Today's coronavirus news: Ontario reports 146 cases, 7 deaths; Waterloo Region moving to Step 3 of reopening; U.S. infections on the rise again - Toronto Star

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

8:50 p.m.: A COVID-19 outbreak at a long-term-care home in Hamilton affecting at least nine people is believed to be linked to an unvaccinated hairdresser working in the facility, an insider told the Star.

An outbreak was initially declared Saturday in the part of St. Joseph’s Villa that houses a hair salon catering to residents of the long-term-care home, with four salon workers reported to be infected. On Monday, a home-wide outbreak was declared and non-essential visitors barred. The City of Hamilton website detailing COVID outbreaks was updated Tuesday to list five additional cases at the home — four involving residents and one visitor infection.

The on-site beauty salon and barbershop at St. Joseph’s Villa reopened on June 30, but was closed again after the outbreak was declared.

The Star’s Maria Sarrouh has the story.

7:20 p.m.: Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday that health experts don’t have enough data yet to determine whether and when to recommend extra protection for those who have already been vaccinated.

“We’re not there yet,” Fauci told Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC. “They’ll be examining data as it comes in.”

Fauci, who has become a lightning rod for right-wing anti-vaxxers, said the decision about recommending booster shots has nothing to do with the safety or effectiveness of the vaccines.

He stressed it’s more about how long the protection lasts.

“The requirement or not for a boost . . . has to do with the durability of the effectiveness,” he said. “So people are saying maybe the vaccines don’t work if they’re going to need a booster. No, not at all.”

Drugmaker Pfizer met with federal public health officials Monday to discuss the possible need for vaccine booster shots.

6:50 p.m.: El Salvador’s congress voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to impose a 90-day ban on sporting events, concerts, festivals and other mass gatherings because of a surge in coronavirus cases.

Face masks will be mandatory at any public event still allowed. Fines and closures will be assessed against any venue or organizer that violates the ban.

Officials reported 2,284 news cases in the first 10 days of July, 35 per cent more than in the same period of June.

El Salvador has so far received enough coronavirus vaccine doses to cover about half of the country’s 6.5 million people. The country has registered 81,644 coronavirus infections and 2,457 COVID-19 deaths.

The U.S. men’s national soccer team is scheduled to play its opening World Cup qualifier at El Salvador on Sept. 2, the first of 14 matches through March for eight nations trying to secure the three guaranteed berths from North and Central America and the Caribbean.

It is unclear whether that match will be played behind closed doors in San Salvador or moved to a third country. American players are to gather in Nashville, Tennessee, on Aug, 31 before heading to the match. They also play Canada on Sept. 5 in Nashville and at Honduras on Sept. 8.

6:30 p.m.: The makeshift hospital at the Vancouver Convention Centre, which was repurposed with COVID-19 overflow beds, is being shut down without ever taking patients.

Vancouver Coastal Health says it has approval from the Health Ministry to close the 271-bed site, one of several alternative care sites established as the threat of COVID-19 loomed last year.

Health Minister Adrian Dix says in a statement it’s fortunate the site didn’t have to be activated and it’s great to see the centre poised to return to its original, vibrant space.

The announcement comes as COVID-19 hospitalizations trend downward in B.C. with 66 patients currently being treated, including 14 in intensive care.

There were 33 new COVID-19 cases reported on Tuesday, for a total of 145,775 since the pandemic began.

Vancouver Coastal Health says the process to close the makeshift hospital should be complete by Friday, although there are plans to support its remobilization if needed.

5:45 p.m.: Alberta is reporting 35 new cases of COVID-19 and three more deaths.

The province says there are 112 people in hospital due to the virus, including 33 in intensive care.

There are 599 active cases in the province, with 351 of those being one of the more contagious variants of concern.

Alberta’s death toll since the pandemic began is 2,310.

5:30 p.m.: More than 80 per cent of eligible adults in B.C. have received their first shot of COVID-19 vaccine, while 49.1 per cent have had their second shot.

The B.C. Health Ministry says in a news release that the number falls slightly to 79.1 per cent of all people 12 and older in B.C. for their first shot.

B.C. is reporting 33 new cases of COVID-19 and no new deaths.

There are 66 people in hospital, 14 of whom are in intensive care.

5:10 p.m.: Canada’s soccer fields, tennis courts and swimming pools are reopening after the pandemic, but a new study finds that many girls across the country may not go back to the sports they loved.

