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Students across Canada are returning to class following the holiday break, with some provinces opting to delay bringing kids back into classrooms amid COVID-19 concerns, while others are resuming in-person instruction right away.
In British Columbia, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry has said there was no need to delay school after the holidays and that a task force was working to ensure a safe return.
But some B.C. parents remain concerned about sending their kids back to school without more precautions in place to protect against the spread of COVID-19. By noon on Monday, more than 60,000 people had signed a petition calling on the province to pause in-class learning for two weeks.
“If schools were to reopen the same way that they did prior to the holiday, I am concerned,” said Dr. Amy Tan, a physician and organizer with Masks for Canada. Tan said she wasn’t sure if she would be sending her 11-year-old son back to school in Victoria.
She wants the province to release more information about recent spread of COVID-19 locally as well as within the province so that parents can make an informed decision. She also wants to see asymptomatic and more general, widespread testing in schools.
WATCH | Educators find innovative ways to teach outside the classroom:
The pandemic has forced educators across Canada to find innovative new ways to teach from a distance. 2:06
In Ontario, where thousands of elementary and secondary school students are returning to remote learning on Monday, the Official Opposition is similarly calling for widespread testing in schools.
Marit Stiles, the NDP’s education critic, said in an interview with CBC Toronto that the Ontario government doesn’t know how many students in publicly funded schools are asymptomatic across the province and that a “comprehensive testing strategy” is needed.
In an open letter to parents released on the weekend, Education Minister Stephen Lecce said “schools are not a source of rising community transmission,” according to medical experts. He said a provincewide lockdown imposed on Dec. 26 has helped to ensure that schools remain safe.
Ontario elementary students, as well as secondary students in northern public health units, will learn remotely for the first week of January but can return to classrooms on Jan. 11. Secondary students in the rest of the province can return to classrooms on Jan. 25.
Meanwhile, Quebec elementary and high schools will remain closed to in-person instruction until Jan. 11.
Roxane Borgès Da Silva, a public health professor at Université de Montréal, told Radio-Canada on Sunday that she is concerned about reopening schools and returning to normal when there are so many new cases every day.
She said 11 per cent of tests are coming back positive while the World Health Organization recommends a lockdown at just five per cent.
“As we have a very high positivity rate of COVID-19, we may have to do a strict lockdown,” she said. “I am very scared for the children.”
What’s happening across Canada
As of 1:45 p.m. ET Monday, Canada’s COVID-19 case count stood at 607,615, with 82,735 of those cases considered active. A CBC News tally of deaths stood at 15,931.
In Atlantic Canada, New Brunswick reported 17 new cases on Monday, while Newfoundland and Labrador reported one new case, breaking a five-day streak without any new infections.
Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia did not report any new cases on Sunday.
Some Halifax-area restaurants were scrambling over the weekend to prepare for reopening after the province announced on New Year’s Eve that restaurants and bars would be allowed to offer dine-in service again starting on Monday.
Quebec reported 2,546 new cases of COVID-19 and 32 more deaths on Monday. There were 1,294 people in hospital with the illness, including 188 in intensive care.
More than 30,000 people in the province had received the first dose of the two-dose COVID-19 vaccine as of Sunday.
WATCH | One-third of Ontario LTC homes dealing with COVID outbreaks:
There are COVID-19 outbreaks in one-third of all Ontario long-term care homes, and critics say residents are not being vaccinated quickly enough. 1:48
Ontario reported 3,270 new COVID-19 cases and 29 new deaths on Monday. With the new cases, the province’s seven-day average of daily cases is approaching 3,000 for the first time.
The number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 jumped considerably, up 192 to 1,190. Of those, 333 are being treated in intensive care, while 194 require the use of a ventilator.
Just before noon, the first person to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in the province — personal support worker Anita Quidangen — received her second dose at Toronto’s University Health Network, 21 days after the first.
Premier Doug Ford was on hand to witness the event and said that Ontario is going “full steam forward” with its vaccination efforts. More than 42,000 vaccine doses had been administered in Ontario as of Sunday, according to provincial data.
WATCH | Ford says Ontario ramping up vaccine rollout:
Ontario Premier Doug Ford promised a ‘significant difference’ in the speed of Ontario’s vaccine rollout, as health-care workers began receiving their second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. 0:34
Manitoba announced 118 new infections and five new deaths on Monday.
Saskatchewan announced 238 new cases but no new deaths on Sunday. Meanwhile, there are now 109 active cases in an outbreak at the Saskatchewan Penitentiary.
In Alberta, the province’s chief medical officer of health on Sunday reported an estimated 400 new cases of COVID-19. Dr. Deena Hinshaw added that Alberta’s hospitalization and ICU totals remained stable, and the province’s death toll stayed at 1,046.
