The latest news from Canada and around the world Monday. This file will be updated throughout the day. Web links to longer stories if available.
The latest news on COVID-19 developments in Canada (all times Eastern):
9 p.m.: Vaccines are on their way.
The prime minister at a news conference in which he revealed that Canada is expecting 249,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine this month, weeks earlier than anticipated.
Federal officials had originally said we’d be getting six million total doses of that vaccine and another from Moderna between January and March, but that shipments would not arrive until the new year.
The Canadian government has spent months (and somewhere in the neighbourhood of a billion dollars) locking down advance-purchase agreements for seven different vaccine candidates, but still, supplies are going to be scarce, at least at first.
So who gets it? What’ll it be like? Who is first?
9 p.m. (Updated): Nursing-home residents in Ontario are at risk of missing out on the first because of “stability” concerns in transporting the Pfizer vaccine once it arrives, provincial officials say.
The caution came as Premier revealed who is first in line for injections and Ontario set its third record high for new cases in as many days with 1,925 more people testing positive for the virus.
As expected, the first phase of shots will go to residents, staff and essential caregivers at nursing homes, retirement homes and other congregate settings, health-care workers such as hospital employees, Indigenous communities and adults receiving home health care for chronic conditions.
The second phase for the rest of the population is not expected to begin until April, with priorities for who will get injections to be set later, and will take six to nine months.
The plan is to do injections at central sites, requiring people to travel to them.
That’s why nursing-home residents may have to wait a few weeks for the next and more stable vaccine from Moderna. It all depends on final guidance from Pfizer, said Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott.
9 p.m.: COVID-19 restrictions in British Columbia have been extended to Jan. 8 as the transmission and community spread of the illness remain high, said provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry.
The rules that were set to expire after two weeks have had an impact on case numbers, she said, but B.C. has not yet reached a point where the restrictions can be loosened.
The ongoing restrictions will save lives, said Henry, after announcing another 35 people have died, pushing the death toll in B.C. to 527.
There were 2,020 new cases of the illness detected between Friday and Monday, including 1,362 in the hard-hit Fraser Health region. Henry said the Interior and Northern health regions are also recording increases.
B.C. has confirmed 9,380 active infections.
9 p.m.: The bylaw is clear on homeless encampments in Toronto: Illegal.
Which has not prevented the mushrooming of tent clusters across the city, particularly since the beginning of the pandemic 10 months ago, writes Rosie DiManno. Sixty-nine camps, 423 tents, plus 18 known locations in transportation right-of-ways — beneath overpasses, tracts of land where the public has rights to cross, and the like.
That’s according to new interim figures on Shelter Access Data Indicators and Trends, presented Monday to the city’s economic, community and development committee, with dozens of deputants stacked up to speak at the virtual city hall meeting. More specifically, to demand a moratorium on encampment evictions.
Encampments are profoundly unsafe. They’re ugly. Their very presence is an indictment of Toronto’s ongoing and escalating homelessness crisis.
And yet, I cannot disagree with the moratorium chorus arising from advocates, ever-so-earnest do-gooders, street preachers and streets nurses, enablers, homeless-huggers — the whole righteous congregation of activists who endlessly shame the city for its purported cold heart, a dearth of compassion for the most unfortunate souls amongst us.
7:35 p.m.: As cases of continue to rise in hot spots in the province, experts are once again warning that hospitals may have to cancel elective surgeries in order to cope.
There are parts of the province — Mississauga, Etobicoke and North York — where nearly 25 per cent of patients in intensive care have COVID-19, said Anthony Dale, president and CEO of the Ontario Hospital Association.
Although hospitals still have beds available, Dale said the province’s intensive care units typically operate close to capacity, which means a surge of COVID-19 patients might push them over the edge and threaten elective surgeries once again, similar to what occurred during the first wave.
Read on for the Star’s weekly roundup of key figures in the province’s fight against COVID-19, including a look at how regions that saw their restrictions tightened Monday are faring, along with expert commentary.
6 p.m.: Deputy ministers are officially named by the prime minister, but there’s no doubt Finance Minister had a hand in Michael Sabia’s appointment as the top fiscal policy bureaucrat — an unconventional choice that has left many on Parliament Hill either ecstatic or puzzled, writes Star Columnist Heather Scoffield.
