Good evening, these are the top coronavirus headlines tonight:
Top headlines:
- China is top of mind for COVID-19 queries once again, as countries across the globe impose new rules and restrictions on flights landing from the country.
- A new Omicron variant is being tracked in B.C. as health officials keep an eye on the potential for a new, contagious strain.
- Canadian theatre companies had a lot to celebrate over the holiday season, as they saw box-office records and zero shutdowns.
COVID-19 news from Canada and the world
- Over the past week, countries around the world, including Canada, have imposed mandatory COVID-19 testing on flights arriving from China due to concerns about mutations, despite health care experts’ opinions that this will not reduce the spread of the virus.
- Meanwhile within China, they’re downplaying concerns about the current outbreak, pushing back against travel restrictions – despite long imposing its own testing requirements on arrivals from abroad – and vowing a “final victory” against COVID-19.
- As of Tuesday, the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control has found five cases of the XBB.1.5 subvariant of Omicron, while health ministries in Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario were not able to say Tuesday whether their testing regimes have recorded it. “It’s not increasing rapidly here but it is one of the subvariants that we know can take off, particularly areas where you have lower vaccination rates,” said B.C.’s Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry.
Pandemic recovery
- The end of 2022 marked a happy turn of events for Canadian theatre companies: box office records, extensions for some shows, and no cancellations on account of COVID-19.
- For much of the last two-and-a-half years, COVID-19 forced prisons across Canada to cancel most outside visits, which included those who run the Book Club for Inmates. Now, the clubs are re-launching.
Globe opinion
André Picard: What will the end of China’s ‘zero-COVID’ approach mean to the pandemic?
Volker Gerdts, Baljit Singh and Loleen Berdahl: Canada needs to plan for inevitable future pandemics
Zain Chagla: Why are we still talking about travel restrictions for COVID-19?
More reading
The president of the Calgary-based Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, whose organization issued a court challenge against public-health orders, says he is shocked by his arrest for attempted intimidation of a judge, more than a year after he apologized for hiring a private investigator to conduct surveillance of Manitoba’s Chief Justice.
Information centre
- Everything you need to know about Canada’s travel rules for vaccinated and unvaccinated people
- When will COVID-19 be endemic? The four factors that will shape the virus’s future
- Wastewater is filling the COVID-19 data gap
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