Today’s coronavirus news: Ontario reporting 821 cases, 3 more deaths; 1 in 4 Canadians say mental health is worse now
The latest news from Canada and around the world Tuesday. This file will be updated throughout the day. Web links to longer stories if available.
7:51 p.m. Forty-nine active COVID-19 cases have been linked to a wedding in Calgary earlier this month, as Alberta’s top doctor warned the province is in the “danger zone.”
Dr. Deena Hinshaw, chief medical health officer, said 63 people attended the celebration, which was partly indoors.
“I think it’s really important to make sure that we’re not singling this particular event out as an outlier, because it’s simply an example of a kind of activity that we know causes spread if an infectious person shows up,” she said during Tuesday’s COVID-19 media briefing.
She said a common thread between the wedding outbreak and other recent ones is that one or two protective measures — whether that be hand sanitizer, masks or physical distancing — likely slipped.
“The people that were involved did nothing intentionally wrong,” said Hinshaw. “They were doing their best to follow guidance and it just reinforces that everyone that attends one of these events needs to think about all those layers of protection.”
Under provincial COVID-19 restrictions, a maximum of 100 people can attend outdoor and indoor seated events, such as wedding ceremonies, funeral services, movie theatres, indoor arts and culture performances.
Alberta reported 323 new COVID-19 cases over the past day and one additional death, bringing the province’s total fatalities to 293.
There are 116 people in hospital, including 16 in intensive care.
The Alberta government has said its health-care system can manage as long as no more than half of its intensive care beds dedicated to COVID-19 patients are full and its daily compounded hospitalization rate stays below five per cent.
Hinshaw said 23 per cent of its COVID-19 ICU beds are being used and that its daily compounded hospitalization rate is 3.1 per cent.
“I would say we’re in a danger zone where the coming weeks will really tell that story about whether we are able collectively to bend that curve downwards,” she said.
“We’re not yet at that point where our system is not able to cope, but we are getting closer.”
Hinshaw said public health officials need to balance the benefits of further mandatory shutdowns against the risks.
“We know that restrictions have an impact on other aspects of people’s health,” she said.
“We’re trying to give Albertans every opportunity to work with us in this voluntary way before we put in place those mandatory measures — if we need to do that, based on that impact on our acute care system.”
Also Tuesday, Hinshaw said Alberta is further restricting asymptomatic testing to people who have come into contact with a known case or are linked to an outbreak.
7:10 p.m.: early this month in the northern Mexico border city of Mexicali, authorities said.
About 300 people attended the Oct. 3 nuptials of a soap opera actor and the daughter of a businessman, Alonso Oscar Pérez Rico, the health secretary of Baja California state said Monday.
Pérez Rico told local media that there were apparently no masks or temperature checks at the event and that the organizers also did not have permission to hold an event of that size during the pandemic.
7:03 p.m.: Colorado’s governor says he won’t impose new statewide restrictions for addressing what he calls an alarming acceleration of new coronavirus cases and hospitalizations.
Gov. Jared Polis said Tuesday that he will instead encourage the people of Colorado to take responsibility for mask wearing, social distancing, getting tested, self-quarantining and other behaviours to stem the virus’s spread.
Polis says roughly 80% of the pandemic fight comes down to personal decisions. He also says local health agencies are best suited to deal with any rising cases among their residents.
The state reported 1,208 new confirmed cases Tuesday and 417 hospitalizations.
6:47 p.m.: Health-care workers, businesses and non-profits could receive liability protection against COVID-19-related lawsuits under, but critics said the bill would result in extra protection for long-term care providers who failed residents during the pandemic.
Attorney General Doug Downey said that if passed, the proposed law would ensure that anyone making an “honest effort” to follow public health guidelines while working or volunteering would not be exposed to liability.
6:33 p.m.: Canada’s chief public health doctor.
Dr. Theresa Tam says when false information is spread — either intentionally or not — it does not help public health officials ensure the public has the information they need to make the right choices.
