Good evening, here are the COVID-19 updates you need to know tonight.
Top headlines:
- Canada to end pre-arrival COVID-19 testing rule for fully vaccinated travellers
- What does ‘living with’ COVID-19 mean? HIV/AIDS activists offer lessons from pandemics past
- In Kharkiv, Ukraine, critical COVID-19 patients at the mercy of Russian bombardment
Due to changes in the prevalence of testing, case counts alone are no longer a reliable indicator of the spread of COVID-19. Going forward, we will only be including the weekly death rates and hospitalizations in the newsletter. For a snapshot of COVID-19 data in Canada, go to the coronavirus tracker.
In the past seven days, there were 265 deaths announced, down 32 per cent over the same period. At least 3,734 people are being treated in hospitals.
Canada’s inoculation rate is 13th among countries with a population of one million or more people.
Sources: Canada data is compiled from government websites, Johns Hopkins and COVID-19 Canada Open Data Working Group; international data is from Johns Hopkins University.
Coronavirus explainers: Coronavirus in maps and charts • Tracking vaccine doses • Lockdown rules and reopening
Photo of the day
People wearing face masks walk on a street lined with bars and restaurants in Tokyo, today. Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced today plans to fully lift coronavirus restrictions on March 21.Koji Sasahara/The Associated Press
Coronavirus in Canada
- A proposed class-action lawsuit against a long-term care facility in Halifax where 53 people died from COVID-19 in the spring of 2020 alleges Nova Scotia was negligent in its regulation and oversight at the Northwood facility.
- The Quebec government tabled a bill to lift the state of emergency that since March 2020 has granted it exceptional powers during the pandemic, including circumventing collective agreements in the health network and awarding contracts without a call for tenders.
- The British Columbia government will conduct an independent review of its operational response to the COVID-19 pandemic to help it prepare and respond to emergencies.
- Yukon will lift most of its COVID-19 public health measures on Friday, said Premier Sandy Silver. The territory will also lift its state of emergency, imposed in November when rising cases threatened to swamp health facilities.
- Manitoba will soon close some of its COVID-19 vaccination and testing sites and will no longer deliver regular news briefings as case counts continue to drop.
Fully vaccinated travellers will no longer need a negative COVID-19 test to come to Canada as of April 1, according to a source.
- The rule change will apply to vaccinated travellers arriving by air and land. However, the source said random on-arrival testing will still be done to track new variants and there will be no change to the vaccine mandate for travellers.
As COVID-19 hospitalizations decline and restrictions loosen across the country, this new phase of pandemic brings new questions: What does it mean for a population to “live with” COVID-19, in the long term?
- One population has significant experience with a similar question: gay men who either came of age during the height of the AIDS crisis in the 1990s or adapted in subsequent generations.
- Though SARS-CoV-2 and HIV have different transmission modes, courses of illness, outcomes and social implications, those who lived through the devastating AIDS epidemic can offer insight on how to think about illness, consider risk and safeguard others.
Long COVID: Canadians with long COVID say they often feel frustrated as they grapple with the long-term effects of the virus, two years since the pandemic hit. Experts say Canada lacks a centralized system of data collection that could help study and treat the condition.
Coronavirus around the world
- Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city in the east of the country, has been under Russian attack for weeks, leaving doctors with an impossible dilemma: how to protect the most seriously ill COVID-19 patients? Those patients who need constant oxygen supply cannot be moved to bomb shelters, which means they are left vulnerable to Russian bombardment.
- After more than a month of decline, COVID-19 cases started to increase around the world last week, the World Health Organization said.
- Japan is lifting COVID-19 restrictions imposed on Tokyo and 17 other prefectures as a wave of infections caused by the Omicron variant ebbs.
- Americans protesting anti-Asian violence gathered in U.S. cities today to mark one year since a mass shooting targeting Asian women at Atlanta-area spas awoke the nation to the spike in hate incidents against the community. Experts have said the pandemic has prompted some people to lash out against Asian-Americans. Meanwhile, the trial of four men charged with planning to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer will resume this week after a three-day break because of a COVID-19 case.
Coronavirus and business
Canadian business leaders are preparing to bring employees back to the office as COVID-19 mask mandates begin to lift across the country and daily case counts continue to decline.
- For now, most large companies are requiring employees be fully vaccinated before they return, but many are also hesitant to impose overarching mandates for in-person days. Instead, they’re deferring by allowing teams and individual departments to determine hybrid work schedules.
- Many companies reopened their offices for employees to return voluntarily starting in February or early March. Others say hybrid models will be put in place starting in April.
Also today: Scotiabank estimates the Bank of Canada’s policy rate – now at 0.5 per cent – will end the year at 2.5 per cent, heaping pressure on the Canadian consumer who’s loaded up on debt over the pandemic.
Globe opinion
- Tracy Vaillancourt and Wendy Craig: Like it or not, masks are coming off – it’s time to have the conversation with children
Information centre
- Everything you need to know about Canada’s travel restrictions for vaccinated and unvaccinated people
- Where do I book a COVID-19 booster or a vaccine appointment for my kids? Latest rules by province
- What is and isn't 'paid sick leave' in Canada? A short primer
- Got a vaccine 'hangover'? Here's why
Sources: Canada data are compiled from government websites, Johns Hopkins University and COVID-19 Canada Open Data Working Group; international data are from Johns Hopkins.
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