Today’s coronavirus news: Ontario reporting 834 cases, 5 deaths; France imposes new national lockdown; Bank of Canada holds rate steady

The latest news from Canada and around the world Wednesday. This file will be updated throughout the day. Web links to longer stories if available.

9:28 p.m. Public health officials have declared another outbreak of COVID-19 at a seniors assisted-living facility in B.C., while case counts keep climbing.

A news release Wednesday says the latest outbreak in the facility in Surrey brings the total number of long-term care or assisted-living sites in the province with active COVID-19 outbreaks to 21.

Just a day after Canada surpassed 10,000 COVID-19 deaths, the annual report from the chief public health officer of Canada says the number of people who died in long-term care facilities accounted for nearly 80 per cent of COVID-related fatalities during the first wave of the pandemic.

B.C. health officials also say there has been a new community outbreak at the Okanagan Men’s Centre, a counselling and addiction treatment centre.

B.C. health officials are asking people to refrain from holding private parties and gatherings this Halloween weekend to prevent the virus from spreading in the community.

The province reported 287 new cases for a total of 13,875 and two more deaths, bringing the number of people who died to 261.

8:33 p.m. When it comes to getting hit by COVID-19, Canada’s top public health doctor says your postal code matters as much as your genetic code.

“Where you live…or where you don’t have a home” is a critical factor affecting health, said Dr. Theresa Tam, as she released a sobering report that outlined the destructive swath cut by COVID-19 across Canada, with worse outcomes in neighbourhoods of cities like Toronto and Montreal, where lower income and racialized workers often don’t have the luxury of working from home, and face worse outcomes from the disease.

Using data from the start of the pandemic to the end of August, Tam said COVID-19 slammed Canada’s socially and economically disadvantaged groups, with seniors, women, disabled people, and immigrant or racialized workers who deliver essential services in health care and agriculture all bearing the brunt of the pandemic.

8 p.m. Hundreds of infections may be going undetected each week in Ontario because the province is regularly failing to use its full capacity to test for the disease, experts warn.

The problem is a weekly pattern : far fewer Ontarians are getting tested on the weekend.

This, in turn, has led to a weekly up-down testing cycle that may be making it harder to control what’s happening in Ontario’s second wave, says Dionne Aleman, a University of Toronto professor and an expert in pandemic modelling. If thousands fewer patients’ samples are being collected on the weekend, it suggests possibly infected people may be waiting to get tested, which leaves more time for them to expose other people, she said. “That’s a lot of secondary infections that have happened all because somebody didn’t want to come in on the weekend.”

7 p.m. Federal health officials Wednesday issued insurance coverage rules designed to deliver on the promise that every American will have access to free COVID-19 vaccines when they are approved.

The regulations from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, will also increase what Medicare pays hospitals for COVID-19 treatments. The changes arrive at a time when coronavirus infections are rising in much of the country, signalling a third wave that could eclipse the number of cases seen earlier this year.

6:20 p.m. Saskatchewan is introducing new rules for nightclubs in Saskatoon after a spike in COVID-19 cases.

Health officials says a recent rise in cases has been tied to nightspots in the city.

Starting Friday, clubs in Saskatoon won’t be allowed to serve alcohol after 10 p.m, and must close at 11 p.m.

The Ministry of Health says all nightclubs in the province must have no more than six people to a table and allow no mingling between groups.

It says dance floors and karaoke must remain closed.

5:30 p.m. A new Statistics Canada report says communities with the most visible minorities had the highest mortality rates during the first wave of the novel coronavirus.

The report’s authors say it is more evidence that the pandemic is disproportionately affecting visible minorities, who are more likely to live in overcrowded housing and work in jobs that put them more at risk of exposure to COVID-19.

Other studies have shown visible minorities are more likely to suffer from conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure, which are considered to make an individual at higher risk for serious illness or death from COVID-19.

In the four biggest provinces — which account for 99 per cent of the deaths from COVID-19 between March and July — death rates from COVID-19 were twice as high in communities where more than one in four people identify as a visible minority, compared with communities where less than one per cent of residents did.

The death rates are adjusted for age to account for different age structures in different neighbourhoods.

4:32 p.m. Italy reached a new daily record of nearly 25,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and added 205 deaths on Wednesday.

