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.
7:45 a.m.: Percylla Battista said she last spoke to her sister, Maggie Quart Robitaille, a week before Quart Robitaille tested positive for COVID-19.
“She was feeling pretty good,” Battista said in a recent interview. “She did n’t think she would get COVID because she had already been vaccinated four times.”
But on April 13, Quart Robitaille died at age 82, less than two weeks after testing positive for COVID-19. She was among the 3,325 people reported to have died in the province from the novel coronavirus since the Omicron wave started in mid-December.
While vaccination and improved treatment have made COVID-19 less deadly, Quebec reported Saturday that there have been 15,000 deaths attributed to the pandemic in the province — the most in Canada. Quebec’s death rate also remains the highest in the country, at 174 deaths per 100,000 people. In Ontario, there have been 86 deaths per 100,000 people. Across Canada, there have been 102.
Simona Bignami, a demography professor at Université de Montréal who studies population health, said less attention is being paid to people who have recently died of the disease, like Quart Robitaille, compared to those who died during the pandemic’s first wave, which killed more than 5,686 people.
It’s understandable, Bignami said in a recent interview, that people are trying to regain some sense of normalcy. But in doing so, she said, “there has been, unfortunately, less emphasis on the people who continue to die of COVID-19.”
7:43 a.m.: The Rolling Thunder rally is set to wind down today after arriving in Ottawa Friday afternoon, bringing large crowds to a downtown core that’s still tense after the three-week-long occupation in February.
Saturday’s protests remained mostly peaceful, with crowds taking part in a ceremony at the War Memorial in the morning followed by a motorcycle drive-by and an afternoon rally on Parliament Hill.
Ottawa police have called in backup from RCMP, OPP and a number of municipal forces.
Steve Bell, the city’s interim police chief, has warned the protesters they will not be allowed to start a long-term occupation this time. But Centerville Community Association president Mary Huang says the real test will be in seeing whether people actually leave.
Police say that since Friday more than 560 tickets have been issued for a variety of infractions, dozens of vehicles have been towed, and several protesters have been charged with alleged offenses that include assaulting police.
A spokeswoman for Freedom Fighters Canada, one of the groups organizing the events, says a church service is all that’s scheduled to take place today.
Sunday 7:41 a.m.: Many Chinese are marking a quiet May Day holiday this year as the government’s zero-COVID approach restricts travel and enforces lockdowns in multiple cities.
All restaurants in Beijing are closed to dine-in customers from Sunday through the end of the holiday on Wednesday, open only for takeout and delivery. Parks and tourist attractions in the Chinese capital are limited to 50% of their capacity. The Universal Studios theme park in Beijing, which opened last year, said it had shut down temporarily.
The pandemic situation varies across the vast nation of 1.4 billion people, but the Transport Ministry said last week that it expected 100 million trips to be taken from Saturday to Wednesday, which would be down 60% from last year. Many of those who are traveling are staying within their province as local governments discourage or restrict cross-border travel to try to keep out new infections.
China is sticking to a strict zero-COVID policy even as many other countries are easing restrictions and seeing if they can live with the virus. Much of Shanghai — China’s largest city and a finance, manufacturing and shipping hub — remains locked down, disrupting people’s lives and dealing a blow to the economy.
Read Saturday’s coronavirus news.
JOIN THE CONVERSATION
Anyone can read Conversations, but to contribute, you should be a registered Torstar account holder. If you do not yet have a Torstar account, you can create one now (it is free)