By all accounts, he has been on speed-dial with Prime Minister throughout the pandemic, not just in his capacity at the infrastructure bank but as a voice of reason and deep experience.
He will bring fresh thinking, energy and connections to the Department of Finance as he becomes the top civil servant designing the recovery, with up to $100 billion in hand to revitalize Canada’s economy.
He will also invite suspicion from the opposition. By convention, civil servants are nearly invisible to the public, speaking truth to power from their protected perches in the bureaucracy. Sabia has a high profile, well-known and sometimes provocative views, and he knows his way around Liberal circles.
5:55 p.m.: Alberta is reporting 1,735 new cases of COVID-19.
The daily number is down slightly from yesterday, when it was 1,836.
The province also says another 16 residents have died from the novel coronavirus.
It says 609 people are in hospital, with 108 in intensive care.
5:55 p.m.: Monday was one of the most hopeful days since the COVID-19 pandemic upended our lives, but also one of the most worrisome.
The source of the hope is obvious: hundreds of thousands of doses of If all goes as planned, it looks like the first Canadians to be vaccinated will get their shots before Christmas.
The government said “up to” 249,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine will arrive by the end of December, enough to vaccinate half that number of people (it takes two doses to provide protection against COVID). It’s barely a start toward immunizing the entire population of 37 million, but it is a start. And nine long months into the pandemic, that counts for a very great deal.
But Monday was also a worrisome day, and the source of the worry was obvious as well. As Trudeau was announcing the early arrival of the Pfizer vaccine, others were reporting numbers that make it all too clear that this disease is far from done.
5:11 p.m.: Less than 20 days from Christmas and two weeks into a lockdown, Toronto’s top doctor was not certain about the current measures being lifted even after the holidays.
Dr. Eileen de Villa continued implore residents to stay apart through December and New Year’s and not gather for dinners, parties and other celebrations — apart from those that already live together, and for those that live alone, one exclusive household.
“In our own lives, risky in-home festivities will easily make things worse and already I’m as worried now by what may happen in January as I am about the rest of this month,” de Villa told reporters Monday at a regular briefing.
But when asked directly if the lockdown, which began Nov. 23, will continue beyond December, de Villa said it is “too early to make pronouncements around how long our restrictions should be in place.”
“I think what is well within scope for all of us is to really think very seriously about the changes we need to make to our routine holiday celebrations and festivities, as difficult as that is.”
5 p.m.: Toronto residents are tired of the constraints imposed by , but still strongly support public health restrictions needed to control the spread of the virus, according to a poll conducted for Toronto Public Health.
The Ipsos Reid online survey of 1,201 people conducted during the last week of October, before the second lockdown took effect on Nov. 23, found that 56 per cent of respondents reported being tired of COVID-19 precautions and 39 per cent were angry/frustrated.
Despite that, 43 per cent strongly supported the idea of a second lockdown and 40 per cent were somewhat supportive, putting total support for continuing restrictions at 83 per cent.
A full 90 per cent of respondents agreed with the statement: “We need to take whatever measures are necessary to control the spread of COVID-19 and reduce the number of deaths.”
4:30 p.m.: A vaccine has been a hope for many locked in, exhausted people grappling with this ongoing, terrible pandemic and now, at last, today we learned an option for vaccination is a lot closer than we thought.
During the pandemic, there has been a lot of buzz, curiosity and questions around vaccines and we have one of Health Canada’s top doctors to shed light.
Dr. Supriya Sharma is chief medical adviser at Health Canada and is overseeing the team working on vaccine approvals. Today, she’s joins “This Matters” to talk about how COVID-19 vaccines are being assessed and what it will be like to take one.
3:30 p.m.: Quebec says the first doses of COVID-19 vaccine could be administered in the province as early as next week.
Health Minister Christian Dube says the province plans to give its first doses of the Pfizer vaccine to about 2,000 people in long-term care homes.
Dube says Quebec also expects to receive enough Pfizer vaccines between Dec. 21 and Jan. 4 to vaccinate between 22,000 and 28,000 people over that period.