A study released by Canadian Women & Sport and E-Alliance on Tuesday found one in four girls who participated in sport at least once a week before COVID-19 has not committed to returning.

That could mean 350,000 girls miss out on the benefits and even more kids could be impacted down the road, said Canadian Women & Sport CEO Allison Sandmeyer-Graves.

“The risk of that is that snowball effect,” she said. “Because as girls drop out, the girls still playing, they see their friends leaving. And then they have fewer girls to play with and fewer opportunities for competition. And so it really starts to diminish the quality of their experience and makes it more likely that they’ll leave sport as well.”

4:45 p.m.: Young people in Ontario have the highest rates of COVID-19 infection among unvaccinated individuals, the province’s top doctor said Tuesday as he called again for all those eligible to get their shots.

Over the last three months, 96 per cent of people between the ages of 19 and 29 who were infected with COVID-19 weren’t vaccinated against the virus, Dr. Kieran Moore said.

Ninety-nine per cent of infected people between the ages of 12 and 17 were unvaccinated.

“That age group is coming down with a higher rate of disease than other age groups across Ontario,” Moore said.

“They’re a key metric, because they’re the ones that are going to be going to high schools, to colleges, to universities, to workplaces, and potentially, unbeknownst to them, if they’re carrying the virus without symptoms, spreading it in those environments.”

4:40 p.m.: Toronto Public Health is reporting 34 new cases in its daily update as of Tuesday at 8:30 a.m., and no new deaths.

4:30 p.m.: Newfoundland and Labrador’s Department of Health says a second ship is anchored off the coast of Newfoundland with crew members who are infected with COVID-19.

The department issued a news release today saying there are five cases aboard the ship and one crew member is in hospital with the disease.

It says testing of the crew is ongoing and everyone on board is following public health orders as directed by the Public Health Agency of Canada.

The ship is anchored in Conception Bay, about a 20-minute drive west of St. John’s.

Last week, public health announced another ship had arrived in the area, and officials said today there are 14 crew members aboard with COVID-19.

Jim House, general manager of the Long Pond Harbour Authority, said today in an interview he doesn’t know why these ships have shown up in the bay, adding that he hopes the area doesn’t get a reputation as a go-to spot to anchor when there’s COVID-19 on board.

4:05 p.m.: Alberta says it will begin easing some remaining COVID-19 health restrictions in continuing-care centres.

The province says it will no longer limit the number of visitors, since vaccination rates are rising and there have been few cases in care homes.

Visitors will still need to be screened for COVID-19 symptoms or known exposure, and masks will still be required in common areas.

The province recommends that people wear a mask at all times when visiting a care home if they have not been fully vaccinated, including children under 12.

Limits on dining and recreation activities have been eliminated, and residents won’t be required to be screened if they are re-entering the building or go into quarantine if they have gone off site.

Long-term care facilities have until the end of the month to bring in the changes.

Remaining restrictions — including enhanced cleaning, screening, masking, testing and isolation regulations — will remain in place until the government decides it is safe to move into the next phase.

4 p.m.: The COVID-19 curve in the U.S. is rising again after months of decline, with the number of new cases per day doubling over the past three weeks, driven by the fast-spreading delta variant, lagging vaccination rates and Fourth of July gatherings.

Confirmed infections climbed to an average of about 23,600 a day on Monday, up from 11,300 on June 23, according to Johns Hopkins University data. And all but two states — Maine and South Dakota — reported that case numbers have gone up over the past two weeks.

“It is certainly no coincidence that we are looking at exactly the time that we would expect cases to be occurring after the July Fourth weekend,” said Dr. Bill Powderly, co-director of the infectious-disease division at Washington University’s School of Medicine in St. Louis.

At the same time, parts of the country are running up against deep vaccine resistance, while the highly contagious mutant version of the coronavirus that was first detected in India is accounting for an ever-larger share of infections.

4 p.m.: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says there are ways to improve Canada’s early pandemic alert and response systems, but insists Canada’s top public health officials did start building a national response to COVID-19 very early on.

Trudeau says he welcomes a report the government commissioned reviewing Canada’s Global Public Health Intelligence Network, known as GPHIN, which was published Monday.

Health Minister Patty Hajdu ordered the review last year after concerns some Public Health Agency of Canada scientists raised concerns that early warnings about COVID-19 were ignored.

