[Toronto Star]Today’s coronavirus news: Canada nearing peak of next wave of COVID-19, Tam says; Hundreds defy Montreal’s 8 p.m. curfew; Ontario reports record-high 4,456 cases, 21 deaths

The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world Sunday. This file will be updated throughout the day. Web links to longer stories if available.

9:40 p.m.: Hundreds of people gathered in Old Montréal tonight in defiance of a new 8 p.m. curfew.

The curfew had been at 9:30 p.m. but Quebec’s premier advanced it as a preventive measure because COVID-19 cases had risen sharply over the past week.

The mostly young crowd danced to music from loudspeakers, lit fireworks and chanted, “freedom for the young.”

But the festive atmosphere quickly turned violent as a few protesters lit a garbage fire in Montreal’s Jacques Cartier Square, which was met with tear gas from riot police.

Soon after police rushed the crowd, dozens of protesters scattered to create mayhem down the cobblestone streets of Montreal’s tourist district.

9:22 p.m.: An expert investigating hate groups says a weekend gathering outside an Alberta church charged with violating COVID-19 regulations is exemplary of the increasing number of far-right groups and conspiracy theorists who’ve latched on to the anti-lockdown and anti-mask movement.

Up to 500 people gathered outside GraceLife Church west of Edmonton on Sunday, four days after Alberta Health Services shut down and fenced off the building. The health agency says it will remove the fences when the church shows it will comply with public health measures meant to contain the spread of the virus.

In the afternoon, some tore down fences, but RCMP immediately intervened and put the metal guards back up. Police said in a statement they will only use the level of intervention necessary to maintain peace, order and safety.

“It would be accurate to say that the event attracted far-right and right-wing conspiracy-minded individuals for sure,” said Elizabeth Simons, the deputy director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, who was monitoring the crowd.

“We’re hugely concerned.”

8 p.m. (Updated): Canada is nearing the peak of the current wave of COVID-19, the country’s chief public health officer said Sunday as Ontario reported a new single-day record for new infections and provinces brought in new restrictions to contain the virus’ spread.

Dr. Theresa Tam described the current rash of nationwide infections as the pandemic’s second wave, though public health officials in several provinces are describing their recent daily case surges as a third wave.

“With the current acceleration of COVID-19 activity, approaching the peak of the second wave, and a concerning rise in the proportion of cases that involve more contagious variants of concern, strong public health measures and individual precautions must be sustained where COVID-19 is circulating,” Tam said in a statement.

Tam said intensive care admissions across the country increased by 23 per cent over the last seven days compared to the week before, noting the spike is straining the country’s health-care system.

She said COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations are increasingly affecting younger people, adding figures show a jump in the number of hospitalizations among those 40 to 59 years old.

7:55 p.m.: The Ontario government intends for schools to be open for in-person learning following the April break, Ontario Minister of Education Stephen Lecce confirmed in a letter issued to the province’s parents Sunday afternoon.

All publicly funded and private elementary and secondary schools will be open for in-person learning despite the province’s stay-at-home order, except in regions that have directed schools to move to remote learning, Lecce wrote.

Despite in-person classes being omitted from the stay-at-home order, Toronto and Peel regions have moved students to remote learning in the face of growing COVID-19 cases. Regions have the authority to move schools to virtual learning on their own, without permission from the province.

School boards are now working to determine whether they will return to in-person learning after spring break. The Toronto District School Board wrote in a statement to parents that they expect to know by the end of the end of the week whether schools will return to in-person learning when spring break ends April 19, and plans to circulate an email to parents when they know more.

Read the full story here from Jenna Moon.

6 p.m.: Education groups are concerned about the Ontario government’s move to look into making online learning a permanent option for students even after the pandemic is over, saying there are many unanswered questions as to how the plan will be implemented and the role TVO/TFO will have in providing virtual classes.

“I think our overall concern is that this is a major change when we are already in the middle of a massive upheaval because of the pandemic,” said Annie Kidder, executive director of advocacy group People for Education. “Our worry is that not enough attention is paid to the implications and not enough research and consultation has been brought into a move this big.”

A presentation obtained by the Star from the Ministry of Eduction on the expansion of online learning reasons that the move will allow students to choose courses not offered at their schools or study virtually, full-time, at any age. It provided three ways online courses could be offered: full-day synchronous (livestreamed) online learning for students who cannot physically be in the school (including snow days), individual high school online classes taught by teachers that would fit into a student’s timetable, and fully independent online courses from TVO’s Independent Learning Centre that would require a school board to pay a fee.