3:08 p.m.: Nova Scotia is reporting eight new cases of COVID-19 and now has 90 active cases.
Health officials say four of the new cases are in the Halifax area, including a case reported at Ian Forsyth Elementary School in Dartmouth.
The other three cases are close contacts of previously reported cases.
Two other cases are reported in the western zone, including one at Berwick and District School and one related to travel outside of Atlantic Canada, while the remaining two cases are in the eastern zone.
One of the eastern zone cases is travel-related while the other is under investigation.
2:30 p.m. (updated): Ontario says the first phase of its COVID-19 vaccination rollout will see vulnerable seniors, their caregivers, and health-care workers among the first to receive the shot.
Premier Doug Ford says in addition to those groups, adults in Indigenous communities, retirement homes, and recipients of chronic home health-care will also be priority groups.
Retired Gen. Rick Hiller, who is leading Ontario’s vaccine task force, says the province will receive 2.4 million doses during the first three months of 2021.
The province may need to set up vaccination centres as it is still unsure of logistics surrounding the transportation of doses.
Hillier says the vaccine will be more broadly available to the public starting in April, saying it will take between six to nine months to distribute across the province.
He says the third and final phase of the plan would then see the vaccine available through places like pharmacies on a regular basis.
2:15 p.m.: Toronto has 651 new COVID-19 cases, the city’s top doctor reported Monday.
Dr. Eileen de Villa told reporters that there are 227 patients in the hospital, with 57 in the ICU. The case count is so high, she says, that “it’s a very, very serious concern.”
She said she doesn’t want to contemplate what the case counts would have been without a lockdown.
2 p.m. Dozens of public health and economics experts called this month as new infections surpassed 1,500 for the third straight day.
More than 75 experts signed an open letter published in Montreal’s La Presse recommending that all non-essential businesses be closed for two weeks to stem the spread of the virus.
Pierre-Carl Michaud, an economics professor at Universite de Montreal’s HEC business school and one of the signatories, said a December lockdown would do less damage to the economy than one in the new year.
“We think it would be wise to synchronize a short lockdown — short but effective lockdown — with the holidays,” Michaud said in an interview.
1:57 p.m. Manitoba is reporting 325 new COVID-19 cases and 12 additional deaths.
Chief public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin says the health-care system continues to face a heavy workload and people must stay home as much as possible.
Roussin is also urging snowbirds and other winter travellers to cancel all non-essential travel this season.
1:55 p.m. Public Health officials in New Brunswick are reporting two new cases of COVID-19.
The cases involve one person in their 40s in the Fredericton region and a person in their 70s in the Edmundston area.
Both cases are self-isolating and under investigation.
There are currently 81 active cases in the province and there have been 536 cases since the pandemic began.
1:51 p.m. Halifax police have charged a gym in Bedford, N.S., for failing to comply with recently instituted COVID-19 rules.
Officers say they received a call this morning about a facility that was staffed and had customers training inside, which goes against recent measures that ordered the closure of all fitness establishments in the region.
The business, which was not named in the news release, was given a ticket for failing to adhere to the Emergency Measures Act, which carries a fine of $7,500.
1:50 p.m.: The president of a hospital in Waterloo region says all three hospitals in the area are currently experiencing a COVID-19 outbreak, leading to a concern about the facilities’ ability to maintain services.
Lee Fairclough, president of St. Mary’s General Hospital, says her facility declared an outbreak on Sunday that has been linked to five patients and two staff.
Fairclough says she’s concerned about the surge of COVID-19 in the community and the current outbreaks at all three of Waterloo region’s hospitals.
She says the situation has the potential to affect bed capacity and the ability to maintain services such as scheduled surgeries and other procedures.
Waterloo public health officials declared an initial outbreak at the Grand River Hospital last month, and the hospital declared another outbreak on Monday.
An outbreak at the region’s Cambridge Memorial Hospital was declared on Nov. 13.
1:50 p.m. Newfoundland and Labrador public health officials say the Pfizer vaccine will be arriving in the province next week.