3:35 p.m.: Saskatchewan is reporting 27 new cases of COVID-19 today, and no new deaths.

Forty-seven more people have recovered, leaving the province with 375 active cases.

The province is also reporting 57 people in hospital, including 10 in intensive care.

Provincewide, 73 per cent of those aged 12 and older have now received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

Fifty-five per cent of those 12 and older are fully vaccinated.

3 p.m. (Updated): The death toll from a fire that swept through a hospital coronavirus ward in Iraq climbed to 92 on Tuesday as anguished relatives buried their loved ones and lashed out at the government over the country’s second such disaster in less than three months.

Health officials said scores of others were injured in the blaze that erupted Monday at al-Hussein Teaching Hospital in Nasiriyah.

Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi convened an emergency meeting and ordered the suspension and arrest of the health director in Dhi Qar provice, the hospital director and the city’s civil defense chief. The government also launched an investigation.

The prime minister called the catastrophe “a deep wound in the consciousness of all Iraqis.”

2:35 p.m.: Representatives of Pfizer met privately with senior U.S. scientists and regulators Monday to press their case for swift authorization of coronavirus booster vaccines, amid growing public confusion about whether they will be needed and pushback from federal health officials who say the extra doses are not necessary now.

The high-level online meeting, which lasted an hour and involved Pfizer’s chief scientific officer briefing virtually every top doctor in the federal government, came on the same day Israel started administering third doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to heart transplant patients and others with compromised immune systems.

Officials said after the meeting that more data — and possibly several more months — would be needed before regulators could determine whether booster shots were necessary.

The twin developments underscored the intensifying debate about whether booster shots are needed in the United States, at what point and for whom.

Many American experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, U.S. President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser for the pandemic, have said there is insufficient evidence yet that boosters are necessary. Some, though, say Israel’s move may foreshadow a government decision to at least recommend them for the vulnerable.

2:30 p.m.: Nova Scotia is reporting one new case of COVID-19 today.

Health officials say there are 31 active infections in the province.

The government is moving the province into Phase 4 of its reopening plan Thursday.

Under the new rules, retail stores can operate at full capacity, churches and other venues can operate at half capacity or with a maximum of 150 people, and up to 50 people can attend outdoor family gatherings.

2 p.m. Bianca Andreescu says she has withdrawn from Canada’s Olympic tennis team.

The 21-year-old from Mississauga posted on her Instagram account that she is pulling out of the Games due to pandemic-related challenges.

A state of emergency took effect in Tokyo on Monday as the number of new COVID-19 cases is climbing fast and hospital beds are starting to fill just 11 days ahead of the Olympics.

The state of emergency will cover the entire duration of the July 23-Aug. 8 Games, and means fans will be banned from attending events.

1:53 p.m. Manitoba is reporting 25 new cases of COVID-19 and one death.

However, two earlier cases have been removed due to data correction, leaving a net increase of 23.

The five-day test positivity rate is 4.5 per cent provincially and four per cent in Winnipeg.

1:35 p.m.: Shares of Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and AstraZeneca (AZN) eased Tuesday after a report said they’re researching whether adjusting their COVID vaccines can cut the risk of rare but serious blood clots.

Knowledgeable sources provided the information to The Wall Street Journal.

Some of them said research has progressed to the point where the cause of the clots may be identified and the AstraZeneca vaccine may be changed by next year.

The risk of clotting combined with low blood platelets after the AstraZeneca shot is 1 to 2 per 100,000 vaccinations, according to European data, The Journal reports.

On Monday, The Washington Post reported that J&J would soon face a new warning for its COVID vaccine from the Food and Drug Administration.

The warning says “the shot has been linked to a serious but rare side effect — Guillain-Barré syndrome, in which the immune system attacks the nerves, according to four individuals familiar with the situation,” according to The Post.

1:15 p.m. New Brunswick says 52 per cent of residents over 12 are fully vaccinated and 80 per cent have received at least one dose.

Chief medical officer of health Dr. Jennifer Russell is encouraging people to get their second shots in an effort to reach a target of fully vaccinating 75 per cent of eligible New Brunswickers.

Health officials are reporting no new cases of COVID-19 Tuesday.

New Brunswick has four active reported cases and no one in hospital with the disease.

12:45 p.m. Quebec residents who have recovered from COVID-19 can get a second shot of vaccine if they need to travel.

