Today’s coronavirus news: Israel lifts indoor mask mandate as coronavirus cases drop


The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world Sunday. This file will be updated throughout the day. Web links to longer stories if available.

7:13 a.m.: Israel has lifted an indoor mask mandate in place for nearly a year as the country’s new cases of coronavirus continue to drop.

The end of the masking requirement took effect Saturday night. Masks remain mandatory in hospitals, elderly care facilities and on international flights.

Israel has seen new cases of COVID-19 drop since the peak of the latest wave of infections in January. Serious cases of coronavirus have plummeted from a high of over 1,200 during the omicron variant outbreak to around 200.

Since the start of the pandemic two years ago, Israel has recorded over 4 million cases of coronavirus and at least 10,658 deaths — over one-fifth of them since January, according to the Health Ministry.

Over 72% of the country’s 9.4 million people have at least one dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, and nearly half have received three shots.

Sunday 7:11 a.m.: Volunteers and low-level government workers in Shanghai have erected metal barriers in multiple districts to block off small streets and entrances to apartment complexes, as China hardens its strict “zero-COVID” approach in the metropolis.

In the city’s financial district, Pudong, the barriers — either thin metal sheets or mesh fences — were put up in several neighborhoods under a local government directive, according to Caixin, a Chinese business media outlet. Buildings where positive cases have been found sealed up their main entrances, with a small opening for pandemic prevention workers to pass through.

Read Saturday’s coronavirus news.

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