Coronavirus Update: Ontario, B.C. bring in COVID-19 restrictions amid Omicron variant spread

Good evening, here are the COVID-19 updates you need to know tonight.

Top headlines:

1. Ontario, B.C. and Manitoba announced tighter COVID-19 restrictions in bids to curb the rapidly spreading Omicron variant.
2. How do you get kids vaccinated in areas with lower-than-average uptake? The Black Creek Community Health Centre has some clues.
3. Canada lifts travel ban on 10 African countries, reimposes COVID-19 testing rule for short trips abroad

In the past seven days, 39,181 cases were reported, up 55 per cent from the previous seven days. There were 132 deaths announced, down eight per cent over the same period. At least 1,450 people are being treated in hospitals.

Canada’s inoculation rate is 22nd among countries with a population of one million or more people.

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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

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Coronavirus in Canada

• Ontario is imposing new capacity limits on restaurants, limiting private indoor gatherings to 10 people and outdoor gatherings to 25 and applying a 50-per-cent capacity limit to a list of indoor businesses, including restaurants, bars, retailers, gyms and malls. The restrictions begin at 12:01 a.m. Sunday.
• In British Columbia, new restrictions take effect on Monday, limiting venues that hold more than 1,000 people to 50 per cent capacity, banning amateur sports tournaments over the Christmas period and cancelling all New Year’s Eve parties. The updated rules also limit indoor gatherings, including those at rental or holiday properties, to one household, plus 10 guests. Plus, everyone attending such gatherings must be vaccinated.
• An infant who was born healthy and recently admitted to the intensive care unit to be treated for COVID-19 has died in Quebec.
• Starting Tuesday, indoor gatherings with vaccinated people in Manitoba will be limited to household members plus 10 others. Gatherings involving unvaccinated people will be limited to the household plus five. Gyms and movie theatres will be restricted to 50 per cent capacity, as will large sporting venues.
• An Alberta judge has dismissed an application by four doctors who wanted to be exempt from a requirement that all health care workers be vaccinated against COVID-19, saying he does not want Albertans to question the rules the province has put in place to try to curb spread of the virus. And the province’s Energy Minister Sonya Savage tested positive for COVID-19.

In Ottawa, the travel ban on 10 African countries is lifting and Canada is reimposing COVID-19 testing rule for short trips abroad

• Canada’s widely criticized travel ban on 10 African countries, which was brought in when the Omicron variant was first identified and kept in place even after community spread started domestically, will be lifted effective Saturday at 11:59 p.m. ET.
• Canada is bringing back its requirement for Canadians and permanent residents who travel abroad for fewer than 72 hours to get a negative COVID-19 test before returning home. That rule was dropped in November amid pushback from business, tourism, and travel groups. The pre-entry testing requirement will take effect on Dec. 21, and the test must be taken in a country other than Canada.

Masking: Experts are calling for respirators, such as N-95s, to become the new masking standard to curb the spread of the Omicron variant of the novel coronavirus. Virginia Tech engineering professor Linsey Marr, who studies viruses in the air, says respirators offer far more protection than a surgical mask – both to the wearer and others around them.

Coronavirus around the world

• In the United States, the spectre of the Omicron variant has done little to motivate action. In fact, in places that have proven the most vulnerable to COVID-19, political leaders and epidemiologists say hostility toward public-health measures has rendered impracticable the most basic tools to fight the virus, even as Omicron bears down.
• In South Africa, the health minister said Friday that the government believes vaccines and high levels of prior COVID-19 infection were helping to keep disease milder in a wave driven by the Omicron variant.
• The English Premier League has been flooded by new COVID-19 cases over the past week or so. But some say the show must go on because, well, the pro sports establishment says so.
• A study from Imperial College London, based on U.K. Health Security Agency and National Health Service data found that the risk of reinfection with the Omicron coronavirus variant is more than five times higher and it has shown no sign of being milder than Delta.

Globe opinion

• Robyn Urback: “Lockdown-fatigue-fueled non-compliance, combined with an incredibly infectious new variant, means that it is no longer realistic to expect that lockdowns will be an effective measure to see us through this next wave, nor can they be viewed as necessarily worth the mental and financial anguish they will exact on an exhausted population.”
• The Editorial Board: “Given how much more contagious Omicron is, and how many more infections it is already generating under the same circumstances as Delta, the only way hospital admission won’t shoot up soon is if Omicron turns out to be not just slightly less severe than Delta, but far less severe.

More reporting

• Maple Leafs captain John Tavares, forward Alexander Kerfoot placed in NHL’s COVID-19 protocol
• Pandemic puppy boom drives profits, unleashes havoc on pet businesses

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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