi Province, famous for its imperial relics, as well as an important industrial center.
6:20 am: The national statistics office is scheduled to say this morning what the pace of economic growth was in October and take a first look at the November figure.
Last month, preliminary data from Statistics Canada suggested that the economy grew 0.8 percent in October to start the last quarter of the year.
The agency said the estimate places total economic activity about 0.5 percent below the pre-pandemic level recorded in February 2020.
RBC economists Nathan Janzen and Claire Fan say they expect today’s report on gross domestic product to show that the final October figure matches the preliminary estimate.
The duo say positive retail, wholesale and manufacturing sales figures helped fuel growth in October, all of which is linked to a rebound in the auto sector after a slow September.
Janzen and Fan also expect the initial GDP estimate for November to show growth at a pace of 0.7%.
Reference-www.thestar.com