“As I reflect on the unprecedented pandemic that we have, there’s also I think the pandemic that’s occurred in the age of social media, and many different ways in which information is spread faster than the virus itself,” Tam said Tuesday at one of her regular news conferences on Parliament Hill.
6:06 p.m.: Top defence officials have while painting a gloomy picture of how the pandemic could affect the military and country for the next year – if not longer.
The order and assessment are contained in a new directive to military personnel and Defence Department officials issued Tuesday by chief of defence staff Gen. Jonathan Vance and Defence Department deputy minister Jody Thomas.
It represents the latest call to arms to service members since March, when the Armed Forces was first put on high alert in anticipation of requests for assistance as COVID-19 spread across the country.
5:50 p.m.: For the first time in nearly 50 years, , according to a study released Tuesday by the New School university in New York City.
The pandemic has wreaked havoc on employment for people of all ages. But researchers found that during its course, workers 55 and older lost jobs sooner, were rehired slower and continue to face higher job losses than their counterparts ages 35 to 54.
5:27 p.m.: Quebec’s health-care system is “running on empty,” as the province reported 33 new hospitalizations from COVID-19.
But while Legault expressed sympathy for the exhaustion and frustration of nurses working in hospitals, he said his government could not offer them raises above the level of inflation during ongoing contract talks.
“I’m ready to do pretty much everything. I’m open to all the solutions to reduce nurses’ workload,” he said.
“The only thing we have to understand is that we can’t both make financial efforts to reduce workload and simultaneously give salary increases beyond inflation.”
3:24 p.m.: Quebec’s director of public health to protect him against threats from people upset with his pandemic-related health orders.
Dr. Horacio Arruda told reporters he was assigned a driver and bodyguard after the Public Security Department evaluated the threats that had been made against him.
Arruda said the security measures have been in place “since the start” but he didn’t elaborate.
Last Thursday, a small group of protesters showed up at Arruda’s private home in a suburb north of Montreal.
In July, Arruda filed a police complaint after his address and home phone number were posted online.
Arruda said he believes in the right to protest but said his concern is with those who may use demonstrations to cause mischief.
2:50 p.m.: As Argentina , it is now smaller cities like Ushuaia that are seeing some of the most notable upticks. Doctors have had to quadruple the number of beds for COVID-19 patients over the last month. At least 60 per cent of those tested recently are coming back positive for the virus.
Across Latin America, three other nations are expected to reach the 1 million case milestone in the coming weeks — Colombia, Mexico and Peru. The grim mark comes as Latin America continues to register some of the world’s highest daily case counts. And though some nations have seen important declines, overall there has been little relief, with cases dropping in one municipality only to escalate in another.
The trajectory is showing that the pandemic is likely to leave no corner of Latin America unscathed.
“The second wave is arriving without ever having finished the first,” said Dr. Luis Jorge Hernández, a public health professor at the University of the Andes in Colombia.
Argentina has seen cases spiral despite instituting one of the world’s longest lockdowns. Colombia’s major cities have seen a dip, but smaller areas like the department of Caldas in the coffee region are only now reaching a peak. Peru’s overall numbers have dropped, but officials recently reported 12 regions are spiking back up. Mexico, likewise, has seen a rise in a quarter of all states over the last week.
2:20 p.m.: Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin announced a tough new lockdown. From midnight Wednesday, non-essential shops must close, restaurants will be limited to takeout, people must stay within five kilometres of their homes and visits to other households are banned.
It’s a near-return to the severe restrictions imposed by the government in March, although schools, construction sites and manufacturing industries will remain open. Martin said that if people complied with the restrictions, which will be in place until Dec. 1, the country would be able to celebrate Christmas “in a meaningful way.”
Ireland, which has a population of almost 5 million, has recorded 1,852 coronavirus deaths.
2:20 p.m.: Iran has reported a single-day record of more than 5,000 coronavirus cases.