Premier Andrew Furey says he expects 1,950 doses of the Pfizer vaccine to arrive in St. John’s next week, with another shipment expected later in the month.
Furey says two thermal shippers for the vaccine should arrive in the province on Wednesday or Thursday of this week.
In the meantime, Furey says the province will not be rejoining the so-called Atlantic bubble and all visitors to the province will be required to self-isolate for 14 days whether they’re from Atlantic Canada or not.
1:44 p.m. One of the largest school divisions in Saskatchewan is moving to remote learning as classrooms deal with a spike in COVID-19 infections.
Regina Public Schools says students will take classes from home next week, the final week before schools break for the holidays.
It says students will continue learning remotely when the break ends on Jan. 4, and the plan is to have them to return to classrooms Jan. 11.
The division say the change impacts all of its schools and students in all grades.
Teachers, in the meantime, will continue working in schools.
1:30 p.m. (to be updated): The first people to get COVID-19 vaccine in Ontario will be health-care workers, residents, staff, essential caregivers, and other employees of congregate living settings, adults in remote Indigenous communities, and those receiving chronic home health care.
12:03 p.m. Three members of the Toronto Raptors organization tested positive for COVID-19 during the league-mandated testing period ahead of the NBA’s training camp, a statement released by the organization said.
The members of the organization who tested positive, who were not named, are continuing to self-isolate away from the rest of the team.
Followup testing has so far shown that there was no spread to the rest of the organization, the statement added.
11:44 a.m. (updated): Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the largest mass immunization effort in Canadian history could begin as early as next week, as tough new measures to slow the spread of COVID-19 took effect in Prince Edward Island and Ontario hit a new daily infection record.
Trudeau said Monday that by the end of December, Ottawa expects to receive up to 249,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech.
Health Canada approval is expected this week and first shipments are on track to arrive next week.
Immunization requires two doses administered weeks apart, so the initial batch would be enough for nearly 125,000 Canadians.
The vaccine, which must be stored in ultracold temperatures, is to be delivered to 14 sites across the country, with doses divvied up among the provinces on a per capita basis. Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin, the former NATO commander in charge of the vaccine rollout, said it takes a day or two to thaw and prepare the vaccine.
Ottawa has said previously that it aimed to immunize three million Canadians during the first three months of 2021, with vulnerable people, like seniors and certain health-care workers, first in line.
11:10 a.m.: Ontario is reporting an additional 138 cases in public schools across the province, bringing the total in the last two weeks to 1,526 and 5,402 overall since school began.
the province reported 109 more students were infected for a total of 1,252 in the last two weeks, since school began there have been an overall total of 3,531.
The data shows there are 29 more staff members infected for a total of 273 the last two weeks — and an overall total of 783.
There are 803 schools with a reported case, which the province notes is 16.63 per cent of the 4,828 public schools in Ontario.
Ten schools were closed because of an outbreak, two more than the previous day — and the highest number reported so far. The data doesn’t indicate where they are.
The data reported Monday is current as of 2 p.m. Friday and doesn’t include weekend reports and the source of transmission.
The Toronto District School Board updates its information on current COVID-19 cases As of 8 p.m. Sunday, there were 381 students infected, 84 staff and 523 resolved cases.
The Toronto Catholic District School Board also updates its information As of 10:25 a.m. Monday, there were 62 schools with at least one active case. There are 91 active student cases and 13 staff.
Epidemiologists have told the Star that the rising numbers in the schools aren’t a surprise, and that the cases will be proportionate to the amount of COVID that is in the community.
11:10 a.m.: Nunavut is reporting three new cases of COVID-19.
It says the infections are in Arviat, bringing that community’s active case total to 49.
Located along the west coast of Hudson Bay, Arviat has been the worst hit by the pandemic since the territory recorded its first case in November.
The community remains under lockdown measures.
11:08 a.m.: Quebec is reporting 1,577 new cases of COVID-19 today and 22 additional deaths linked to the virus, three of which took place in the last 24 hours.
Health officials say provincewide hospitalizations increased by 40 for a total of 818.
Of those, 105 people are in intensive care, an increase of three compared to the day before.
Quebec has now reported 153,176 COVID-19 cases and 7,277 deaths since the start of the pandemic.