Read the full story from Karon Liu here.

4:00 p.m.: With nine city-operated vaccination clinics open Monday, and various pop-up centres in neighbourhoods with the highest levels of COVID-19 transmission, Mayor John Tory said he is optimistic about vaccination trends in Toronto.

Read the full story by Rhythm Sachdeva here.

2:30 p.m.: A senior Chinese official said the country’s vaccines may need to be administered in greater doses or in concert with other shots because of their low overall effectiveness.

Saturday’s comments by Gao Fu, director of China’s disease-control center, suggest China and more than 60 countries that have approved Chinese vaccines could need to adjust their distribution programs. The widespread distribution of Chinese vaccines means any changes could potentially affect hundreds of millions of people or more.

Possible steps to boost effectiveness of Chinese vaccines include changing the amount of vaccine given, the number of shots, the time between shots or the type of vaccines given, Gao said.

He also praised the possibilities offered by messenger RNA. That technology is used in the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines but not in any of the vaccines thus far approved in China.

Officials in Brazil said in January that the efficacy rate for the CoronaVac vaccine from the Beijing-based company Sinovac was just over 50 per cent. By comparison, Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech were found to be 90 per cent effective in real-world conditions, researchers said last month.

Last month, the distributor in the United Arab Emirates of vaccines from China’s Sinopharm said it was offering a third dose in addition to the standard two-dose regimen for a “very small number” of people who were “not really responsive” to the vaccine.

12:15 p.m.: Nova Scotia is reporting five new cases of COVID-19 today.

Four of the cases are in the Halifax area, with two related to travel outside Atlantic Canada and the other two being close contacts of previously reported cases.

The remaining case is in the eastern health zone and is related to travel outside the region.

Health officials are reporting a total of 40 active COVID-19 infections in the province.

11:50 a.m.: Quebec is reporting 1,535 new COVID-19 cases today as well as five additional deaths linked to the virus.

Two people died in the last 24 hours, while the other deaths occurred earlier or at an unknown date.

Hospitalizations jumped by 25 to 608, with 139 patients in intensive care.

The province also says it gave 59,447 doses of vaccine on Saturday.

11:36 a.m.: Ontario is doubling the number of pharmacies involved in the provincial vaccine effort.

The province says 700 new pharmacies in COVID-19 hot spots will start offering the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine as soon as this coming week, bringing the total number to 1,400.

It says the expansion will help vaccinate those 55 or older, who are currently the only ones cleared to receive the AstraZeneca shot.

The province says it hopes to add another 100 pharmacies to the vaccine effort by the end of the month.

To find the nearest pharmacy offering vaccinations please visit: https://covid-19.ontario.ca/vaccine-locations.

11:36 a.m.: Meanwhile, the province is reporting that there were no new deaths in long-term care so the number of residents who have died stays the same at 3,755.

Ontario is reporting five fewer long-term-care homes in outbreak, for a total of 41 or 6.5 per cent of LTC homes in the province.

11:23 a.m.: The men’s world curling championship playoffs were given the green light to resume Sunday after a suspension of games due to COVID-19.

Four participants, including three from non-playoff teams, tested positive from the virus. The other athlete from a playoff team who tested positive wasn’t allowed to compete Sunday.

Saturday’s playoff game and a pair of semifinals were postponed while more testing was conducted.

Alberta Health approved the resumption of the championship, the World Curling Federation said.

The United States and Switzerland were to meet in a playoff game Sunday morning, followed by afternoon semifinals involving Sweden, Russia and Scotland and the playoff winner.

The gold and bronze-medal games were scheduled for the same draw in the evening.

11:15 a.m.: A hospital at the centre of a COVID-19 outbreak in northwestern New Brunswick says it is currently treating 13 patients with the infection.

The Edmundston Regional Hospital says seven of those patients are in its nine bed intensive care unit, with five of those patients on respirators.

So far the hospital has transferred two patients to a hospital in Fredericton.

The Edmundston and the Upper Madawaska region went under full lockdown as of midnight after 15 of 19 new COVID-19 cases announced in the province on Saturday were identified in the area.

10:25 a.m.: As of 8 p.m. Saturday, Ontario has administered more than 3.1 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, with 22.6 per cent of all Ontarians over the age of 16 now having received at least one dose.

10:00 a.m.: Ontario is reporting a record 4,456 COVID-19 cases Sunday, with 21 deaths. The seven-day avg is up to a record 3,573 cases daily or 172 weekly per 100,000, and up to 16.0 deaths/day.

