Coronavirus: What’s happening in Canada and around the world on Sunday

As of Sunday at 10:35 a.m. ET, the number of doses administered across the country totals 5,032,269. Provincially, Ontario has given the most shots, with 1.98 million, followed by Quebec with 1.17 million and British Columbia with 637,856.

The proportion of people in Canada who have received the two doses of a vaccine to be fully protected against COVID-19, however, remains relatively low. Nationally, about 1.75 per cent of the population is fully vaccinated. The proportion is highest in Yukon, where about one in four people (25.6 per cent) have received both doses. It’s lowest in New Brunswick, where 1.56 per cent of the population has received two shots.

Procurement Minister Anita Anand said last week that 1.5 million doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 vaccine on loan from the United States are expected to arrive in Canada on Tuesday.

WATCH | Anand on arrival date of AstraZeneca doses from the U.S.:

Procurement Minister Anita Anand announced that 1.5 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine will arrive in Canada by truck from the U.S. on Tuesday, March 30. 2:40

Those doses are part of a surge in vaccine deliveries set to take place over the coming weeks, she said.

Canada has distributed more than six million doses of COVID-19 vaccines overall.

On Saturday, Canada’s chief public health officer warned that current health orders are not enough to stop rapid growth of COVID-19 as provinces push ahead with plans to reopen their economies.

Longer-range forecast models predict a resurgence of COVID-19 infections unless public health measures are enhanced and strictly followed, Dr. Theresa Tam said in a written statement.

Tam said public health orders across Canada need to be stronger, stricter and sustained long enough to control the rise of variants of concern. High infection rates in the most populous provinces are driving up the country’s average daily case counts, she said.

What’s happening across Canada

As of 5:45 p.m. ET on Sunday, Canada had reported 965,409 cases of COVID-19, with 43,890 cases considered active. A CBC News tally of deaths stood at 22,880.

In British Columbia, the province has expanded the eligibility for vaccine appointments.

Resident 73 and older — or born in 1948 and before — are now able to book appointments, while those living on the Sunshine Coast or in Powell River, Whistler, Squamish, Pemberton and Bowen Island are able to book if they are aged 70 and up, or born in 1951 and before.

Indigenous people aged 55 and older, born in 1966 or earlier, are also eligible to book appointments.

Some vulnerable people who have received a letter from the province will also be able to begin booking vaccine appointments on Monday.

Alberta reported 644 new COVID-19 cases and three more deaths on Sunday.

Saskatchewan recorded 248 new COVID-19 cases and three related deaths.

As of Sunday, restaurants and bars in Regina closed to indoor dining as variant cases surged in the city and surrounding areas. Other “non-essential indoor locations” — like museums, libraries and cinemas — also closed.

Manitoba saw 55 new cases and an additional death.

Ontario logged 2,448 new cases and 19 more deaths, marking the fourth consecutive day of new daily cases topping 2,000. 

In Toronto, Mayor John Tory said three new mass vaccination clinics will open on Monday, but many appointments are still unfilled, and he urged those 70 and older to book slots.

Also on Monday, two regions in the province will move into more restricted areas of its colour-coded reopening framework: Hamilton will move into the grey-lockdown zone, while the Eastern Ontario Health Unit will move into the red-control zone.

Quebec confirmed 917 new cases and two more deaths on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the Collège des médecins du Québec — the professional body representing physicians in the province — asked the provincial government to reconsider its decision to relax some health measures as churches welcomed back larger crowds on Sunday and high school students in red zones prepared to return to class full time on Monday.

Premier Francois Legault said on Friday that he wasn’t considering reversing his decision to reopen gyms or to allow places of worship to welcome up to 250 people, even as he acknowledged that the province appeared to be at the beginning a third wave.

New Brunswick registered six new cases, with most in the Edmundston region.

The province’s northwest remains under tightened restrictions following a spike in cases and a move to “circuit-breaker” red-phase restrictions earlier this week.

Prince Edward Island will open its first mass vaccination clinics on Monday. 

The clinics in Charlottetown and Summerside are for the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, as opposed to the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, which is being distributed in pharmacies to younger Islanders who must work with the public.

Nova Scotia identified two new cases on Sunday, for a total of 25 active cases in the province.

Newfoundland and Labrador added one new infection, only the province’s second in the last 10 days. According to the Department of Health, the case is related to domestic travel.

Effective midnight Saturday, the entire province moved to Alert Level 2, allowing households to keep a “steady 20” group of consistent contacts.

In the North, both Nunavut and the Northwest Territories have no active active cases, while Yukon has just one.

What’s happening around the world

As of Sunday, more than 126.8 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University, which runs a coronavirus case-tracking tool. The global death toll stood at more than 2.7 million.

In Europe, critical-care doctors in Paris are calling for a full lockdown and said softer new restrictions imposed this month on the French capital and other regions won’t quickly bring the the surging coronavirus under control. Lighter restrictions, doctors say, could soon overwhelm their ability to care for the sick in the French capital’s hospitals — possibly forcing them to choose which patients to treat.

In Asia, India’s richest state, Maharashtra, is considering imposing a strict lockdown  this week after recording 40,414 new cases on Sunday — the highest one-day jump in coronavirus infections of any Indian state since last March.

In the Americas, Mexico’s government is acknowledging that — due to overwhelmed hospitals and people dying at home without being tested — the country’s true death toll from the coronavirus pandemic stands above 321,000, almost 60 per cent higher than the official toll of 201,429.

In Africa, 44 countries have received vaccines through the United Nations-backed COVAX initiative, with more than 7.7 million doses administered so far, according to WHO Africa Region.