10:30 a.m. (updated): Ontario is reporting 1,925 new cases of COVID-19 today, and 26 deaths related to the virus.
That’s a record high for new cases of the novel coronavirus in the province, topping yesterday’s daily total by one.
Health Minister Christine Elliott says there are 601 new cases in Toronto, 512 in Peel Region, and 167 in York Region.
She also says there are 1,412 more resolved cases since the last daily update and nearly 45,300 tests completed in that time.
Today’s daily update brings Ontario up to a total of 129,234 COVID-19 cases, 109,402 resolved and 3,798 deaths.
9:20 a.m. Premier Doug Ford is expected to .
Ford will be holding a news conference with General Rick Hillier, chair of the COVID-19 vaccine distribution task force.
They will be joined by Health Minister Christine Elliott and Solicitor General Sylvia Jones at Queen’s Park.
Elliott has said Ontario will receive 1.6 million doses of the new vaccine from Pfizer and 800,000 doses from Moderna in early 2021.
8:40 a.m. Knowing that she’ll be spending Christmas alone, Sjoukje van Beek, a graduate student at the University of Victoria, recently tried to make her studio apartment feel a bit more homey. She went to the thrift store, picked up one four-dollar and one six-dollar Christmas tree, plus some festive garland.
Normally, van Beek, 25, would be on a plane heading home to Waterloo, Ont., to enjoy the company of family and indulge in her mother’s Feast of the Seven Fishes cooking wizardry. But not this year.
“I think I’m just sad. It’s a stressful time of year, in terms of exams. I’m excited to be done with that. But it’s … sorry I’m going to start crying …”
She pauses to explain that her online classes at least afforded her a bit of human connection. Now, those have ended for the term.
8:33 a.m. Jan Willis found herself in Puerto Vallarta when was declared a worldwide pandemic in March. Before she could return to her native British Columbia, the 66-year-old was met with a flurry of cruise passengers, most of them sick with the virus.
“I’m fairly certain that’s where I caught it,” Willis said.
When she returned to her hometown of Victoria, her doctor told her to self-isolate immediately. Early on in the pandemic, there was no widespread testing and Willis was declared a presumptive case of COVID-19.
Alongside physical symptoms, including lung issues, body pains and diarrhea, Willis also experienced psychiatric symptoms. The most severe, she said, was a hallucination she had of a cloud hanging above her a few weeks after her diagnosis, which then proceeded to enter her, causing a wave of sadness.
7:51 a.m. For a fleeting moment this summer, Kassandra Grainger lived indoors.
She packed her things from Toronto’s Moss Park, and followed a path encouraged by city officials — accepting a space in a nearby hotel it was using as a shelter.
Grainger said she’d been homeless since leaving an unhealthy relationship. Before coming to the park, she’d worried about sleeping places with enough visibility to be safe, noting that being in public places is an important consideration for homeless women living outside.
“Anywhere where there’s a gathering, somewhere where other people can see me. That way, if something’s being done wrong to me, then hopefully somebody would’ve been able to help,” she said. “We have to, because we’re the vulnerable ones. We’re taken advantage of more than a man.”
6:55 a.m.: Chinese vaccine company Sinovac announced Monday that it is planning to complete a new facility to double its annual vaccine production capacity to 600 million doses by the end of the year, while also securing a $500 million investment in a boost to its COVID-19 vaccine development efforts.
The company is currently conducting the last stage of clinical trials for its vaccine candidate in Brazil, Turkey and Indonesia and is among the front-runners of China’s vaccine efforts. China has at least five COVID-19 vaccine candidates running late stage clinical trials across more than a dozen countries.
Sino Biopharmaceutical Ltd., a pharmaceutical conglomerate, bought a 15% stake in Sinovac for an investment of $500 million. The funds will allow the company to “improve our vaccine sales capabilities, expand in Asia markets, develop and access new technologies, and most importantly, accelerate our efforts to help combat the global pandemic,” Sinovac CEO Yin Weidong said in a statement.
On Sunday, 1.2 million doses of its experimental vaccine arrived in Indonesia and are expected to be approved for use soon.
