The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world Thursday. This file will be updated throughout the day. Web links to longer stories if available.
6:14 a.m. The Toronto Zoo is reopening Thursday, 10 days after most restrictions eased in the province.
Zoo management said, in a statement posted on Facebook, the delay is “to work on some exciting new elements” being added to the facility.
Patrons will have to show their vaccine certificates with QR codes, along with a piece of ID, to enter the zoo, the statement added.
Read the full story from the Star’s Akrit Michael
5:40 a.m.. Coronavirus cases continue to rise rapidly in Tonga, and tests have confirmed that the particularly contagious omicron variant is behind the isolated Pacific island nation’s first community outbreak since the start of the pandemic, officials said Thursday.
Health Minister Saia Piukala told reporters that 31 more people had tested positive for the virus, nearly doubling Tonga’s active cases for the second day in a row to a total of 64, the online Matangi Tonga news portal and other media reported.
While the number may seem small, the nation of 105,000 had managed to escape thus far without any infections aside from a single case brought in from a missionary returning to Tonga from Africa last October, which was successfully isolated.
5:37 a.m. Casting the spreading “Freedom Convoy” protests as a serious threat to Canada, the federal government is settingtling into a back-seat role in the crisis, offering to send police reinforcements to the local officials leading the responses.
Federal ministers outlined the seriousness of the blockades that have now spread across the country, with blockades against COVID-19 health measures choking off key border crossings and threatening jobs, public safety and millions of dollars in trade.
At the same time, police in Ottawa sent their toughest warning yet to protesters occupying the streets of the capital: clear out or face the prospect of arrest.
Read the full story from the Star’s Raisa Patel
5:36 a.m. As countries in Europe and other provinces in Canada begin lifting COVID restrictions, some Ontarians may be wondering why they still have to live with them.
Unlike in Alberta, Saskatchewan and some US states and European countries, there are no immediate plans to do away with mask or vaccine mandates in Ontario, Health Minister Christine Elliott said at a press conference Wednesday.
This is despite Ontario’s COVID situation looking bright, according to Dr. Peter Jüni, scientific director of Ontario’s COVID-19 science table. Though it’s hard to gauge the true presence of COVID in the province, as the speed with which Omicron spread became too much for our testing infrastructure, techniques like wastewater surveillance seem to show Ontario is on the other side of Omicron’s peak.
Read the full story from the Star’s Ben Cohen
5:27 a.m. A teachers’ strike has paralyzed learning at many Zimbabwean schools, which opened this week after a prolonged closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Harare, some schools managed to open Thursday while at others a few teachers reported for work but did not teach, according to unions. The government denounced the strike as “unwarranted conduct” that is depriving children of their right to education.
Many teachers decided to stay at home to protest salaries of about $100 a month. They are demanding that their pay be increased to about $500 per month.
In 2018, teachers earned the equivalent of about $540 a month but that amount has been eroded by years of inflation, currently estimated at 60%, and the devaluation of Zimbabwe’s currency.
4 a.m. Dr. Kieran Moore’s weekly COVID-19 news conference comes a day after the province’s health minister said Ontario will keep its mask mandate and vaccine certificate system in place.
Christine Elliott said Ontario won’t follow the lead of other provinces that have already begun lifting proof-of-vaccination rules and intend to end masking rules soon. She didn’t say when those policies would end, but said the province expects mask rules will remain in place for “some time.”
Moore’s news conference also comes after the province began making rapid test kits available for free at grocery stores, pharmacies and other sites. Elliott said expanding access to the tests is part of Ontario’s plan to roll back COVID-19 restrictions in stages.
Thursday 4 a.m. The NDP is calling on the US ambassador to testify before the House of Commons foreign affairs committee, saying American funding of the nearly two-week-long anti-vaccine mandate protest in Ottawa is an attack on Canada’s democracy.
A significant amount of the more than $10 million in donations to the demonstration came from US donors.
The Commons committee meets today and would need unanimous consent of all parties to issue an invitation to Ambassador David Cohen.
Protesters have been warned by police that if they continue blocking streets they could be charged with mischief to property, have their vehicles and other property seized and possibly forfeited, and that charges or convictions may lead to them being barred from traveling to the United States.
The declaration from police comes after municipal officials in Ottawa spoke with the federal government to find solutions to end the protest that has sparked solidarity rallies, some of which have blocked traffic at border crossings in Coutts, Alta., and the busy Windsor-Detroit Ambassador Bridge crossing.
Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair says Ottawa residents have been subjected to “acts of thuggery and disrespect” by demonstrators, and the government is working to ensure Ottawa police have the “resources that they need to enforce the law to restore public order and to bring this unlawful protest to an end.”
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