Iran’s health ministry reported 322 deaths, pushing the death toll over 31,000. The new cases on Tuesday eclipsed the previous high of 4,830 last week.
Hospitals in the hard-hit capital of Tehran are overflowing. The increase comes after Iranians packed cafes and restaurants at vacation spots during recent national holidays and the re-opening of schools last month.
The government closed museums, libraries, beauty salons, schools and universities in Tehran earlier this month and imposed a mask mandate outdoors.
Iran officials have resisted a total lockdown because they don’t want to further weaken an economy already devastated by unprecedented U.S. sanctions. The Trump administration re-imposed economic sanctions on Iran after withdrawing in 2018 from Tehran’s nuclear accord with world powers.
2 p.m.: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau when considering how to celebrate Halloween next week.
The question of how to handle the spooky evening is top of mind for many parents who are trying to assess a patchwork of regional health advice, guidance and stern warnings against trick-or-treating.
Health authorities in Ontario have advised against it in the hot spots of Toronto, Peel Region, York Region and Ottawa.
But Quebec Premier François Legault has said the pastime can go ahead if participants wear face masks and head out with family rather than friends, even though the province is Canada’s viral epicentre.
Trudeau acknowledged the difficulty involved in forgoing Halloween.
“We know that it’s not easy, and it’s frustrating,” he said Tuesday. “Unfortunately all of us are having to make sacrifices of different types, particularly kids.”
The Trudeau family lives in Ottawa, which has a Stage 2 designation, so the prime minister said his children are staying home.
“Listening to public health officials means that my family will not be going trick-or-treating this year, because in Ottawa and in Ontario in red zones like Ottawa they are not encouraging or not recommending trick-or-treating, and therefore we won’t be,” he said.
“A friend of mine suggested that maybe we could do an Easter-style treasure hunt for candy throughout the house and yard, and that’s something that we’re also reflecting on,” Trudeau said.
“I think families will be creative in how they respond to giving their kids as fun a holiday as we can while always listening to public health officials and respecting local guidelines.”
In a message aimed partly at young people, the country’s top physician encouraged Canadians who use TikTok, Instagram and other social media to spread the word about healthy habits in order to keep the coronavirus “on a slow burn.”
“As each part of the country is experiencing the pandemic differently, people may be facing uncertainty about what action is needed to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe,” said Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer.
1:35 p.m.: Manitoba is reporting 109 new COVID-19 cases, with 88 of them in Winnipeg.
Health officials are also reporting outbreaks at one school and three long-term care homes in the city.
The greater Winnipeg region has been under stricter health orders, including mandatory mask use in public indoor areas, after numbers started climbing last month.
1:24 p.m. Ontario reported an increase of more than 100 cases with 821 new infections Tuesday and is allowing dance studios in Toronto, Peel, York and Ottawa to re-open.
Owners of dance studios had been pushing for change since the four hot zones went into modified Stage 2 restrictions, and a government review determined they are at less risk of transmission than gyms and fitness centres also closed in addition to indoor dining at bars, restaurants and food courts.
“They informed us that they were able to keep enough distance, that they were able to do that in a safe way,” Health Minister Christine Elliott said of dance studios.
“I know it is really difficult for some business owners to understand why they can’t be open,” added Elliott, who acknowledged “We’re still having conversations with other groups.”
12:30 p.m. AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., the world’s largest cinema chain, while warning investors that it may need to file for bankruptcy, leaving its equity worthless.
AMC, contending with a liquidity crisis that threatens its ability to remain a going concern, said the equity distribution plan might not be enough. With $417.9 million (U.S.) in cash on hand, the company still needs a material amount of new funding by the end of the year to stay in business, it said in a filing Tuesday.
If AMC is unable to raise enough cash to meet its obligations, the company said it would file for bankruptcy or seek an out-of-court restructuring of its debts.
12:19 p.m.: The country is again being pushed to the brink of an election, over a demand by the Opposition Conservatives that a committee be set up to probe allegations of the misuse of public funds on COVID-19 relief programs.