5:57 a.m.: Toronto District School Board announced on Sunday that Fraser Mustard Early Learning Academy, located in the Thorncliffe Park neighbourhood, will be closed for students and staff until Dec. 14.
The early learning academy, which has around 650 students divided into 23 kindergarten classes as well as a daycare centre, was closed on the advice of Toronto Public Health to allow them “time to finish investigating and conducting additional COVID-19 testing,” a TDSB tweet read.
This makes Fraser Mustard the second TDSB school currently closed due to students testing positive for COVID-19. The school has seven confirmed cases among students, with one case resolved, according to the .
This closure comes soon after Thorncliffe Park Public School, an adjoining TDSB primary school, which was the first site of the province’s voluntary mass asymptomatic testing program, also closed due to among staff and students.
In Woodbridge, Father Bressini Catholic High School in the York Catholic District School Board has suspended in-person classes for two weeks, until Dec. 18.
5:44 a.m.: Ontario’s auditor general is set to release her annual report Monday.
Bonnie Lysyk’s report will detail 13 value-for-money audits and one review.
Among them is an audit of virtual patient care in Ontario, which her office notes has ramped up in recent years — especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lysyk assessed the accessibility, equitability and cost-effectiveness of Ontario’s virtual care options.
She’s also set to weigh in on the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, assessing whether it regulates sectors such as the province’s horse-racing industry and cannabis retail stores in line with legislative rules.
The annual update comes less than two weeks after Lysyk released a special report into the province’s pandemic response, which found that it was slower and more reactive than that of other provinces.
The governing Tories took issue with many parts of the report, with Premier Doug Ford dismissing it as “21 pages of inaccuracies” while accusing Lysyk of overstepping her authority.
“Stick with looking for value for money, stick with the job that we hired you for,” he said.
5:43 a.m.: British Columbia politicians return to the legislature today for a brief session after the October election that gave the New Democrat’s a majority government.
Premier John Horgan says they’ll use the session to make good on an election promise to provide one-time, tax-free payments of $1,000 to eligible families and $500 to individuals to help people get through the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Horgan says he expects the session, which will start with a throne speech, will last about two weeks.
The premier says the pandemic recovery payments will stimulate spending and help the B.C. economy.
Interim Liberal Leader Shirley Bond says her Opposition members will push the New Democrats to address troubles beyond the pandemic recovery fund, especially on the issue of the province’s finances.
Horgan’s New Democrats won 57 of the 87 seats in the legislature, while the Liberals lost more than a dozen seats, prompting Andrew Wilkinson to resign as leader.
5:42 a.m.: Tighter public health restrictions come into effect in three Ontario regions today in a bid to stem the spread of COVID-19.
Middlesex-London and Thunder Bay will move into the “orange” zone of the province’s colour-coded, tiered pandemic response plan.
The Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge District Health Unit moves to the “yellow” category.
The change to orange includes restrictions on visitors to long-term care homes and beefed up testing in the facilities.
The change to yellow includes limiting events and social gatherings to 10 people indoors and 25 outdoors, while organized public events are limited to 50 people indoors and 100 outdoors.
The measures will remain in place for at least 28 days.
5:41 a.m.: One Atlantic province is introducing aggressive new public health rules today, as another loosens its COVID-19 restrictions.
Prince Edward Island Premier Dennis King announced yesterday that the province would enter a two-week “circuit-breaker” lockdown today.
The move is an effort to curb community spread of the novel coronavirus, as King says contact tracing has been difficult.
New Brunswick, meanwhile, is lifting restrictions in Moncton and Fredericton thanks to a declining COVID-19 caseload.
The two areas will return to the less restrictive “yellow” level of precautions.
But officials in New Brunswick are reminding residents that the situation in other provinces remains grim, so it’s not yet safe to let loose.
5:40 a.m.: Are you feeling tired and weary dealing with the same problems every day? You likely wake up thinking about COVID-19. Then you crawl out of bed and view the numbers on TV. Next, you gauge how you’ll cope for the next 24 hours.
You know you have coronavirus burnout. You need some changes, but what can you do differently?