The province considers people who have had COVID-19 and a single dose of vaccine to be adequately vaccinated, but the federal government requires people receive two doses of a two-shot COVID-19 vaccine to return to Canada without having to isolate for two weeks.

The Health Department said in a news release on Monday that people who have already had COVID-19 and one dose can get a second one if they plan to travel to countries that require tourists be vaccinated with two doses.

Quebec’s immunization committee says people who have recovered from COVID-19 generally have a higher level of antibodies against the virus after a single shot of vaccine compared to people who have never had the disease but have had two doses.

It adds that while there is a near absence of additional protection from a second dose for people who have had the disease, there are no additional dangers.

Quebec is reporting 54 new cases of COVID-19 Tuesday and no new deaths linked to the novel coronavirus. Health officials say hospitalizations dropped by three, to 85, and 25 people were in intensive care, unchanged from the prior day.

12:34 p.m. Ontario is reporting another 146 COVID-19 cases and seven more deaths, according to its latest report released Tuesday morning.

Ontario has administered 176,834 vaccine doses since its last daily update, with 17,296,458 vaccines given in total as of 8 p.m. the previous night.

According to the Star’s vaccine tracker, 10,172,451 people in Ontario have received at least one shot. That works out to approximately 78.0 per cent of the eligible population 12 years and older, and the equivalent of 69 per cent of the total population, including those not yet eligible for the vaccine.

The province says 7,124,007 people have completed their vaccinations, which means they’ve had both doses. That works out to approximately 54.7 per cent of the eligible population 12 years and older, and the equivalent of 48.4 per cent of the total population, including those not yet eligible for the vaccine.

Read the full story from the Star’s Urbi Khan

12:10 p.m. Vaccines will be mandatory to return to at least one college campus in the GTA this September.

Seneca College will require all students and staff, including those in its two residences, to get vaccinated against COVID-19 “for in-person teaching, learning and working.”

The mandate will be effective starting Sept. 7. However, the college has not yet finalized its vaccination policy. It is unclear whether partially vaccinated individuals will be allowed to return on campus.

Meanwhile, students who choose not to be vaccinated, “will need to take a program that is offered either online or in a flexible delivery format,” Seneca spokesperson Caroline Grech told the Star.

Read the full story from the Star’s Anushka Yadav

12 p.m. Canada has passed the halfway point in vaccinations.

As of Monday, more than 50 per cent of eligible Canadians — at least 12 years old — have had their second shot.

That means 16.9 million Canadians now have had both required doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.

More than 10 million of them received their second dose at least 14 days ago, the time period after which the immune system has reacted enough so you are considered to be fully vaccinated.

Provinces logged almost 450,000 second doses Monday, though that number includes second doses in some provinces given over the weekend.

Canada is also edging closer to hitting 80 per cent of eligible people at least partially vaccinated, with 79.11 per cent of people over 12 now having received at least one dose.

Manitoba, at 58 per cent, leads the way on second doses given to eligible people.

11:50 a.m. An Ontario region that delayed its reopening due to a surge in Delta COVID-19 variant cases will lift restrictions along with the rest of the province this week.

Waterloo Region says it will join other public health units in moving to Step 3 of Ontario’s reopening plan at 12:01 a.m. on Friday.

The changes will allow indoor dining and gyms to reopen, as well as expand crowd limits on social gatherings and other events.

The region delayed entering the second step of the reopening plan, which allowed hair salons and other venues to open, due to the spike in cases.

But the top doctor for the region said Tuesday that public health indicators have stabilized and vaccination rates have increased rapidly.

Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang also encouraged residents to get their second vaccine doses and continue following public health orders as the Delta variant remains a threat.

11:40 a.m. Coronavirus infections in the Netherlands skyrocketed by more than 500 per cent over the last week, the country’s public health institute reported Tuesday. The surge follows the scrapping of almost all remaining lockdown restrictions and the reopening of night clubs in late June.

The weekly update showing that nearly 52,000 people in the Netherlands tested positive for COVID-19 over the past week came a day after caretaker Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte apologized for the June 26 lockdown relaxation and called it “an error of judgment.”

Rutte backtracked Friday and reintroduced some restrictions in an attempt to rein in the soaring infection rate. Bars again have to close at midnight, while discotheques and clubs were shuttered again until at least Aug. 13.