Nearly 1,000 people were admitted to hospitals nationwide and 125 more in intensive care.

Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese briefed the Senate on protests following Italy’s latest anti-virus restrictions, which shuttered restaurants and bars at nightfall, closed movie theatres and in some regions imposed overnight curfews.

Italy has nearly 590,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and nearly 38,000 deaths, the second highest in Europe after Britain.

4 p.m. French President Emmanuel Macron ordered his country into a new month-long, nationwide lockdown Wednesday aimed at stopping a fast-rising tide of virus patients filling French hospitals, but said schools and some workplaces will stay open.

With over 520 deaths recorded Tuesday, the French leader said the measure that will come into effect Friday would be the only possible way to successfully fight COVID-19.

“We are submerged by the sudden acceleration of the virus,” he said in a national televised address. France has been “overpowered by a second wave.”

All France’s restaurants, bars and non-essential businesses were ordered shut down starting Friday, and Macron said people should return to full-time remote work wherever possible, but said factories, farms and construction sites could continue working. He said unlike in the spring, this time nursing homes will remain open to visitors when possible, and cemeteries will be open so that people can hold in-person funerals.

The French government is scheduled to lay out the full details of the new lockdown on Thursday.

3:20 p.m. Yukon’s chief medical officer of health says a cluster of five COVID-19 cases in Watson Lake is a landmark event.

Dr. Brendan Hanley says the cluster is the first to occur outside of the territory’s capital and the source of the virus may never be known.

He says the cases are a reminder that the territory is not impervious to COVID-19.

The cluster occurred in two family groups in the same circle of transmission, and contact tracing has not turned up any further cases.

1:27 p.m. Nova Scotia’s chief medical officer of health is suggesting people should reconsider non-essential foreign trips while the COVID-19 pandemic rages around the world.

Dr. Robert Strang responded to reports today about a Halifax-based travel agency offering two weeklong trips to Cuba reserved exclusively for residents of Atlantic Canada.

Federal law stipulates that Canadians who leave the country must quarantine for 14 days upon their return; Atlantic residents must do the same when re-entering the Atlantic region.

And while Strang stopped short of saying people can’t travel, he said the safest and wisest choice is for Nova Scotians to stay home and support local restaurants and hotels.

12:40 p.m. The National Lacrosse League hopes to start its next season in April. The NLL said Wednesday it is targeting the weekend of April 9-11 to begin play during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The season has traditionally started in December or January.

Training camps prior to the league’s 35th season would start in March, with some virtual and some in-person. The league has not announced how many games will be played.

The NLL said it is working on several scenarios to deal with regional and federal restrictions.

The league has five Canadian teams — the Halifax Thunderbirds, Toronto Rock, Saskatchewan Rush, Calgary Roughnecks and Vancouver Warriors — and eight American teams.

The 2019-20 NLL season was suspended in March and eventually cancelled.

12:25 p.m. Six days out from Election Day, Joe Biden isn’t campaigning in a swing state. Instead, he’s receiving a briefing from public health experts on the coronavirus as cases surge nationwide.

Biden was briefed virtually at a theatre in Wilmington, Delaware, on Wednesday by former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Center for Science in the Public Interest director Dr. David Kessler, New York University medical school assistant professor Dr. Celine Grounder and Yale University associate professor of medicine Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith.

The Democrat sat on a stage with briefing materials before him in front of a screen with graphs showing the seven-day rolling average of reported daily COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations over the past four months.

Kessler warned Biden, “We are in the midst of the third wave.”

Data compiled by Johns Hopkins shows more than 226,000 people have died from the virus in the U.S. More than 71,000 people a day are testing positive on average, up from 51,000 two weeks ago. Cases are on the rise in all but two states, Hawaii and Delaware.

Biden has made the coronavirus the central focus of his campaign against President Donald Trump, who has insisted “we’re rounding the turn, we’re doing great.” Biden has sought to draw a contrast with the Republican president on how he’d handle the pandemic.

11:40 a.m.: A group of Quebec fitness centre owners says its members are no longer planning to open Thursday in defiance of the government’s lockdown orders.

The owners released a statement Wednesday calling on their clients to instead join them in a series of protests outside their gyms and fitness studios on Thursday.