In order to cope, while we’re all waiting to turn the corner, try focusing on the vaccine that’s coming. It’s the first real hope we’ve had in months. Then, get busy making some small changes in your life.
“The pandemic is causing something akin to boredom on steroids,” says a psychologist we’ll call Thomas.
Thomas goes on to explain it this way: “Eating chocolate pie over and over will make you sick. People need variety in their lives.”
To pull yourself out of burnout mode, try these changes:
— Keep a notebook of nice things to do for yourself. The list might include something as simple as going for a hike or driving in the country for a couple of hours. List affordable, achievable activities or rituals (such as calling old friends) you’ve neglected to do. Again, strive for variety.
— Improve your environment. We all grow tired of our home decor, furniture, and yard landscaping. Do something simple such as painting some furniture, cleaning out your closets, or buying a gas firepit for your patio.
— Make a contribution to a non-profit in your community. Volunteer to pack boxes of food for a food bank or design a webpage to help families connect with free medical care. Invest your time in something larger than yourself at least once a week.
— Learn something you’ve neglected to pursue in the past. For example, pull out that guitar you bought years ago and learn some chords. Or, ask your daughter to teach you how to use technology to set up a group chat with your friends.
Working harder and harder will not fix burnout. This just creates a feeling of spinning your wheels.
5:39 a.m.: As the coronavirus epidemic worsens, U.S. health experts hope Joe Biden’s administration will put in place something Donald Trump’s has not — a comprehensive national testing strategy.
Such a strategy, they say, could systematically check more people for infections and spot surges before they take off. The health experts say it would be an improvement from the current practice, which has professional athletes and students at elite universities getting routine tests while many other Americans stand in line for hours — if they get tested at all.
“We have had no strategy for this virus. Our strategy has been no strategy,” said Dr. Michael Mina, a Harvard University researcher focused on use of testing to track disease.
Some experts say the lack of such a system is one reason for the current national explosion in cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
“If we’d had a more robust approach and testing was scaled up as one of the tools, I think much of this third surge would have been avoidable,” said Dr. Grant Colfax, director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health.
There are differing opinions on what such a strategy should look like, but many experts say rapid and at-home tests should be used so Americans can check themselves and stay away from others if they test positive.
The president-elect has endorsed that strategy, called for making testing free for all Americans, and said government experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other agencies should be empowered to co-ordinate the entire effort.
“The reality is we’re not testing enough today,” Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, co-chair of Biden’s coronavirus advisory board, told The Associated Press this week.
His transition team so far has not gone into further detail.
5:37 a.m.: South Korea’s health minister said Monday that the Seoul metropolitan area is now a “COVID-19 war zone,” as the country reported another 615 new infections and the virus appeared to be spreading faster.
The country has recorded more than 5,300 new infections in the past 10 days and Monday was the 30th day in a row of triple-digit daily jumps.
Most of the new infections were detected in the Seoul metropolitan area where health workers are struggling to stem transmissions tied to various places, including restaurants, schools, hospitals and long-term care facilities.
“The capital area is now a COVID-19 war zone,” Health Minister Park Neung-hoo said in a virus meeting, pleading for citizen vigilance.
He said the country may have to further increase social distancing to prevent the resurgence in the capital area from “exploding into a major outbreak nationwide and collapsing the health-care system.”
While South Korea managed to contain a major outbreak in its southeastern region in spring by channelling nationwide health resources and personnel, it’s less clear where the reinforcements will come if the virus wreaks havoc in the densely-populated capital area, where half of the country’s 51 million people live.
While President Moon Jae-in’s government had been eager to tout the country’s previous gains against the virus, there’s criticism that it gambled on its own success by moving quickly to ease social distancing restrictions to the lowest level in October even as the virus was still spreading.
5:36 a.m.: It’s back to school again for some New York City schoolchildren, weeks after the schools were closed to in-person learning because of rising COVID-19 infections.
The city’s public school system, which shut down in-person learning earlier this month, will bring back on Monday preschool students and children in kindergarten through fifth grade whose parents chose a mix of in-school and remote learning. Special education students in all grades who have particularly complex needs will be welcomed back starting Thursday.