The Liberals declared Tuesday that the vote on the Tories’ motion to create the committee will be a confidence matter, saying that if the opposition parties unite to pass it, that effectively means the House of Commons has lost faith in the government.
The Bloc Québécois moved swiftly to call the Liberals’ bluff, accusing them of theatrics and saying they will vote with the Conservatives to force the creation of the committee.
Canadians want answers and if that requires an election, it will be the fault of the Liberals, said Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet.
“It’s their choice, it’s their fault, they are doing it,” he told the House of Commons as debate on the motion got underway.
11:05 a.m.: Ontario is reporting 821 new cases of COVID-19, and three new deaths due to the virus.
Health Minister Christine Elliott says 327 cases are in Toronto, 136 in Peel Region, 79 in Ottawa, and 64 in York Region.
The province says it has a backlog of 24,129 tests, and has conducted 24,049 tests since the last daily report.
In total, 274 people are hospitalized in Ontario due to COVID-19.
11:05 a.m.: The number of new cases in public schools across the province has jumped by 121 from the previous day, to a total of 793 in the last two weeks.
, the province reported 75 more students were infected for a total of 461 in the last two weeks; since school began there have been overall total of 810.
The data shows there are 22 more staff members for a total of 117 in the last two weeks — and an overall total of 223.
The latest report also shows 24 more individuals who weren’t identified for a total of 215 in that category — and an overall total of 396.
11 a.m.: In response to Monday’s recommendation to call off trick-or-treating this year, Brampton mayor Patrick Brown says he’s disappointed some elements of the night couldn’t be salvaged with creative health protocols, such as contactless candy collection.
“I wish it was different,” Brown said, adding he’s thinking up creative ways to salvage some of the fun, including the hosting of virtual contests for best costume.
“Ultimately, we have to listen to the advice of public health.”
Meanwhile, Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie said youngsters and their families will have to celebrate Halloween differently in COVID-19 hotspots like Peel, because not going door-to-door “is the best way to keep our city healthy and safe and reduce the spread of this virus.”
11 a.m.: Prince Edward Island is reporting one new case of COVID-19.
Dr. Heather Morrison, the chief public health officer, says the case involves a woman in her 20s who is a rotational worker and who travelled outside of the Atlantic bubble.
There are currently three active cases on the Island.
Since the pandemic began, P.E.I. has seen a total of 64 cases and all have been travel related.
10:40 a.m. Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole says he’s willing to change the name and mandate of a proposed committee to probe COVID-19 relief programs to make it clear his party doesn’t want to force an election.
The Liberals have said that in pushing for an “anticorruption committee,” the Tories are effectively saying they’ve lost confidence in the government, so the vote on setting it up ought to be one of confidence.
That means if the Tories get the support of the Bloc Québécois and NDP for the motion, they could topple the government.
O’Toole says the Liberals’ approach is nonsense and Canadians should be concerned if the Liberals would rather send them to the polls than answer what he called a “few simple questions.”
The stated point of the proposed committee is to take a deep look into three different COVID-19 relief programs, two with connections to longtime Liberals and one with an organization with close links to the party and to the Trudeau family.
But O’Toole says he’s now talking to the NDP and Bloc to see if they can agree on a revised mandate for the committee, as well as a new name, that would erase the possibility of a confidence vote on the motion.
10:20 a.m. (will be updated) Ontario is reporting 821 cases of COVID-19. Locally, there are 327 new cases in Toronto, 136 in Peel, 64 in York Region and 79 in Ottawa. More than 24,000 tests were completed.
9:39 a.m. The British government and officials in Manchester, England’s second-largest city, were still talking Tuesday after a noon deadline passed for the city to agree to tighter coronavirus measures.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is struggling to impose his plan for localized restrictions on restive regions, spoke by phone to Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham on Tuesday afternoon, Johnson’s office said. The prime minister is expected to give an update on coronavirus restrictions later at a news conference.