Labs report 56,378 completed tests and 7.7% positive, the most for a Sunday since 2020.

Locally, there are 1,353 new cases in Toronto, 860 in Peel, 444 in York Region, 377 in Ottawa and 329 in Durham, Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott tweeted Sunday morning.

The previous new daily record stood at just over 4,200 and was reached on Friday.

There are 1,513 patients currently in Ontario hospitals due to COVID-19, with 605 in intensive care and 382 on a ventilator.

8:39 a.m.: Iran on Sunday reported its highest single-day death toll from COVID-19 this year, bringing the country’s total deaths in the pandemic to nearly 64,500, state TV reported.

The report said 258 new deaths were recorded in 24 hours. Iran’s deadliest day of the pandemic was in mid-November, when more than 480 deaths were tallied.

Sunday’s news report said health care officials also confirmed 21,063 new coronavirus cases since the day before, bringing Iran’s total confirmed cases to more than 2,070,000.

“We are expecting a heavy rise in hospitalizations in the next week,” Health Minister Saeed Namaki warned. He blamed the increase in cases on shopping, family gatherings and travel ahead of and during the Iranian New Year in late March.

On Saturday, Iran began a 10-day lockdown in the capital, Tehran, and other major cities amid a fourth wave of coronavirus infections. Iran’s vaccination campaign has been slow, with some 200,000 doses administered in the country of 84 million people, according to the World Health Organization.

Last week, COVAX, an international collaboration to distribute vaccines equitably around the world, delivered its first shipment to Iran, 700,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.

8:25 a.m.: There are currently 593 patients in Ontario ICUs with COVID-related critical illness on a total census of 1,851, according to the Critical Care Services Ontario daily report. There were 61 new admissions yesterday.

Fifty per cent of all ICU beds in the central region are now occupied by COVID patients.

The report was tweeted out by Anthony Dale, the president and CEO of the Ontario Hospital Association.

As of Saturday, there are 1,524 people currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in the province, including 585 patients in intensive care. There are 384 people are on ventilators.

Ontario broke the record for most patients in intensive care during the pandemic on Thursday with 525 patients in the ICU. Premier Doug Ford declared a third state of emergency and put Ontario under a stay-at-home order, citing the threat on the province’s hospital system capacity.

8:22 a.m.: Two neighbourhoods — two vastly different vaccination rates.

That’s what new data released Tuesday from non-profit ICES, formerly the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, showed when it examined who is receiving the vaccine in Toronto and Peel Region.

The research displayed a clear trend. Wealthier neighbourhoods with lower COVID-19 rates had significantly higher vaccination rates than lower-income neighbourhoods with more risk.

Read the full story from the Star’s Olivia Bowen and May Warren here.

8:14 a.m.: Thailand’s Health Ministry warned Sunday that restrictions may need to be tightened to slow the spread of a fresh coronavirus wave, as the country hit a daily record for new cases.

The ministry confirmed 967 new infections, the highest ever in a 24-hour period, bringing Thailand’s total to 32,625 cases since January last year — including 97 deaths. The expanding outbreak comes after the country kept the virus largely in check for most of last year.

If the number of cases is still rising in two weeks, measures beyond the current restrictions on nightlife and long-standing social distancing rules will need to be put in place, said Dr. Sophon Iamsirithaworn, deputy director general of the Department of Disease Control.

8:13 a.m.: Sri Lankan health authorities have imposed tough restrictions ahead of this week’s New Year festival in a bid to contain the spread of COVID-19.

Health officials on Sunday banned musical shows and many other traditional games, including the tug-of-war, for the April 14 holiday.

They’ve also ordered other gatherings not to exceed 100 people, and asked that gatherings for rituals be limited to immediate family members and close relatives.

The country’s New Year festival typically involves large-scale events, games, competitions and musical shows.

8:13 a.m.: Pakistan has reported it’s highest single-day death toll from COVID-19.

The National Command and Control Center announced Sunday that 114 deaths from coronavirus had been confirmed, as well as more than 5,000 new cases.

A weekend ban on inter-city transport has been extended until mid-April, as part of measures to control a surge in virus infections and deaths. The ban will not apply on freight, ambulance services and supplies of medical equipment.

Pakistan, with a population of 220 million people, has vaccinated more than a million people using the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine since February.

8:13 a.m.: China has reported 10 new confirmed coronavirus cases and no deaths.

