COVID-19: Provincial & Federal Briefings - Jan. 10, 2022
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A summary of developments for Monday, January 10, 2022 follows.
Federal Government
U.S. CDC Issues New Travel Advisory for Travel to Canada
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now advises Americans against travelling to Canada as cases of the Omicron variant rise across the country. The CDC has now classified Canada’s COVID-19 levels at “Level Four: Very High” – the highest level on the CDC risk scale. The CDC advises Americans to avoid travel to Canada altogether, and encourages travellers to be fully vaccinated if they must travel to Canada. The CDC’s guidance also states that fully vaccinated travellers may be at risk of getting and spreading COVID-19 variants.
Military Deployed to Bearskin Lake First Nation
The Minister of Emergency Preparedness Bill Blair announced on Sunday that the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) has deployed Canadian Rangers to Bearskin Lake First Nation as the community grapples with a massive outbreak of COVID-19. The Rangers will remain deployed until at least January 23, 2022, pending extension and deployment of additional CAF personnel.
Federal Support for Nova Scotia Vaccine Rollout
Minister of Emergency Preparedness Bill also announced on Sunday that the federal government has approved a request for support from the Government of Nova Scotia. The federal government will assist with vaccine rollout as the province seeks to administer more booster doses with cases of the Omicron variant rising. Nova Scotia is in active discussions with the federal government regarding what resources will be deployed.
Opposition Parties Call for Emergency Health Committee Meeting
In a letter to the chair of the Standing Committee on Health, opposition members from the Conservative Party of Canada, the Bloc Quebecois, and the NDP have called for an emergency meeting of the committee to address developments in the COVID-19 pandemic. The letter seeks an emergency meeting before the end of this week to call Minister of Health Jean-Yves Duclos and other officials before the committee to be questioned. Issues mentioned in the letter include quarantine requirements, surge capacity for provincial healthcare systems, procurement strategies to secure supplies including masks and vaccines, and domestic vaccine production.?
Conservative Party Raises Concerns about Mobile Tracking
In a press conference today, Conservative critic for ethics and accountable government, John Brassard, alongside Conservative critic for public services and procurement, Pierre Paul-Hus, raised concerns about the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) collecting personal information and tracking mobile device data during the COVID-19 pandemic. MP Brassard stated that Canadians did not know that their data was being collected. He called for clarity about measures being taken to ensure that de-identified data cannot be re-identified. Concerns were raised following PHAC issued a request for proposal (RFP) PHAC in December, expiring on January 21, 2022. MP’s Brassard and Paul-Hus questioned the timing of the RFP, claiming that Parliamentarians were unable to exercise any scrutiny due to the House rising for the holiday break. MP Brassard has written to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) for information, including about the RFP, and called for the initiation of an OPC investigation. Four members of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics (ETHI) have asked that the committee chair convene an emergency meeting.
COVID-19 Data Trends:?
In the past twenty-four hours, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) reported 25,466 new COVID-19 cases and an additional 45 deaths in Canada, bringing the cumulative total of cases to 2,539,930 and a total of 30,788 deaths. There are currently 422,017 active COVID-19 cases in Canada.
Vaccination Data Trends:
The latest vaccination data update, published on January 7, 2022, indicates that 90.37% of people aged 12 years or older have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine. 2.79% of the population aged 12 and older are partially vaccinated with only one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. 82.56% of the total Canadian population have received at least one dose. 76.83% of the cumulative population have received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, with 87.57% of eligible Canadians 12 and older vaccinated with two doses. As of the latest update to booster data on January 1, 2022, 19% of people aged 12 and older have received a third dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
45.63% of children aged 5-11 have received at least one dose, with 2.03% of children aged 5-11 fully vaccinated with two doses.
Ontario
Today, Minister of Education Stephen Lecce issued a statement allowing retired teachers to work more days in order to address staffing shortages. In an agreement with the Ontario Teachers’ Foundation, the government will increase the number of days a retired teacher can be re-employed in publicly-funded school boards from 50 days to 95. The increase will be effect until June 30, 2022.
The province reported 9,706 new cases today. There are 2,467 Ontarians being treated for COVID-19 in general hospital wards, with 438 individuals in the ICU, of which 235 patients are on a ventilator.
To date, 28,551,554 doses have been administered in Ontario. Currently, 91.1% of the population aged 12 or older has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 88.4% have received both vaccine doses. In terms of the total eligible population aged 5 or older, 87.7% have received one dose and 81.9% have received both doses.
Quebec
There were no COVID-19 updates by government or public health officials today.
Santé Québec reported 10,573 new cases today, a noticeable decrease from the 16,176 new cases reported on Friday, and 26 virus-related deaths.?Hospitalizations increased by 118 hospitalizations today, bringing the total number of people being treated in hospital with the virus to 2,554. Nine more patients were admitted to the intensive care unit in the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 248 since the last government update.
A cumulative total of 15,752,494 vaccine doses were administered to Quebecers. When consulting the daily COVID-19 dashboard of Santé Québec, we note that 89% of the total eligible people aged 5 years and older have received their first vaccine dose and 82% their second dose. Only 24% of the total eligible people aged 12 and over have received their third vaccine dose.
Alberta
Dr.?Deena Hinshaw, Chief Medical Officer of Health for the province of Alberta, will provide an update on COVID-19 later on today.
On Friday, Alberta Health Services reported 43,414 active COVID-19 cases. The provincial positivity rate is 35.32%. 504 individuals were being treated for COVID-19 in hospital, 64 of whom were in intensive care.
Also on Friday, 7,825,022 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine had been administered in the province. This means that 89.5% of eligible people 12 years and older had received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, 85.4% had received their second dose, and 31.5 % had received their third dose.
British Columbia
Public Health officials gave a COVID-19 update in a press conference on Friday. Dr. Bonnie Henry, British Columbia’s provincial health officer announced a new public health order requiring all businesses to re-introduce COVID-19 safety plans for their businesses. Dr. Henry stated, “these safety plans are a measure to allow you to keep operating in the face of a significant portion of workers who may be unable to come in because they're ill”. According to Dr. Henry, safety plans can include measures such as Plexiglas barriers, reducing staff mingling and encouraging employees to work from home when possible. Dr. Henry further stated that "these [plans] helped us get through the last number of waves and they will help us get through this one too.
In the same press conference, Dr. Henry announced that schools have begun receiving COVID-19 rapid test kits in preparation for the return to school on January 10th. Public health officials have indicated that access to rapid test kits is a key part of their return to school plan for children in Kindergarten to grade 12.
On Friday, British Columbia Health Services reported 3,144 new cases and 9 new COVID-19 related deaths in the past 24 hours. 349 individuals were in hospital and 93 individuals were in intensive care. There were 33,184 active cases of COVID-19 in the province.
A cumulative 9,604,331 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine had been administered in the province, 4,269,410 of which are second doses. 92.1% of eligible people 12 years and older have now received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, 89.3% have received their second dose, and 25.2% have received their third dose.
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