Johnson’s government is resisting a recommendation from its scientific advisers to have a short “circuit-breaker” lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus. Instead it has adopted a three-tier system for England, with areas classed as medium, high or very high virus risk. In the top tier, pubs have to close and people are barred from mixing with members of other households.
So far only the Liverpool and Lancashire regions of northwest England have been placed in Tier 3, the highest level. Nearby Greater Manchester, with a population of almost 3 million, has been holding out for more support for workers and businesses affected by the restrictions.
“We’re trying to respond to a pandemic on the cheap, that’s how it feels,” Burnham said.
9:10 a.m. An employee at a Shoppers Drug Mart in Mississauga recently tested positive for COVID-19.
According to the , one employee at the tested positive on a presumptive test.
Management was notified of the case on Oct. 19 and the employee’s last day of work was on Oct. 13.
The company said once management is notified of a positive test result, the store undergoes a deep clean and sanitization.
9 a.m. In a seniors housing building in east-end Toronto, 69-year-old Maureen Clohessy has taped over her power outlets, hoping to keep bedbugs out of the bachelor unit she’s called home for three years.
Each day, she watches for the scuttling critters, her eyes scanning from her plugs to her ceiling in an apartment on the seventh floor. The building at 828 Kingston Road is known as Glen Stewart Acres, and it’s one of several senior-specific buildings operated by the Toronto Community Housing Corporation.
Like other community housing buildings in Toronto, Glen Stewart Acres has battled pests from bedbugs to rodents and cockroaches. The housing operator saw a leap of 17.4 per cent in demands for pest treatments across all their buildings last year. Clohessy’s building was supposed to be treated top-to-bottom this spring. But then the pandemic hit — and the process was put indefinitely on hold.
8:32 a.m. The rate of COVID-19 testing in the part of the city hit hardest by the virus is lagging behind other neighbourhoods, data newly posted by Toronto Public Health shows.
That data, released Monday and current to Oct. 4, shows that eight of the 10 neighbourhoods with the highest per cent positivity for COVID-19 are in the northwest part of the city, .
At the same time, all eight of those neighbourhoods had rates of testing below the average for neighbourhoods where there was data available.
On Monday, the city’s board of health called on the province to increase the availability and accessibility of pop-up testing in neighbourhoods disproportionately affected by the pandemic.
Dr. Eileen de Villa, the city’s medical officer of health, said Monday that more testing is needed to “fully understand” what’s happening in those neighbourhoods. Testing is the responsibility of the province.
8:30 a.m. The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health says three more patients have tested positive for COVID-19.
That brings the total number of cases at its 1-4 Unit in downtown Toronto up to five after two were announced on Sunday.
CAMH is one of three hospitals in Toronto with active outbreaks,
Toronto Western Hospital said on Sunday five staff and three patients in two of its units have tested positive.
St. Joseph’s Health Centre was reporting outbreaks in four units on Sunday.
The province says an outbreak is declared when two or more people test positive for the virus within 14 days who could have reasonably caught COVID-19 at the hospital.
8:10 a.m. Health Canada is recalling a product labelled a hand sanitizer but that it has determined is counterfeit.
The government department says a counterfeit version of the authorized Daily Shield hand sanitizer has been found for sale at a Dollarama store in Thunder Bay.
Health Canada warns the false version may not be effective at killing bacteria and viruses, and may pose serious risks to health.
It also says that the unauthorized product is suspected to contain methanol, which is not authorized for use in hand sanitizers and could cause severe adverse reactions or death when ingested.
The counterfeit version is labelled with NPN 80098979, Lot 6942; Expiry May 2023 and is sold in a 250 mL format.
7:30 a.m. The number of passengers screened in a single day for flights in the U.S. topped one million for the first time since COVID-19 infections began to spike last March.
The notable milestone, reached Sunday, signifies both the progress made since the darkest days of pandemic for the devastated U.S. airline industry, when fewer than 100,000 people were screened per day in April, and how far it still has to go.