The Netherlands, along with other European nations, is facing a rise in infections fueled by the more contagious delta variant just as governments hoped to greatly ease or eliminate remaining pandemic restrictions during the summer holiday season.

With infections rising around France, President Emmanuel Macron on Monday cranked up pressure on people to get vaccinated and said special COVID passes would be required to go into restaurants and shopping malls starting next month.

10:20 a.m. Ontario is reporting 146 COVID-19 cases and 7 deaths. Locally, there are 43 new cases in Toronto, 36 in the Region of Waterloo, 13 in Peel Region, 11 in Hamilton and 10 in Middlesex-London.

The seven-day average is down to 170 cases per day or 8.2 weekly per 100,000 & down to 4.9 deaths per day. Labs are reporting 17,489 completed tests and a 0.8% positivity rate, according to the Star’s Ed Tubb.

9:45 a.m. York Region continues its push to see residents receive COVID-19 vaccinations.

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An additional 58,000 COVID-19 vaccine appointments are being made available across York Region starting July 13, according to the municipality.

The appointments for first and second doses of the COVID-19 vaccine are available to anyone at least 12 years old who attends school, works or resides in York Region starting at 8 a.m.

The appointments are also available to people seeking earlier second-dose time slots.

9:34 a.m. (updated) The death toll from a catastrophic blaze that erupted at a coronavirus hospital ward in southern Iraq the previous day rose to 64 on Tuesday, Iraqi medical officials said.

Two health officials said more than 100 people were also injured in the fire that torched the coronavirus ward of al-Hussein Teaching Hospital in the city of Nasiriyah on Monday.

Anguished relatives were still looking for traces of their loved ones on Tuesday morning, searching through the debris of charred blankets and belongings inside the torched remains of the ward. A blackened skull of a deceased female patient from the ward was found.

Many cried openly, their tears tinged with anger, blaming both the provincial government of Dhi Qar, where Nasiriyah is located, and the federal government in Baghdad for years of mismanagement and neglect.

“The whole state system has collapsed, and who paid the price? The people inside here. These people have paid the price,” said Haidar al-Askari, who was at the scene of the blaze.

Overnight, firefighters and rescuers — many with just flashlights and using blankets to extinguish small fires still smoldering in places — had frantically worked searching through the ward in the darkness. As dawn broke, bodies covered with sheets were laid on the ground outside the hospital.

Earlier, officials had said the fire was caused by an electric short circuit, but provided no more details. Another official said the blaze erupted when an oxygen cylinder exploded. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.

The new ward, opened just three months ago, contained 70 beds.

Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi chaired an emergency meeting in the wake of the fire and ordered the suspension and arrest of the health director in Dhi Qar, as well as the director of the hospital and the city’s director of civil defense. A government investigation was also launched.

In the nearby Shiite holy city of Najaf, mourners prepared to bury some of the victims.

9:20 a.m. The number of Sydney residents in the hospital suffering from COVID-19 has increased to 65 as the Australian city struggles to contain an outbreak of the Delta variant.

Australia’s most-populous city recorded 89 new cases in the community on Tuesday from 112 the day before, with 21 infectious in the community, New South Wales state Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters. A man in his 70s has died, the second fatality in the past week from the outbreak that’s grown to more than 700 cases since mid-June.

“In the next few days we want to see those numbers go in the same direction,” Berejiklian said of the fall in cases from the day before, while emphasizing a 24-hour drop did not indicate a trend. “Our efforts will allow us to leave the lockdown in a timely way, but that is dependent on all of us doing the right thing at all times.”

The hospitalizations are a worrying sign that authorities may impose tighter movement restrictions since being placed into a lockdown on June 26, as Sydney battles its largest coronavirus outbreak in more than a year. The outbreak is highlighting the problems in the nation’s tardy vaccine rollout, which has been hit by supply-chain hold-ups from contracted drug-makers amid accusations from political rivals that Prime Minister Scott Morrison failed to secure enough doses from a wide-enough range of suppliers.

Even as other developed economies such as the U.S. and the U.K. open up, Australia is further isolating after imposing strict border restrictions when the pandemic began. The lagging vaccination rate — the second-slowest among the 38 OECD nations — has made it particularly vulnerable to the Delta variant, which is increasingly leaking out of the quarantine system for international arrivals.

