Coronavirus news and updates for Sunday, March 20, 2022

The latest coronavirus information from Canada and around the globe Sunday. This file will be up to date all through the working day. Website links to more time stories if readily available.

4:51 p.m.: Toddlers and young children youthful than 5 were being hospitalized with coronavirus at significantly increased rates during the newest U.S. surge, when the really transmissible omicron variant was dominant, when compared with previously intervals in the pandemic, in accordance to the Centers for Condition Management and Avoidance.

Hospitalizations of these kids were being about five instances better for the duration of the omicron surge, among Dec. 19 and Feb. 19, than for the duration of the time period when the delta variant was dominant, in between June 27 and Dec. 18.

Fees of admission to intense treatment also rose substantially among the young young children, reaching a peak Jan. 8.

Young children of coloration youthful than 5 wound up in hospitals at disproportionate charges. Only one-3rd of the youngsters have been white, when 28 for every cent had been Hispanic, and 23 per cent were being Black. Hispanic men and women signify 18 for every cent of the population, and Black Americans make up 13 for each cent. (Six percent of the hospitalizations of children young than 5 of were being among Asian or other Pacific Islander young children, about the similar as their representation in the populace.)

Authorities say kids of shade are infected at larger fees due to the fact they are extra possible to have moms and dads who work in community-facing work opportunities and far more probable to dwell in poverty and in multigenerational households.

Though hospitalization premiums for younger children are however somewhat lower, compared with the costs between more mature Americans, the virus poses specific hazards to youthful small children and especially to toddlers.

Infants 6 months aged and more youthful had been the most susceptible, symbolizing nearly fifty percent of the hospitalizations between youthful youngsters through the omicron time period. They have been hospitalized at charges about 6 situations as superior at the peak of the omicron surge, in comparison with the peak of the delta wave. Two infants died, the CDC discovered.

1:46 p.m.: A southern Ontario university board is sticking to its approach to extend its mask mandate beyond the provincial one particular, even after the government instructed it to fall the general public overall health evaluate.

In a assertion launched Friday night, the Hamilton-Wentworth District University Board stated it would implement mask-carrying until eventually April 1, irrespective of the province lifting mandates in most indoor settings starting Monday.

“Supporting employees and families in the course of this phased tactic and time of transition is our priority. We are reminding workers and students to wear a mask right up until April 1 and to exercise their alternative by finishing the mask exemption process, if desired,” board chair Dawn Danko claimed in the statement.

She launched the assertion in response to a letter despatched by Education and learning Minister Stephen Lecce on Friday.

The authorities says the board has no lawful authority to mandate masks in the absence of a directive from a general public wellness unit.

In his letter, Lecce reiterated factors made by the province’s top rated doctor.

“Ontario now has equally the prevention and reaction equipment required to regulate the affect of COVID-19,” the letter reads, stating the province is now capable to clear away “many of the crisis actions that have been in location in excess of the earlier two yrs.”

The letter mentioned that some community well being actions will continue to be in universities, these as obligatory COVID-19 self-screening for staff members and learners, air flow updates and enhanced air top quality procedures.

1:42 p.m.: A likely rise in U.S. COVID-19 situations probably won’t sum to a total-scale surge or prompt a renewal of popular restrictions, a single of President Joe Biden’s top advisers claimed.

“The base line is we possible will see an uptick in scenarios, as we’ve observed in the European nations, significantly the U.K.,” Anthony Fauci, Biden’s chief professional medical adviser, reported on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “Hopefully we will not see a surge. I really do not believe we will.”

The BA.2 subvariant of omicron is driving up instances in Europe and Asia, notably in Hong Kong, and now accounts for about 30{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of infections in the U.S, the place indoor-mask and vaccine demands have mainly been rolled back again.

Although the U.S. Facilities for Ailment Management and Avoidance has argued that the U.S. demands to be organized to resume actions this sort of as necessitating masks in indoor public areas, Fauci said, “right now, at this place, I don’t see that.”

U.S. scenarios, hospitalizations and deaths continue to drop. BA.2 is about 50{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} a lot more transmissible than the first pressure of omicron, but it doesn’t induce a lot more severe sickness or evade immunity from vaccinations or an earlier infection, Fauci explained.

Fauci and U.S. Surgeon Standard Vivek Murthy urged Congress to go a stalled package deal of new COVID-19 relief. The White Household has sought $22.5 billion in funding, warning that it will shortly have to wind down systems and just can’t obtain much more therapeutic treatment plans.