On Monday, a coalition of more than 250 gym owners threatened to open their doors this week, prompting a warning from Premier Francois Legault that they and their clients would be fined.

Legault has extended lockdown orders across regions under the government’s highest pandemic-alert levels — including Montreal and Quebec City — from Oct. 28 to Nov. 23. Bars, restaurant dining areas, gyms and entertainment venues have been ordered to close.

The gym owners say their protests on Thursday will conform to the provincial COVID-19 health regulations.

11:15 a.m.: Quebec is reporting 17 more deaths linked to the coronavirus today.

Health authorities say they have confirmed 929 cases of COVID-19 in the province in the past 24 hours.

Hospitalizations dropped by one compared with the prior day, for a total of 526, and of those, 89 people were in intensive care, a decrease of two.

Quebec has now reported 102,814 cases of COVID-19 and 6,189 deaths attributed to the virus.

11:05 a.m.: The number of new cases in public schools across Ontario jumped by 92 from the previous day, to a total of 938 in the last two weeks and 2,001 overall since school began.

, the province reported 40 more students were infected for a total of 499 in the last two weeks; since school began there have been an overall total of 1,103.

The data shows there are 13 more staff members infected for a total of 107 in the last two weeks — and an overall total of 274.

11 a.m.: A youth soccer club in Chilliwack, B.C., has hired a security firm to patrol the sidelines during games because of what the club describes as “borderline violent” confrontations over COVID-19 restrictions.

In a letter posted on the Chilliwack FC website Tuesday, chair Andrea Laycock says some parents have made “poor decisions” about how they respond to contact tracers working with the team.

Laycock writes that some parents have treated contact tracers, club volunteers and staff so poorly that “it can be considered a potential violence in the workplace issue.”

Provincial health restrictions limit attendance at games to 49 and Chilliwack FC says enforcing that order means limiting each player to a single spectator.

Laycock says, in addition to the security firm doing “periodic sweeps” of venues, parents must sign the club’s COVID-19 policy by Thursday or their child will not be allowed to attend practices or games.

If any further issues are reported, she says offenders risk being banned from games or expelled from the club.

“We understand and respect these are difficult times for many of us but we simply cannot condone the shockingly poor behaviour we’ve seen the past couple of weeks,” Laycock says.

11 a.m.: Cogeco Inc. says its Quebec-focused media business continued to experience low ad revenue through the summer months but its cable and internet operations fared well in both Canada and the United States.

The Montreal-based company reported a net profit of $30.7 million or $1.92 per diluted share for the quarter ended Aug. 31, down from $31.4 million or $1.93 per diluted share a year ago.

Cogeco Inc.’s revenue in the quarter totalled $624.2 million, up from $610.5 million. Most of the revenue is generated by Cogeco Communications Inc., which operates as Cogeco Connexions in Canada and Atlantic Broadband in the United States.

“We are satisfied with the results at Cogeco Media given the impact that the pandemic had on the advertising market,” chief executive Philippe Jette said in a statement.

“Our continued financial discipline contributed to improving profitability compared to last quarter and we are observing a slight upturn in the forward advertising bookings.”

Cogeco Communications earned $90.8 million or $1.88 per diluted share on $605.2 million in revenue for the quarter ended Aug. 31. The result was up from a profit of $89.8 million or $1.80 per diluted share on $583.7 million in revenue in the same period a year earlier.

10:40 a.m.: Belgium has been hit hard again by the pandemic, and now presents some of the most worrying statistics in a continent reeling under a coronavirus resurgence.

If ever there was a common enemy for the rival Dutch- and French-speaking citizens and regions to fight, this would surely be it. But even now co-operation goes against the grain in Belgium, to the extent that the country’s Roman Catholics bishops issued a call for all, in the name of the Lord, to show some unity.

“We can win the battle against the coronavirus only if we do it together,” the bishops said in a joint letter ahead of Sunday’s All Saints Day, highlighting the different rules imposed by the country’s national and three regional governments, which are responsible for an area 300 kilometres at its widest reach.

This week, news struck that the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control had recorded Belgium — shoehorned in between Germany, France and the Netherlands — as having the highest 14-day cumulative number of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 citizens, just surpassing the Czech Republic.