9:10 a.m. Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday urged Germans to get vaccinated against COVID-19, saying the more people get the shot “the more free we will be again.”

Vaccination rates in Germany have slowed in recent weeks. About 58.7 per cent of the population has received at least one shot and 43 per cent are fully vaccinated, according to official figures.

But Germany’s disease control agency said last week that the country should aim to vaccinate 85 per cent of people ages 12-59 and 90 per cent of people over 60 to prevent the Delta variant from causing a resurgence of coronavirus cases this fall and winter.

Merkel, who has received both shots, called on people to get vaccinated to protect themselves and others from serious illness as a result of a coronavirus infection. She linked higher immunization rates with the further easing of pandemic restrictions.

“The more people are vaccinated, the more free we will be again, the more freely we will be able to live again,” she told reporters during a visit to the Robert Koch Institute, the government run disease control agency.

Germany has relaxed many restrictions on social gatherings in recent months, but people are still required to show negative test results or vaccine certificates to dine indoors and attend indoor events where capacity is limited. Masks are still required in stores.

Asked whether Germany might introduce compulsory vaccinations for certain professions, as France is doing for health workers, Merkel suggested that it wouldn’t be effective but didn’t rule out the possibility.

“I’m not ruling out that this might be talked about differently in a few months either,” she said. “But at the moment we have said we don’t want compulsory vaccinations, we want to promote vaccinations.”

Lother Wieler, the head of the Robert Koch Institute, said studies show more than 90 per cent of people in Germany are willing to get vaccinated.

8:50 a.m. American consumers faced a third straight monthly surge in prices in June, the latest evidence that a rapid reopening of the economy is fueling pent-up spending for goods and services that in many cases remain in short supply.

Tuesday’s report from the Labor Department showed that consumer prices in June rose 0.9 per cent from May and 5.4 per cent over the past year — the sharpest 12-month inflation spike since June 2008. Excluding volatile oil and gas prices, so-called core inflation rose 4.5 per cent in the past year, the largest increase since November 1991.

The pickup in inflation, which largely stems from the economy’s rapid recovery from the pandemic recession, has heightened concerns that the Federal Reserve might feel compelled to begin withdrawing its low-interest rate policies earlier than expected.

If so, that would risk weakening the economy and potentially derailing the recovery. Fed officials have repeatedly said, though, that they regard the surge in inflation as a temporary response to supply shortages and other short-term disruptions as the economy quickly bounces back.

The economy’s reopening has led consumers to increasingly travel, dine out and shop after avoiding crowds for a year. That burst of spending has forced up prices for restaurant meals, clothes, and airplane tickets. A shortage of semiconductors has made new and used cars much more expensive, and rental car prices have soared.

8:43 a.m. More than half — 56 per cent — of Ontario would-be homeowners have given up or are pessimistic that they will ever own a home. A quarter of prospective buyers, who remain optimistic, are increasingly worried about their prospects.

An online poll of 2,000 Ontario residents for the Ontario Real Estate Association (OREA) shows 45 per cent of potential buyers 18 to 29 years old have considered moving out of the province in search of more affordable housing. In the Toronto region, 26 per cent of all the residents polled have thought about moving in the last year.

Among Ontarians under age 45, 46 per cent of nonhomeowners and 34 per cent of homeowners have thought about relocating.

Read the full story from the Star’s Tess Kalinowski

7:50 a.m. The wait is nearly over for Jim Solomon.

The owner of Hone Fitness plans to wipe the dust off his treadmills and unlock the doors to his gyms this Friday at 6 a.m.

Even the crack of dawn is too late of an opening, he says. He can’t bear the thought of losing money for a second longer.

Along with the province’s movie theatres, concert venues and indoor dining, Solomon’s gyms will be among the manifold businesses poised to reopen under Ontario’s phased reopening system.

Step 3 — which comes into effect at 12:01 a.m. Friday — arrives at the nick of time for some of the hardest-hit sectors in the country, many of which have relied on government subsidies since the pandemic began. The federal business grants are poised to subside in July with the plan of being eliminated entirely by late August. Now it’s on the businesses to make up the revenue.

The reopening is “great news for us,” said Solomon. “Locker rooms will be open, showers and tanning will be available — it almost feels like we’re going back to normal.”

Read the full story from the Star’s Jacob Lorinc

7:40 a.m. Although it can sometimes seem as if digital technology has fully saturated every aspect of our lives, there are plenty of sectors that, in fact, barely use it.