In British Columbia, which doesn’t provide COVID-19 data on weekends, the government has given the green light for the Vancouver Canucks to play home games in the province during the upcoming 2021 NHL season.
WATCH | B.C. gives green light for in-province NHL games:
B.C is now the second province to approve the NHL’s COVID-19 safety plans to host games in the province once the season begins on Jan. 13. With three more provinces still to decide, a doctor weighs in about those plans. 1:33
In the North, Nunavut reported no new cases on Monday, leaving it with zero active cases. The territorial government announced Sunday that 265 of its 266 total cases have now recovered, while one case resulted in a death.
Yukon also did not report any new cases on Sunday, while N.W.T. did not provide updated figures over the weekend.
Here’s a look at what’s happening with COVID-19 across the country:
What’s happening around the world
As of Monday afternoon, more than 85.3 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide with more than 47.9 million cases considered recovered or resolved, according to Johns Hopkins University’s tracking tool. The global death toll stood at more than 1.8 million.
Brazil confirmed its first cases of the coronavirus variant first discovered in the United Kingdom on Monday. Two cases were reported in Sao Paulo state.
In Europe, Britain began vaccinating its population with the COVID-19 shot developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca on Monday, as it looks to curb a sharp rise in cases in recent weeks fuelled by a new and more transmissible variant of the virus.
Britain is the first country to roll out the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot, which can be kept in refrigerators rather than ultra-cold storage, making it easier to distribute than the Pfizer-BioNTech shot.
Meanwhile, France’s cautious approach to its vaccine rollout appears to have backfired, leaving just a few hundred people vaccinated after the first week and rekindling anger over the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
President Emmanuel Macron was scheduled to hold a special meeting with top government officials Monday afternoon to address the vaccine strategy and other virus developments.
In France, a country of 67 million people, just 516 people were vaccinated in the first six days while Germany’s first-week total surpassed 200,000 and Italy’s was over 100,000.
In Asia-Pacific, Sri Lankan authorities on Monday announced that the schools will partially reopen starting next week, after being closed for nearly three months due to a COVID-19 surge. The education ministry has decided to keep schools closed in the capital Colombo and surrounding suburbs.
Mask wearing has become mandatory is some circumstances in Australia’s largest city due to the pandemic risk. People risk a 200 Australian dollar ($196 Cdn) fine in Sydney if they don’t wear masks in shopping malls, on public transport and in various indoor areas.
Thailand has registered 745 new coronavirus cases, with a new death reported in Bangkok, where a semi-lockdown went into effect. The government has ordered all schools closed from Monday but has not yet closed down shopping malls or stores, while restaurants are still allowed to operate but cannot serve alcoholic beverages.
In the Americas, the U.S. health and human services secretary is shooting down the idea of expanding the number of Americans getting a COVID-19 vaccine by giving them only one dose instead of the two being administered now.
Alex Azar told ABC’s Good Morning America on Monday that the U.S. is “holding in reserve that second dose” because that’s what the science says to do. The two vaccines approved in the U.S. so far, one by Pfizer and the German firm BioNTech and the other by Moderna, each require double doses.
Some health experts have suggested that, with vaccine supplies short, people might get partial protection from a single dose and that should be considered as a way to reach far more people faster. But Azar said “the data just isn’t there to support that and we’re not going to do that.”
Azar said the U.S. has reported 1.5 million vaccinations in the last 72 hours, a “very rapid uptick” that he predicts will continue.
Colombia’s capital, Bogota, will implement strict two-week quarantines in three neighbourhoods beginning on Tuesday to try to control a second wave of coronavirus.
In the Middle East, Jordan has struck a deal with Pfizer and partner BioNTech to buy one million doses of their COVID-19 vaccine and another two million doses from the World Health Organization’s s COVAX program.
In Africa, 16 million Kenyan students were expected to return to their classrooms on Monday, most for the first time since schools closed in March due to the pandemic.
Students in some years returned to school in October to prepare for exams. But school officials say they don’t have enough rooms to accommodate the January influx, with some classes having over 80 students, making physical distancing virtually impossible.
WATCH | Kenyan students back in school after 10-month hiatus:
In Kenya, 16 million children head back to school after being out for 10 months because of COVID-19. But some teachers and parents fear sufficient protocols are not in place to protect students. 0:47
South Africa is aiming to get COVID-19 vaccines by next month but is still in talks with pharmaceutical companies and no deals have been signed yet.
The country remains the hardest hit on the continent, with more than 1.1 million cases and more than 29,000 deaths reported since the start of the pandemic.