Middle school and high school will remain all remote at least until after the holiday break, Mayor Bill de Blasio has said.
De Blasio announced Nov. 18 that public school buildings would close because the city had crossed a threshold set earlier of 3 per cent of all the coronavirus tests performed over a seven-day period coming back positive.
The rate of positive COVID-19 tests is now over 5 per cent, according to the city’s figures, but de Blasio has said it’s safe to reopen schools with beefed-up testing protocols — in part because few infections have been linked to the schools.
“We have facts now for two straight months of extraordinarily low levels of transmission in our schools, our schools are clearly safer,” de Blasio said on WNYC radio on Friday. “This is what our health care leaders say. Our schools are safer than pretty much any place else in New York City. So, I really think everyone in the school community can feel secure because so many measures are in place to protect everyone.”
5:34 a.m.: President Donald Trump says his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani has tested positive for the coronavirus, making him the latest in Trump’s inner circle to contract the disease that is now surging across the U.S.
Giuliani was exhibiting some symptoms and was admitted Sunday to Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to speak publicly.
The 76-year-old former New York mayor has travelled extensively to battleground states in an effort to help Trump subvert his election loss. On numerous occasions he has met with officials for hours at a time without wearing a mask.
Trump, who announced Giuliani’s positive test in a Sunday afternoon tweet, wished him a speedy recovery.
“Get better soon Rudy, we will carry on!!!” Trump wrote.
Giuliani did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but on Sunday evening he retweeted Trump’s announcement of his diagnosis. He also tweeted thanks to a conservative writer who had said he was praying for Giuliani.
Giuliani attended a hearing at the Georgia Capitol on Thursday where he went without a mask for several hours. Several state senators, all Republicans, also did not wear masks at the hearing.
Monday 5:32 a.m.: President-elect Joe Biden has picked California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to be his health secretary, putting a defender of the Affordable Care Act in a leading role to oversee his administration’s coronavirus response.
Separately, Biden picked a Harvard infectious disease expert, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
If confirmed by the Senate, Becerra, 62, will be the first Latino to head the Department of Health and Human Services, a $1-trillion-plus agency with 80,000 employees and a portfolio that includes drugs and vaccines, leading-edge medical research and health insurance programs covering more than 130 million Americans.
Biden’s selection of Becerra was confirmed Sunday by two people familiar with the decision, who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of a formal announcement anticipated Tuesday.
Two people also anonymously confirmed the choice of Walensky. The post of CDC director does not require Senate confirmation.
Becerra, as the State of California’s top lawyer, has led the coalition of Democratic states defending “Obamacare” from the Trump administration’s latest effort to overturn it, a legal case awaiting a Supreme Court decision next year.
A former senior House Democrat, Becerra was involved in steering the Obama health law through Congress in 2009 and 2010. At the time he would tell reporters that one of his primary motivations was having tens of thousands of uninsured people in his Southern California district.
Becerra has a lawyer’s precise approach to analyzing problems and a calm demeanour.
But overseeing the coronavirus response will be the most complicated task he has ever contemplated. By next year, the U.S. will be engaged in a mass vaccination campaign, the groundwork for which has been laid under the Trump administration. Although the vaccines appear very promising, and no effort has been spared to plan for their distribution, it’s impossible to tell yet how well things will go when it’s time to get shots in the arms of millions of Americans.
Becerra won’t be going it alone. Biden, who is expected to announce key health care picks as early as Tuesday, is taking a team approach to his administration’s virus response.
Businessman Jeff Zients is expected to be named as Biden’s White House coronavirus co-ordinator. An economic adviser to former President Barack Obama, Zients also led the rescue of the HealthCare.gov website after its disastrous launch in 2013. And former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, a co-chair of Biden’s coronavirus task force, is expected to return in a new role akin to the top medical adviser.
But the core components of HHS are the boots on the ground of the government’s coronavirus response. The Food and Drug Administration oversees vaccines and treatments, while much of the underlying scientific and medical research comes from NIH. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention takes the lead in detecting and containing the spread of diseases. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services provides insurance coverage for more than 1 in 3 Americans, including vulnerable seniors, as well as many children and low-income people.