There’s a pretty wide spectrum, from early adopters such as finance, professional services and media, to industries like agriculture and hospitality that could be considered holdouts.

Until recently, the health-care industry has generally occupied a position on the lower-tech end of the scale. Things are changing quickly, however, especially over the past 15 months, which saw the pandemic accelerate the digitization of health care.

“It’s not that the technology advanced profoundly during the pandemic,” says Dr. Michael Anderson, a researcher at the Waakebiness-Bryce Institute for Indigenous Health, part of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. “I think it’s the management and social structures that changed. All sorts of things have been possible from a technological perspective for a long time, but there wasn’t ever the willpower.

7:30 a.m. Thousands of AstraZeneca doses are going to waste in this country, at a time when other nations face critical vaccine shortages in their battle against COVID-19.

And with Canadian demand for AstraZeneca receding — due in no small part to changing guidance around its usage — the federal government has no plan in place to redistribute domestically or internationally those doses whose expiration date looms.

Fully one-third of the AstraZeneca doses distributed to Prince Edward Island, for example, have gone to waste. Alberta has seen nearly 4,000 doses expire. British Columbia and Ontario can’t confirm how many doses have gone unused. New Brunswick has more than 10,000 doses that will expire at the end of August.

What appears clear is that if a province cannot use the doses it has, there’s no easy method of returning them to Ottawa.

Read the full story from the Star’s Steve McKinley and Alex Boyd

5:58 a.m.: Red Cross has partnered with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry this summer to provide rapid COVID-19 testing for firefighters in northern Ontario.

To help ensure the virus does not impact this summer’s fire season, Red Cross has teams spread across 18 different locations in the north that can provide the Panibo Rapid Antigen screening for firefighters and support staff.

The first tests were administered in Sudbury on June 8, and all sites were operational by June 23. The program, which will run to the end of August, has been well-received so far by fire personnel.

“This partnership was created so that Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) staff can focus on the jobs they have to do. Fire can be a stressful career, and we’re hoping to be able to eliminate any additional stressors due to COVID-19,” said Red Cross Operations Lead Tyler Beaton.

“Each of our teams is comprised of two public health specialists and one emergency care worker. Our teams facilitate the swabbing and process the test results, which takes between 15 to 20 minutes.”

5:57 a.m.: Public Health Sudbury and Districts is pulling out all the stops this summer to make their COVID-19 vaccination program more equitable for area residents.

The health unit, in partnership with the City of Greater Sudbury, launched its new mobile vaccination clinic on Monday at the Gerry McCrory Countryside Sports Complex.

Located in a converted transit bus, the accessible and convenient mobile clinic will begin travelling to different locations in public health’s service area on July 13, with the goal of vaccinating up to 240 people per day.

The clinic will operate throughout the summer, and no appointment will be needed to attend.

“We know that not everybody can get themselves to a mass vaccination clinic setting, so we’re trying to make vaccination as equitable as possible for all members of our service area,” said Karly McGibbon, public health nurse at Public Health Sudbury and Districts.

“This mobile clinic is for anybody, including those who may have mobility issues and those who just haven’t had the time to come out. We’re trying to meet people where they’re at.”

5:56 a.m.: Research on the impact of the coronavirus or the vaccines on menstrual cycles isn’t yet extensive. While there is anecdotal evidence that COVID-19 affects periods, “specific data about this phenomenon’s frequency are scarce,” according to Medical News Today. There is no evidence currently that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, directly affects periods, but responses to the virus may. What Kahn found on the internet about rising stress levels affecting periods checks out with experts.

“If you’re running a high fever, that’s a significant stress, and there can be a good chance that you may not ovulate, and that’s going to lead to menstrual irregularity,” explained Dr. Thomas Price, a reproductive endocrinology and infertility specialist at Duke University. Other physiological effects of COVID-19, such as not being able to eat and being fatigued, can also cause high stress levels.

And there is a direct correlation between menstrual cycles and stress, anxiety and depression, according to Price. He noted that stress levels among individuals have risen during the pandemic, much of which is associated with the isolation of staying at home and having restricted social lives. When stress affects hormone production, menstrual cycles can be disrupted.

Along with psychological stresses — such as moving, exams and living through a pandemic — Price noted that other events can cause changes to menstrual cycles, such as weight gain or loss, which many also may have experienced during the pandemic.

