TORONTO – Canada’s most populous province has reported a new one-day high for new infections, with nearly 4,460 cases in Ontario.
The latest figures released Sunday also show a sharp increase in newly confirmed cases in Toronto, which rose by nearly 400 to more than 1,350.
More than 3.1 million vaccine doses have been administered in Ontario to date. The province has a population of 14.5 million inhabitants.
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THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:
– Ecuador, Peru goes to the polls under strict virus measures
– COVID-19 delivers division in the European Union
– Thailand achieves new daily record with almost 1000 virus cases
– Follow AP’s pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic and https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus- vaccination
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THIS HAPPENS DIFFERENTLY:
HONOLULU – The governor of Hawaii has again issued an emergency proclamation in response to the coronavirus pandemic extending the moratorium on evictions across the country by another two months and outlining plans for vaccinated travelers.
Democratic Gov. David Ige signed the proclamation Friday to extend the moratorium on evictions in the country until June 8. It would expire Tuesday.
Under the moratorium, landlords are prohibited from evicting tenants for non-payment.
The emergency proclamation also reveals plans to allow vaccinated travelers to circumvent mandatory quarantine and COVID-19 testing.
The provision must be approved by the director of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.
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TEHRAN, Iran – Iran on Sunday reported its highest one-day death toll from COVID-19 this year, bringing the country’s total deaths in the pandemic to nearly 64,500, state TV reported.
According to the report, 258 new deaths were recorded within 24 hours. Iran’s deadliest day of the pandemic was mid-November, when more than 480 deaths were counted.
Sunday’s news release said health officials had also confirmed more than 21,060 new COVID-19 cases since the previous day, bringing the total confirmed cases of Iran to more than 2,070,000.
On Saturday, Iran began a ten-day shutdown in the capital Tehran and other major cities amid a fourth wave of coronavirus infections. According to the World Health Organization, Iran’s vaccination campaign is slow, with about 200,000 doses administered to 84 million people in the country.
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BEIJING – In a rare acknowledgment of the weakness of Chinese COVID-19 vaccines, the country’s leading disease control officer says its effectiveness is low and that the government is considering mixing it to boost it.
Chinese vaccines “do not have very high protection rates,” China Centers for Disease Control director Gao Fu said at a conference in the southwestern city of Chengdu on Saturday.
Beijing has distributed hundreds of millions of doses abroad while trying to question the efficacy of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine made using the previously experimental messenger RNA, or mRNA.
Officials at a news conference Sunday did not immediately respond to questions about Gao’s comments or possible changes to official plans. But another CDC official said developers are working on mRNA vaccines.
Experts believe that mixing vaccines, or sequential vaccination, can increase efficacy. Researchers in Britain study a possible combination of Pfizer-BioNTech and the traditional vaccine against AstraZeneca.
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PARIS – The French health minister said on Sunday that residents over the age of 55 would have access to COVID-19 vaccinations from Monday, which is earlier than expected.
Health Minister Olivier Veran said citizens in the age group over 55 would be eligible for the AstraZeneca vaccine or the one-shot vaccine Johnson & Johnson which is expected to arrive in France a week ahead of time.
The shortened timeline comes as France tries to increase the pace of its vaccination program, which has been criticized as sluggish and to gain ground over the spread of the more contagious virus variant first identified in Britain.
At the same time, French officials have defended a policy to discuss the AstraZeneca vaccine for people over 55 with serious health problems. Unusual spot clots were found in a small number of younger recipients of the vaccine.
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SEOUL, South Korea – South Korea says that the administration of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine will be resumed to all people between the ages of 30 and 60.
Last week, South Korea suspended the use of AstraZeneca vaccines for people under 60 in anticipation of the outcome of the European Medicines Agency’s investigation.
The Korean Disease Control and Prevention Agency said on Sunday that it would resume use of AstraZeneca vaccine from Monday, citing studies showing that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risk of side effects.
A statement from the agency said people under the age of 30 would be excluded as British authorities recommended taking alternative vaccines.