On Wednesday, the top two reversed roles again with the Czechs standing at 1,448.7 compared to Belgium’s 1,424.2 in a standings nobody wants to lead. Both far outstrip even hotbeds like France or Spain. In all in Belgium, 11,038 people have died so far in the pandemic.

All this in a wealthy nation of 11.5 million people where no fewer than nine ministers — national and regional — have a say on health issues. The dictum “less is more” never reached the Belgian high echelons of power.

10:18 a.m. The Bank of Canada as it said the country’s economy won’t fully recover what was lost to COVID-19 until 2022, with the road to there dependent on the path of the pandemic.

The central bank held its overnight rate target at 0.25 per cent.

In July, the Bank of Canada said it believed the country had been spared from a worst-case scenario.

The bank’s updated outlook in Wednesday’s monetary policy report said the rebound over the summer was stronger than expected as the country reversed about two-thirds of the decline seen in the first half of the year.

Officials estimate the economy will shrink by 5.7 per cent this year, but grow by 4.2 per cent next year, and 3.7 per cent in 2022.

The report also says the country’s headline inflation barometer, Statistics Canada’s consumer price index, will stay below the bank’s two per cent target through 2022.

10:16 a.m. (updated): Ontario is reporting 834 new cases of COVID-19 today, and five new deaths due to the virus.

Health Minister Christine Elliott says 299 cases are in Toronto, 186 in Peel Region, 121 in York Region and 76 in Ottawa.

The province says 312 people are currently in hospital with COVID-19, including 71 who are in intensive care.

Of those, 51 are on a ventilator.

It says another 773 cases are now considered resolved, and 30,010 tests have been completed since the last daily report.

The latest figures bring the total of COVID-19 cases in Ontario to 72,885, which includes 3,108 deaths, and 62,303 cases resolved.

10:11 a.m. The Niagara Falls restaurant that was unable to get Niagara West MPP Sam Oosterhoff and his party to wear masks and physically distance .

In a Monday Facebook post, Betty’s Restaurant in Chippawa said it has safety protocols in place to protect its staff and customers, which Oosterhoff and a gathering of more than 40 people would not follow.

“This group was reminded several times that they were required to wear masks when not seated at their table. Unfortunately, they chose not to follow posted rules about wearing masks and distancing. We can remind guests but we cannot strong-arm them into following rules,” the post said.

10:05 a.m. From the vantage point of her large pediatric clinic, Dr. Dina Kulik has an insider’s view of what’s happening with COVID-19 and kids.

For months and months, none of the patients at her practice, Kidcrew, tested positive for the virus. In September, when schools reopened, her west Toronto clinic was suddenly flooded with her patients’ COVID test results — but still no cases.

The torrent of lab reports has diminished, from more than 200 daily a month ago to about 10 a day, Kulik says. But something else happened: two weeks ago, the clinic received its first COVID-positive lab report. Seven more quickly followed.

The is perhaps the most fraught juncture of the pandemic so far, in Ontario and many other jurisdictions. Local public health officials have expressed cautious optimism, even as doctors are noticing more cases in kids: the nightmare scenario of significant outbreaks, they say, has not yet materialized.

9:10 a.m. The British government is under pressure to develop a national strategy to combat a surge of COVID-19 cases and “rescue Christmas’’ as scientists warn that the number of people hospitalized with the disease in the U.K. could almost triple by the end of next month unless something more is done now.

Mark Walport, a former chief scientific officer, said Britain only needs to look across the English Channel to see what’s coming. Britain’s current measures are similar to those in France and Spain, where authorities are struggling to control the virus and daily cases have already far outstripped those in the U.K.

“With our current measures … there’s little evidence that there is as much social distancing as there was when we clamped down on the first wave and so we know that the risk is significant that cases will continue to grow,” Walport told the BBC.

It is “not unrealistic’’ that 25,000 people in the U.K. could be hospitalized by the end of November — up from about 9,000 now, he said.

Walport’s assessment came as two opposition parties called on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to convene a summit of the U.K.’s four nations to develop a co-ordinated plan for combatting COVID-19.

Under the U.K.’s system of devolved government, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales have all developed their own rules to fight the pandemic. Meanwhile, Johnson has implement a three-tiered regional strategy to applies only in England. That has a led to a patchwork of regulations that change from one nation to the next, and sometimes from city to city.

