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.
6:02 am: Public Health Sudbury and Districts reported 30 new COVID-19 cases in its service area on Wednesday.
According to the health unit’s website, 22 of the new cases were confirmed in Greater Sudbury, three in Sudbury district and five in Manitoulin district.
Public Health also reported 37 resolved cases.
There are now 285 active COVID-19 cases in the health unit service area, including 244 in Greater Sudbury, 30 in Sudbury District, and 11 in Manitoulin District.
Public Health has reported 3,888 COVID-19 cases and 39 COVID-related deaths since the start of the pandemic.
In addition, 1,898 confirmed cases or suspected variants of interest have been identified in the region.
Public Health declared a new COVID-19 outbreak at Northstar Recreation in Greater Sudbury on December 1.
6:01 am: Health Sciences North said in a statement Wednesday that it laid off 53 employees who refused to comply with its mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy.
A hospital spokesman said the number of terminations was “within the range expected by HSN” based on the experience of other hospitals in Ontario.
In all, 14 full-time employees, 32 part-time employees and seven casual workers, representing 1.4 percent of all hospital staff, terminated their employment on November 29 and 30.
The hospital’s mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy for all existing employees, credentialed professional staff, students, and volunteers went into effect on November 1.
“HSN respects the decision of these unvaccinated employees who, for reasons that are personal to them, decided to leave the organization,” said Jason Turnbull, manager of communications and community engagement at HSN.
Turnbull said HSN has required a complete vaccination test for all new hires, including employees, credentialed professional staff, students and volunteers, since early September.
6 am: President Joe Biden is set to launch a more urgent campaign for Americans to receive COVID-19 booster shots on Thursday as he unveils his winter plans to combat the coronavirus and its omicron variant with increased availability of injections and vaccines, but without major new restrictions.
The plan includes a requirement for private insurers to cover the cost of COVID-19 testing at home and a tightening of testing requirements for people entering the U.S. regardless of their vaccination status. But as some other nations close their borders or re-impose blockades, officials said Biden was not moving to impose additional restrictions beyond his recommendation that Americans wear masks indoors in public settings.
Biden said Wednesday that the next strategy, to be unveiled during a speech at the National Institutes of Health, will fight the virus “not with shutdowns or shutdowns, but with vaccines, boosters, testing and more widespread.”
The White House released details of Biden’s plan early Thursday before the speech.
The Biden administration has come to view the widespread adoption of booster vaccines as its most effective tool in combating COVID-19 this winter. Medical experts say the boosters provide improved and more durable protection against COVID-19, including new variants.
5:58 am: South Korea broke its daily record for coronavirus infections for the second day in a row on Thursday with more than 5,200 new cases, as pressure mounted on a health care system grappling with rising hospitalizations and deaths.
The rapid delta-driven spread comes amid the emergence of the new omicron variant, which is considered potentially more contagious than previous strains of the virus, and has fueled concerns about prolonged suffering from the pandemic.
South Korea confirmed its first five omicron cases related to arrivals from Nigeria late Wednesday, prompting the government to tighten its border controls.
The country will require all passengers arriving from abroad during the next two weeks to be quarantined for at least 10 days, regardless of their nationality or vaccination status. Since Sunday, South Korea had already banned short-term foreign travelers arriving from eight southern African countries, including South Africa, and has now extended the same rules to foreigners coming from Nigeria.
5:56 am: The federal government could be headed for a temporary shutdown, with Republicans poised to halt a funding bill that must pass in their effort to force a debate in Congress on repealing the administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates. Biden for some workers.
Conservative Republicans in the House and Senate who oppose Biden’s vaccine rules want Congress to take a hard-line position against mandatory vaccines, even if it means shutting down federal offices for the weekend.
But not all Republicans agree. One Republican senator after another walked out of a private meeting at noon Wednesday expressing concern that they will be blamed even for a brief disruption of the federal government that will not play well with the public.
Friday is a government funding deadline and Republican objections, particularly in the Senate, where any senator can delay procedures to stop a vote, could delay the passage of legislation necessary to keep federal operations running.
5:54 am: When the United Nations made its last appeal for funding for humanitarian aid before the pandemic, it asked donors for about $ 29 billion. But in the last year alone, there has been a huge increase in the number of people who need help. And so the UN is asking for more help: $ 41 billion.
As the pandemic enters a third year and the number of conflicts and climate change increases, the UN said Thursday that it needed to help 183 million people in 63 countries who are suffering the consequences. That’s compared to 100 million people at the time of the last appeal, in 2019.
More than 1% of the world’s population is now displaced by conflict and disasters, Martin Griffiths, the UN’s emergency aid coordinator, told reporters in Geneva when announcing the organization’s funding campaign for 2022. About 45 million people are now facing famine, some as a result of climate change.
The pandemic has already driven 20 million people into extreme poverty, he said, citing World Bank estimates, and the new omicron variant would further increase the economic damage. “With COVID continuing to threaten us and continue to mutate, we will continue to see an increase in humanitarian needs,” he said.
Funding needed for humanitarian aid has doubled in four years and nine national programs now require aid of more than $ 1 billion each, according to the UN. At the top of the list are Afghanistan and Syria, each needing more than $ 4 billion. It is followed by Yemen, which needs $ 3.9 billion.
5:53 am: The omicron variant of the coronavirus was first reported in the United States on Wednesday in a traveler who had been to South Africa, as scientists from around the world study whether the variant is more transmissible or virulent than its predecessors.
The San Francisco resident patient is in isolation and aggressive contact tracing is underway, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement. The person was fully vaccinated, albeit without a booster shot, and was showing mild symptoms that were improving, the agency said.
The discovery prompted the Biden administration to renew calls for everyone to get fully vaccinated and, if eligible, receive a booster. It also came when the CDC asked airlines for the names and contact information of all passengers who had boarded flights to the United States since Nov. 29 and who had been to southern Africa in the past two weeks.
The World Health Organization warned that the risk posed by the variant, which was first identified in South Africa on Thursday, is “very high.” More than 20 countries have detected the variant.
Thursday 5:52 am: Japan says it has retracted the ban on new incoming international flight bookings to defend itself against the new variant of the coronavirus just one day after the policy was announced, following criticism that it was an overreaction.
On Wednesday, the Transport Ministry issued a request to international airlines to stop taking new bookings for flights arriving in Japan until the end of December as an emergency precaution to defend against the new omicron variant.
The ministry said Thursday it had retracted the request after receiving criticism that the ban was too strict and amounted to abandoning its own people.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said the swift reversal of the policy took into account the travel needs of Japanese citizens. Kishida has been pushing for strong precautionary measures after his predecessor Yoshihide Suga all but lost his leadership position amid public criticism that his measures against the virus were too limited and too slow.
“I have instructed the Ministry of Transportation to pay full attention to the needs of Japanese citizens to return home,” Kishida said.
Read the news about the coronavirus on Wednesday.
Reference-www.thestar.com