11:30 a.m.: Ontario is reporting 182 individuals in intense treatment because of to COVID-19 and 551 in medical center overall testing good for the virus, in accordance to its most up-to-date report unveiled Sunday early morning.

The figures symbolize a 1.6 for each cent decrease in the ICU COVID-19 depend and a 10 for every cent lower in hospitalizations all round. 30-a person for each cent of the province’s 2,343 grownup ICU beds continue to be out there for new individuals.

Specified new provincial laws all around testing that took effect Dec. 31, 2021, situation counts — reported at 1,680 on Sunday, down 19.1 per cent from the prior working day — are also not regarded as an accurate assessment of how common COVID-19 is suitable now.

Three new fatalities had been noted in the most up-to-date figures.

Go through the entire tale by the Star’s Erin LeBlanc.

10:30 a.m.: Masks will no extended be aspect of the necessary costume code in most Ontario general public spaces appear Monday, as the government turns the community overall health evaluate into an personal option.

Weeks right after the province lifted evidence-of-vaccination guidelines and ability restrictions, face coverings won’t be required in colleges, retail settings and other areas.

Hospitals, very long-expression care properties and general public transit and some other regions will keep masks until eventually the conclude of April, when the province aims to roll again all remaining community wellness policies.

Provincial politicians and leading wellbeing officials say COVID-19 indicators have improved enough to remove mask procedures, which have also been lifted in other jurisdictions throughout Canada and about the world.

Some are celebrating the alter, but other Ontarians keep on being wary of the virus hazard – as very well as a lack of details on instances due to the fact the province stopped prevalent PCR screening – and say they plan to keep masking following Monday.

Lisa Lam stated she will continue to keep donning a mask at her retail career.

“There’s no freaking way I’m likely to improve my thoughts about it,” she claimed exterior a Toronto buying mall. “I believe it is way way too quickly.”

Dr. Kieran Moore, the province’s top health practitioner, has said the true number of instances is near to 10 periods higher than the everyday scenario counts, which experienced a 7-working day average of 1,821 as of Friday. The province’s pro science advisers claimed last 7 days that there are in between 15,000 and 20,000 circumstances in the province each day.

7:52 a.m.: As Nova Scotia prepares to lifts its mask mandate for most indoor general public spaces Monday, the province’s main health-related officer of overall health is warning that it is not a signal the pandemic is more than.

Dr. Robert Strang wishes people to know that there is “still a great deal of virus around” and that they ought to continue on to practise several of the general public well being measures that have been in location about the previous two several years and are now voluntary.

“We continue to strongly propose that persons proceed to dress in masks, specially in indoor general public spots,” Strang explained in an interview very last week. “That does not alter, irrespective of whether it’s mandated or not.”

According to info unveiled late past week, the Omicron variant of COVID-19 remains extremely active in the province, ensuing in a steady hospitalization price and 120 fatalities due to the fact the variant to start with appeared in December.

7:51 a.m.: Buckhorn Maplefest organizers are optimistic about after again giving its maple sugar bush pageant future 12 months, just after looking at it cancelled for three decades in a row now owing to COVID-19.

The McLean loved ones designed the “difficult” choice to terminate this year’s party, stated Erin McLean, simply because of the uncertainty bordering the pandemic when organizing commenced for it in December.

“It normally takes a ton of time and effort and hard work to set up the festival so we truly had to make that phone in advance of there was any converse of lifting limitations back again when factors have been even even worse than they are now,” she mentioned.

“It’s a ton of time and hard work and investment and it is just really hard to do all of that perform and not know how it’s heading to pan out, specially due to the fact we’d have to fully revamp the competition to make it as secure as we want it to be for everybody to appear out. It just was not in the playing cards this year.”

She explained they are hoping for a superior maple year this yr. In early March they began gathering sap and boiling it down on the McLean farm’s sugar bush south of Buckhorn to make maple syrup to market at neighborhood farmers marketplaces and straight from their farm.

Sunday 7:49 a.m.: Hong Kong’s leader mentioned Sunday that the authorities would look at lifting rigorous social distancing measures as new COVID-19 bacterial infections in the city continued trending downward.

“I wouldn’t promise now that there’s place for adjustment,” Main Govt Carrie Lam explained. “But subsequent a critique, we have a duty to account for the findings in this assessment and the route we will just take.”

Hong Kong is in the middle of a substantial outbreak, recording above 1 million whole circumstances in the town of 7.4 million. The town has been strike really hard, with mortuaries full as they try out to cope with a superior number of fatalities. Hong Kong has so far refrained from a strict town-extensive lockdown like people that China often imposes to manage the spread of the virus.

Read through Saturday’s coronavirus information.