The million plus passengers screened Sunday compares with 2.6 million on the same day last year, or roughly 60% fewer, according to the Transportation Security Administration.
The TSA said that the 6.1 million passengers at U.S. checkpoints the week of Oct. 12 through Oct. 18 was the greatest volume measured since the start of the pandemic.
Vacation plans and business trips were frozen in the spring as millions took shelter. With so little known about the virus, few wanted to board planes or walk through an airport even if they could.
Airlines received $50 billion (U.S.) in cash and loans from Congress in March on the condition that they held off on layoffs at least through October. Airlines are now warning of mass layoffs while lobbying Congress and the White House for another $25 billion (U.S.) to pay workers for the next six months.
7:15 a.m. Colombian cyclist Fernando Gaviria has tested positive for the coronavirus and has been withdrawn from the Giro d’Italia.
Gaviria and a staff member for Team AG2R La Mondiale were the only positives out of 492 tests carried out Sunday and Monday.
Gaviria’s UAE Team Emirates says the rider “was immediately isolated following the test result and is feeling well and is completely asymptomatic.”
The team notes that Gaviria also had COVID-19 in March.
Gaviria has won five stages at the Giro during his career.
Overall contenders Simon Yates and Steven Kruijswijk had already been withdrawn from the race after testing positive. Australian standout Michael Matthews also was withdrawn. The Mitchelton-Scott and Jumbo-Visma teams withdrew their entire squads last week following a series of positive results from the first rest day.
7:10 a.m. Rugby Europe has suspended all internationals to the end of November, including the long-delayed last round of the men’s championship.
On Nov. 1 were scheduled Romania vs. Belgium and Georgia vs. Russia, and on Nov. 15 Spain vs. Portugal. They have been postponed since March.
Georgia has already retained the title, while Romania is in last place, which drops the occupier into a promotion-relegation match against the waiting Netherlands.
“Our players and our officials are mostly ‘amateurs,’” Rugby Europe president Octavian Morariu said on Tuesday. “We cannot expose them to the virus or to quarantine periods that would be problematic for them.”
5:53 a.m.: A number of fishing crew who flew into New Zealand on chartered planes have the coronavirus.
Health officials said Tuesday that 11 have tested positive so far and another 14 cases are being investigated.
The crew members have been in quarantine at a Christchurch hotel since they arrived, and tested positive during routine testing, officials said. The news could deal a blow to New Zealand’s efforts to restart its fishing industry, which has struggled to find local workers to crew vessels.
Jeremy Helson, the chief executive of Seafood New Zealand, said all the men tested negative before flying to New Zealand. “While we await to see how many cases there are, the fact that they were all detected in quarantine shows the system is working well,” Helson said in a statement.
The origin of the infected crew members wasn’t immediately clear, although a number of fishing crew have been arriving in New Zealand in recent days from Russia and Ukraine.
New Zealand has managed to stamp out community spread of the virus.
5:51 a.m.: Near the end of September, with coronavirus cases falling and more schools and businesses reopening, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration urged restraint, citing a statistical model that predicted a startling 89-per-cent increase in virus hospitalizations in the next month.
That hasn’t happened. Instead, state data shows hospitalizations have fallen by about 15 per cent since that warning while the weekly average number of new cases continues to decline even as other more populous states like Florida, Ohio and Illinois see increases.
California’s good news isn’t enough to change what Newsom calls his “slow” and “stubborn” approach to reopening the world’s fifth-largest economy. He again cautioned people against “being overly exuberant” about those coronavirus numbers, pointing to a “decline in the rate of decline” of hospitalizations.
5:50 a.m.: A Cabinet minister says Pakistan has witnessed a 140 per-cent increase in fatalities from COVID-19 in recent weeks due to widespread violations of social distancing rules.
Asad Umar, the planning and development minister who oversees Pakistan’s response to coronavirus, warned on Twitter “We will lose both lives and livelihoods” if people did not adhere to social distancing rules.