5:55 a.m.: What does a Delta variant actually do to those it infects? The Times spoke with two infectious disease experts — Dr. Robert Bollinger of Johns Hopkins University and Dr. Otto Yang of UCLA — about what we know so far. The interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

What sets The Delta variant apart from earlier versions of the coronavirus?

Dr. Robert Bollinger: For lack of a better term, it’s a little stickier. That’s why you’re seeing higher transmissions and outbreaks.

Even in places like Britain and Israel, where they have a lot of people vaccinated, those who aren’t vaccinated are at even higher risk of getting infected when you have a more infectious variant. So that’s been the main issue.

Does The Delta variant cause different COVID-19 symptoms?

Dr. Otto Yang: It can look more like a runny nose, which is not as common previously. There are mild differences like that, but overall it’s very, very similar.

The most important symptoms of course are still cough, shortness of breath and fever.

Are the symptoms more severe?

Yang: It’s hard to tell, because you’re dealing with a disease where the natural degree of severity is so widely variable — it ranges from completely asymptomatic to severe illness and death. The variability is so high at the baseline that you would need a really large number of people to be compared to tell.

So it’s not clear if it is more deadly or not. We just don’t know.

5:51 a.m.: The death toll from a catastrophic blaze that erupted at a coronavirus hospital ward in southern Iraq the previous day rose to 58 on Tuesday, Iraqi medical officials said.

Two health officials said that more than 100 people were also injured in the fire that torched the coronavirus ward of al-Hussein Teaching Hospital in the city of Nasiriyah on Monday.

Earlier, officials had said the fire was caused by an electric short circuit, but have not provided more details. Another official said the blaze erupted when an oxygen cylinder exploded. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.

The new ward, opened just three months ago, contained 70 beds.

5:51 a.m.: The complications of managing COVID-era education took a dramatic turn Monday, when California officials issued a rule barring unmasked students from campuses, and then, hours later, rescinded that rule — while keeping in place a mask mandate for all at K-12 schools.

Instead, the latest revision allows local school officials to decide how to deal with students who refuse to wear masks, a spokesman for Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday night.

The statewide policy that prohibited unmasked students from campus had been intended to provide helpful clarity for local educators as they work to provide a safe environment for staff and students.

The original language, which became official at 3 p.m., stated, “Schools must exclude students from campus if they are not exempt from wearing a face covering under California Department of Public Health guidelines and refuse to wear one provided by the school.”

In addition, the guidance stated that “schools should offer alternative educational opportunities for students who are excluded from campus because they will not wear a face covering.”

But the rule was almost immediately reconsidered.

At 7:25 p.m., the California Department of Public Health tweeted out a change of direction: “California’s school guidance will be clarified regarding masking enforcement, recognizing local schools’ experience in keeping students and educators safe while ensuring schools fully reopen for in-person instruction.”

A spokesman for the governor’s office then confirmed that the phrasing about excluding students would be dropped. Instead, local officials would have discretion about how to enforce the mask mandate, just as they had during the school year just concluded, said Alex Stack.

Tuesday 5:49 a.m.: Representatives of Pfizer met privately with senior U.S. scientists and regulators Monday to press their case for swift authorization of coronavirus booster vaccines, amid growing public confusion about whether they will be needed and pushback from federal health officials who say the extra doses are not necessary now.

The high-level online meeting, which lasted an hour and involved Pfizer’s chief scientific officer briefing virtually every top doctor in the federal government, came on the same day Israel started administering third doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to heart transplant patients and others with compromised immune systems. Officials said after the meeting that more data — and possibly several more months — would be needed before regulators could determine whether booster shots were necessary.

The twin developments underscored the intensifying debate about whether booster shots are needed in the United States, at what point and for whom. Many American experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser for the pandemic, have said there is insufficient evidence yet that boosters are necessary. Some, though, say Israel’s move may foreshadow a government decision to at least recommend them for the vulnerable.

Correction — July 13, 2021 — A previous update said 26.3 million Canadians have received both required doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. It also said more than 20 million of them received their second dose at least 14 days ago.

Read Monday’s coronavirus news.

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Today's coronavirus news: Ontario reports 146 cases, 7 deaths; Waterloo Region moving to Step 3 of reopening; U.S. infections on the rise again - Toronto Star
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