All the new infections were believed have been acquired abroad, the National Health Commission announced Sunday.

China’s death toll stood at 4,636 out of 90,410 confirmed cases.

8:13 a.m.: South Korea says it will resume administrating AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine to all eligible people between the ages of 30 and 60.

Last week, South Korea suspended the use of AstraZeneca vaccines for those 60 years old or younger while awaiting the outcome of the European Medicine Agency’s review.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said Sunday it will restart the use of AstraZeneca vaccine beginning Monday, citing studies showing that the vaccine’s benefits outweighs the risk of side effects.

An agency statement said those aged 30 or younger will be excluded, as U.K. authorities have recommended they take alternative vaccines.

It says it’s found three cases of blood clots from vaccinated people in South Korea — but none belong to the type of side effects determined by European authorities.

Those who would get AstraZeneca vaccines from Monday include medical workers and people in long-term care facilities, those at special schools and welfare centres for disabled people and homeless people.

8:12 a.m.: France’s health minister said Sunday that residents over age 55 will be granted access to COVID-19 vaccinations starting Monday, which is earlier than had been anticipated.

Health Minister Olivier Veran said citizens in the over-55 age bracket will be eligible for the AstraZeneca vaccine or the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine that is expected to arrive in France a week ahead of schedule.

Veran told the newspaper Le Journal de Dimanche that “many family caregivers are between 55 and 60, while others are in couples with older partners…They were worried about having to wait another month. Now, they can protect themselves.”

The shortened timeline comes as France is trying to increase the pace of its vaccination program, which has been criticized as sluggish, and to gain ground on the spread of the more contagious virus variant first identified in Britain.

At the same time, French officials have defended a policy of reserving the AstraZeneca vaccine for people over 55 with serious health problems. Unusual blot clots have been found in a small number of younger recipients of that vaccine.

8:11 a.m.: In a rare admission of the weakness of Chinese coronavirus vaccines, the country’s top disease control official says their effectiveness is low and the government is considering mixing them to get a boost.

Chinese vaccines “don’t have very high protection rates,” said the director of the China Centers for Disease Control, Gao Fu, at a conference Saturday in the southwestern city of Chengdu.

Beijing has distributed hundreds of millions of doses abroad while trying to promote doubt about the effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine made using the previously experimental messenger RNA, or mRNA, process.

“It’s now under formal consideration whether we should use different vaccines from different technical lines for the immunization process,” Gao said.

8:10 a.m.: When Ottawa Public Health officials are trying to decide whether restrictions in the city need to tighten up, they look to the normal markers like positive tests, patients in hospital, and outbreaks. But they are also among the few in the country that take cues from the city’s sewers.

Using municipal wastewater to look for evidence of the virus behind COVID-19 is part of a rapidly expanding body of science. The virus is shed in human waste, often before a patient even knows they are sick.

Wastewater testing initiatives were virtually nonexistent in Canada before COVID-19, but there are now more than two dozen universities researching the method. At least seven cities and the Northwest Territories, meanwhile, are already reporting publicly on the wastewater results.

Read the full story from the Canadian Press

4 a.m.: The latest numbers on COVID-19 vaccinations in Canada as of 4 a.m. ET on Sunday April 11, 2021.

In Canada, the provinces are reporting 213,041 new vaccinations administered for a total of 7,785,807 doses given. Nationwide, 784,671 people or 2.1 per cent of the population has been fully vaccinated. The provinces have administered doses at a rate of 20,543.418 per 100,000.

There were 71,600 new vaccines delivered to the provinces and territories for a total of 10,618,140 doses delivered so far. The provinces and territories have used 73.33 per cent of their available vaccine supply.

4 a.m.: The latest numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Canada as of 4 a.m. ET on Sunday April 11, 2021.

There are 1,052,539 confirmed cases in Canada.

Canada: 1,052,539 confirmed cases (70,619 active, 958,633 resolved, 23,287 deaths).*The total case count includes 13 confirmed cases among repatriated travellers.

There were 7,262 new cases Saturday. The rate of active cases is 185.81 per 100,000 people. Over the past seven days, there have been a total of 50,881 new cases. The seven-day rolling average of new cases is 7,269.

There were 38 new reported deaths Saturday. Over the past seven days there have been a total of 237 new reported deaths. The seven-day rolling average of new reported deaths is 34. The seven-day rolling average of the death rate is 0.09 per 100,000 people. The overall death rate is 61.27 per 100,000 people.

There have been 28,875,724 tests completed.