His comments Tuesday came shortly after the military-backed Command and Operations Center reported 14 deaths and 625 new cases in the past 24 hours.
Prime Minister Imran Khan had warned on Monday that Pakistan’s big cities could face a second wave of COVID-19 in the coming weeks because of increasing pollution in winter. Pakistan has reported 324,084 cases, including 6,673 COVID-19 deaths.
5:49 a.m.: As Argentina passed 1 million virus cases Monday, it is now smaller cities like Ushuaia that are seeing some of the most notable upticks. Doctors have had to quadruple the number of beds for COVID-19 patients over the last month. At least 60 per cent of those tested recently are coming back positive for the virus.
“We were the example of the country,” said Dr. Carlos Guglielmi, director of the Ushuaia Regional Hospital. “Evidently someone arrived with the coronavirus.”
Across Latin America, three other nations are expected to reach the 1 million case milestone in the coming weeks — Colombia, Mexico and Peru. The grim mark comes as Latin America continues to register some of the world’s highest daily case counts. And though some nations have seen important declines, overall there has been little relief, with cases dropping in one municipality only to escalate in another.
The trajectory is showing that the pandemic is likely to leave no corner of Latin America unscathed.
5:44 a.m.: Canadians continue to experience mental health difficulties due to the pandemic, with one in four saying their stress level is higher than during the first COVID-19 wave, according to a new poll.
The online survey by Leger and the Association for Canadian Studies found that only 19 per cent of Canadians say their mental health is better now than in March and April as infection rates tick up and autumn sets in.
However, about 54 per cent said their mental state is about the same as when the coronavirus first struck the country.
Participants cited concerns about the length and severity of the pandemic as their biggest source of anxiety, followed closely by social isolation and family health.
“If we cannot see extended family during the holidays and rekindle that positive energy that we get from family and friends, it might lead to a long winter,” said Leger executive vice-president Christian Bourque.
“It’s almost like, when is this thing going to end?”
4 a.m.: The latest numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Canada as of 4 a.m. EDT on Oct. 20, 2020:
There are 200,939 confirmed cases in Canada.
-Quebec: 94,429 confirmed (including 6,044 deaths, 79,529 resolved)
-Ontario: 65,075 confirmed (including 3,050 deaths, 55,978 resolved)
-Alberta: 22,673 confirmed (including 292 deaths, 19,243 resolved)
-British Columbia: 11,687 confirmed (including 253 deaths, 9,753 resolved)
-Manitoba: 3,382 confirmed (including 42 deaths, 1,597 resolved)
-Saskatchewan: 2,396 confirmed (including 25 deaths, 1,973 resolved)
-Nova Scotia: 1,097 confirmed (including 65 deaths, 1,026 resolved)
-New Brunswick: 313 confirmed (including 3 deaths, 207 resolved)
-Newfoundland and Labrador: 287 confirmed (including 4 deaths, 272 resolved)
-Prince Edward Island: 63 confirmed (including 60 resolved)
-Yukon: 17 confirmed (including 15 resolved)
-Repatriated Canadians: 13 confirmed (including 13 resolved)
-Northwest Territories: 5 confirmed (including 5 resolved), 3 presumptive
-Nunavut: No confirmed cases
Total: 201,440 (3 presumptive, 201,437 confirmed including 9,778 deaths, 169,671 resolved)
Monday 6:35 p.m.: The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health has reported a COVID-19 outbreak at its Queen Street West site, with five patients testing positive for the virus. It is the first outbreak at Canada’s largest mental health hospital since April.
Two patients were said to have COVID-19 on Sunday. By Monday at 5 p.m., CAMH updated their website to reveal three more patients had tested positive, bringing the total to five current patients with the virus.
The new outbreak brings the number of patients who have tested positive for the virus at CAMH to 29 since the pandemic began. Nineteen have since recovered and three were discharged.