Britain already has Europe’s highest virus death toll, with over 45,400 confirmed deaths.

9:05 a.m. South African president Cyril Ramaphosa has announced he has gone into quarantine after coming into contact with a dinner guest who has tested positive for COVID-19.

Ramaphosa came into contact with a guest at a dinner of 35 people in Johannesburg last weekend, the president’s spokesman said Wednesday. The dinner was to raise funds to support South Africa’s schools.

“The event adhered stringently to COVID-19 protocols and directives on screening, social distancing and the wearing of masks,” acting spokesman Tyrone Seale said. “As was the case with all guests, the president himself removed his mask only when dining and addressing the guests.”

Ramaphosa is not showing any symptoms and is working at home, he said. The guest who tested positive is getting medical care, he said.

8:15 a.m. The counting of more than 40,000 mail-in ballots cast in Saskatchewan’s provincial election begins Wednesday.

The Saskatchewan Party won a fourth straight majority on election night Monday.

Elections Saskatchewan says that based on ballots counted that night, the Sask. Party is leading in 50 seats, while the Opposition NDP sits at 11.

It says officials will start counting mail-in ballots in constituencies where the margin of votes between candidates is less than the number of vote-by-mail ballots.

One of those candidates locked in a tight race is NDP Leader Ryan Meili.

He’s trailing Saskatchewan Party candidate Rylund Hunter by 83 votes in Saskatoon Meewasin, which Meili won in a byelection in 2017.

More than 1,600 mail-in ballots were issued in the constituency.

8:13 a.m. Cogeco Inc. reported its fourth-quarter profit edged lower compared with a year ago as revenue crept higher.

The company says it earned a profit attributable to owners of the corporation of $30.7 million or $1.92 per diluted share for the quarter ended Aug. 31, down from $31.4 million or $1.93 per diluted share a year ago.

Revenue in the quarter totalled $624.2 million, up from $610.5 million.

The Montreal-based communications and media group has been fending off an unwanted takeover that would split its Canadian and U.S. operations between two buyers, Altice USA and Rogers Communications.

Cogeco owns French-language radio stations and other media businesses in Quebec, but its main operation is a controlling interest in Cogeco Communications Inc.

Cogeco Communications earned a profit attributable to owners of the corporation of $90.8 million or $1.88 per diluted share on $605.2 million in revenue for the quarter ended Aug. 31. The result was up from a profit of $89.8 million or $1.80 per diluted share on $583.7 million in revenue in the same period a year earlier.

8 a.m. September’s sales of new construction single-family homes in the GTA have hit the highest levels for that month since 2003, with the benchmark price rising 9.1 per cent to about $1.2 million year over year.

The benchmark price of a new condo soared 20.9 per cent year over year in September, to about $1.02 million, according to the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) on Wednesday.

Single-family homes — including detached, semi-detached, town and linked homes — saw a 168 per cent year-over-year sales gain last month, more than double the 10-year average.

7:47 a.m. An itinerant music teacher who tested positive for COVID-19 — leading to the weeklong shutdown of a Toronto elementary school earlier this month — has been charged under the workplace health and safety act for failing to wear a mask.

Ontario’s Ministry of Labour confirmed a charge was laid after inspectors responded to a -related complaint about St. Charles school near Dufferin St. and Lawrence Ave. W., said Richard Sookraj, spokesperson for Labour Minister Monte McNaughton.

The “health and safety inspectors conducted a field visit on Oct. 23, 2020 at St. Charles Catholic School in the Toronto Catholic District School Board,” Sookraj said via email.

“No orders were issued to the employer. A certificate of offence, pursuant to part I of the Provincial Offences Act, was issued charging a worker with an offence under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.”

7:12 a.m.: As provincial school-related COVID-19 numbers increase, case numbers for Niagara schools are on the decline.

The provincial database which provides daily updates on COVID-19 cases reported 144 school-related cases a cross Ontario Tuesday.

Of them, 82 of were reported as student-related cases, 12 of them staff-related cases and the remaining 50 reported as “not identified.”

Since the beginning of the school year, the province has reported 1,910 school-related cases.

With no new confirmed COVID-19 cases in Niagara schools over the past week, active cases are on the decline.

There have been 29 confirmed cases in the region since the beginning of the school year.

