Coronavirus: What’s happening in Canada and around the world on Tuesday

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The latest:

Alberta’s premier is urging people to avoid large private gatherings as the number of novel coronavirus cases in the province climbs, saying “COVID-19 loves parties.” 

Jason Kenney, who said Monday that health officials could be forced to cancel elective surgeries if case numbers keep rising, called on people to follow public health guidance and respect restrictions.

“We’re all fed up with this, but now more than ever we need to take this seriously — and the single biggest thing people could do is just stop with the private parties and the social gatherings.” 

The issue of large gatherings was also flagged by the premier in Manitoba, who said Monday the province is seriously considering a temporary curfew as part of its plan to try and tackle growing case numbers. Brian Pallister said there have been reports of large parties being promoted online in Winnipeg, which is now considered a red zone on the province’s pandemic response scale.

“These late-night situations in Winnipeg have expanded our number of COVID cases significantly,” Pallister said at his briefing on Monday.

WATCH | Curfew considered in Manitoba as new restrictions come into effect:

Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister is considering implementing a curfew to reverse the trend of increased COVID-19 cases in the province as harsh new restrictions came into effect in Winnipeg. 1:46

In British Columbia, which is also seeing rising COVID-19 case numbers, Health Minister Adrian Dix spoke out after social media postings showed a large number of Halloween partiers come together in a Vancouver neighbourhood.

“It’s a very irritating event because I think it was a visible symbol of people not following the rules of gathering, which are limited to 50 people,” Dix said.


What’s happening in Canada

As of 7:30 a.m. ET on Tuesday, provinces and territories in Canada had reported a cumulative total of 240,263 confirmed or presumptive coronavirus cases. Provinces and territories listed 200,052 as recovered or resolved. A CBC News tally of deaths based on provincial reports, regional health information and CBC’s reporting stood at 10,208.

Saskatchewan reported 74 new COVID-19 cases on Monday. According to the province 34 people were in hospital, with seven in intensive care.

Ontario reported 948 new cases on Monday, with most in Toronto, Peel and York regions and Ottawa. The number of people with COVID-19 in the province’s hospitals was down to 328 from 350 a day prior, with 75 in intensive care. 

The province’s seven-day average of daily new COVID-19 cases hit a new high of 919 on Monday.

Quebec health officials reported 1,037 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday and 12 deaths, one of which occurred in the 24 hours prior. 

Hospitalizations increased by three compared with the prior day, to 499, and 81 people were in intensive care, a drop of three. Quebec has reported a total of 108,018 COVID-19 infections and 6,283 deaths linked to the virus.

In Atlantic Canada, there were two new cases reported in Nova Scotia on Monday. There were no new cases reported in New BrunswickNewfoundland and Labrador or Prince Edward Island.

Across the North, there were no new cases reported in Yukon, the Northwest Territories or Nunavut.


What’s happening around the world

WATCH | COVID-19 management in the U.S. a ‘mess’ at several levels, infectious disease expert says:

There was poor cohesion between leaders at the state and federal levels in the U.S. over managing COVID-19, says infectious disease specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch, who also hopes that voting on Tuesday won’t cause a major superspreading event. 1:32

As of early Tuesday morning, nearly 47 million cases of the novel coronavirus had been reported worldwide since the pandemic began, according to a tracking tool maintained by Johns Hopkins University. The tool maintained by the U.S.-based university listed more than 31 million of those as recovered and put the global death toll at more than 1.2 million.

In the Americas, huge voter turnout was expected in the U.S. despite mounting cases of the novel coronavirus and political rancour.

In and around polling places across the country, reminders of an election year shaped by a pandemic, civil unrest and bruising political partisanship greeted voters, although more than 90 million ballots have been already submitted in an unprecedented wave of early voting.

Many wore masks to the polls — either by choice or by official mandate — with the coronavirus outbreak raging in many parts of the country.

In Nebraska alone, the surge in COVID-19 cases has led to record-high hospitalizations that are straining the state’s health-care system, officials said Monday.

Dr. Cary Ward, chief medical officer for CHI Health’s network of 14 hospitals across eastern Nebraska and western Iowa, said during a video call with reporters that there had been a doubling of COVID-positive patients in the last several weeks in the network. He said if the trend continues “every hospital in the state could be at capacity in a very short period of time.”

Panama’s President Laurentino Cortizo has began self-isolating after a close coworker tested positive for the coronavirus.

In Europe, the French government will reimpose an evening curfew on Paris, and possibly the Ile-de-France region around the capital, to tackle worsening COVID-19 figures, government spokesperson Gabriel Attal said on Tuesday.

A sign with instructions for delivery and click-and-collect is stuck to the window of a shop in Paris on Tuesday as non-essential businesses are closed due to the new lockdown to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. (Eric Piermont/AFP/Getty Images)

Britain, which has the highest official death toll in Europe, is grappling with more than 20,000 new cases a day and scientists have warned the “worst-case” scenario of 80,000 dead could be exceeded.

Greece announced it will impose a two-week lockdown in northern regions and suspend flights, while Italy will tighten restrictions but is holding back from reintroducing a nationwide lockdown as infections, hospital admissions and deaths surge.

The situation with the coronavirus in Ukraine is close to catastrophic and the nation must prepare for the worst, Health Minister Maksym Stepanov said on Tuesday, as the country registered a record 8,899 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours.

Nursing students disinfect each other at the COVID-19 testing facility on the Spoor Oost site in Antwerp on Tuesday. Belgium is in a second lockdown as hospitalizations of COVID-19 patients reach record highs. (Dirk Waem/Belga/AFP/Getty Images)

In the Asia-Pacific region, authorities in Sri Lanka have extended the school holidays for two more weeks, postponing the opening of classes amid a surge of COVID-19 patients from two clusters in Colombo and the capital’s suburbs.

Schools were suddenly closed last month as a precautionary measure after a new cluster of coronavirus infections centred on a garment factory erupted in the densely populated Western province, where the capital is. Another cluster centred on the country’s main fish market arose later.

Security personnel stand at a checkpoint in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on Monday following a one-week curfew extension for the Western province to contain the spread of COVID-19. (Ishara S. Kodikara/AFP/Getty Images)

India has registered 38,310 confirmed coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, maintaining an overall downturn even as fresh infections continue to appear in its capital, New Delhi. The Health Ministry on Tuesday also reported 490 more fatalities from COVID-19, raising the overall death toll to 123,097.

With a total of 8.2 million coronavirus cases during the pandemic, India is the second-worst-hit country behind the United States. But it has been witnessing a steady fall in daily cases.

Still, health officials say New Delhi remains in the grip of its third and worst wave of infections yet. In the past week, there were more than 5,200 cases on average every day. The Health Ministry attributes the city’s surge to the festival season, with people crowding markets for shopping.

In the Middle East, Iran reported on Tuesday a record daily total of 8,932 new COVID-19 cases, pushing the overall figure to 637,712 for detected infections in the Middle East’s worst-hit country, the Health Ministry said.

Health Ministry spokesperson Sima Sadat Lari told state television that 422 patients had died in the past 24 hours, taking the total death toll to 36,160.

In Africa, Mozambique will receive €100 million in coronavirus-related aid from the European Union, EU Ambassador Antonio Sanchez-Benedito Gaspar said. South Africa remained the hardest-hit country in Africa, with more than 727,000 cases recorded and more than 19,400 deaths.

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