7:07 a.m.: Pope Francis has blamed “this lady called COVID” for forcing him to keep his distance again from the faithful during his general audience, which was far smaller than usual amid soaring coronavirus infections in Italy.

Francis again eschewed a protective mask Wednesday even when he greeted a few maskless clergymen at the end of his audience. While the prelates wore masks throughout the hour-long audience, they took them off when they lined up to shake Francis’ hand and speak briefly with him one-on-one.

A Vatican official who is a key member of Francis’ COVID-19 response commission, the Rev. Augusto Zampini, acknowledged Tuesday that at age 83 and with part of his lung removed after an illness in his youth, Francis would be at high risk for complications if he were to become infected.

Zampini said he hoped Francis would don a mask at least when he greeted people during the general audience. “We are working on that,” he said.

6:06 a.m.: The Canadian Medical Association says ongoing surgical and diagnostic backlogs will only worsen without immediate government help to address a strained health-care system.

The CMA found average wait-times increased by one-to-two months for the most common procedures in the first wave and it would take $1.3 billion in additional funds to tackle procedures sidelined from January to June because they were deemed non-essential during the pandemic.

A study ordered by the organization looked at the six most commonly delayed procedures: CT and MRI scans, hip and knee replacements, cataract surgeries and coronary artery bypass grafts, which all plummeted in April, when almost no cataract or knee replacements took place.

Although procedures gradually began to rebound in June, the report found more than 270,000 people had their MRI scans — which can detect serious disease or injury — delayed by a national average of nearly eight months, more than seven weeks longer than before the pandemic. Those waiting for knee replacement surgeries had to wait an average of 14 months, about two months longer than before the pandemic.

“The impact on wait times is just going to be the worst-ever in our system,” CMA president Dr. Ann Collins says.

“It’s going to have serious consequences the longer this pandemic goes on.”

6:05 a.m.: The Bank of Canada will release its updated outlook for the country’s pandemic-plagued economy.

The central bank in July said it believed the country had been spared from a worst-case scenario envisioned in April, but warned things could change.

Governor Tiff Macklem has said a severe second wave of the pandemic, health restrictions that extend beyond December and the timing of a vaccine or other effective treatment could all shift the country’s economic course.

This morning the central bank will provide a more detailed analysis of its forecast for the domestic economy as the country marches through a second wave of COVID-19.

Macklem has said the central bank will keep its key policy rate as low at it can go at 0.25 per cent until the economy has recovered and inflation is back at the bank’s two-per-cent target.

That means experts don’t expect the central bank to change the rate from near-zero when the bank makes its announcement later this morning.

6:04 a.m.: Canada reached a grim and worrying milestone in the COVID-19 pandemic, surpassing 10,000 novel coronavirus deaths.

Alberta reported two deaths Tuesday from COVID-19 to lift the national tally to 10,001.

COVID-19 case counts slowed across the country through the summer, but have taken a big jump in many areas this fall, with new daily highs regularly being set through Central and Western Canada.

Canada crossed the threshold of 5,000 deaths on May 12, a little over two months after the first one was reported.

Health Canada recently forecast 10,100 COVID-19 deaths in Canada by Nov. 1 as a worst-case scenario and now that number is close, Winnipeg epidemiologist Cynthia Carr said.

Carr said the increased spread of COVID-19 will result in more opportunities for the virus to infect the elderly and other vulnerable people.

But she said she doesn’t believe imposing further lockdowns on peoples economic and social well-being are the answer.

“We’re sabotaging those businesses and people that are paying the price because they are the ones that have been targeted as part of the solution to stop the spread,” she said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau admitted today that the COVID-19 pandemic “really sucks” but added that a vaccine is coming.

6:03 a.m.: There are 222,886 confirmed cases in Canada.

Quebec: 101,885 confirmed (including 6,172 deaths, 86,786 resolved)

Ontario: 72,051 confirmed (including 3,103 deaths, 61,530 resolved)

Alberta: 26,155 confirmed (including 309 deaths, 21,108 resolved)

British Columbia: 13,588 confirmed (including 259 deaths, 10,954 resolved)

Manitoba: 4,532 confirmed (including 58 deaths, 2,236 resolved)

Saskatchewan: 2,841 confirmed (including 25 deaths, 2,164 resolved)

Nova Scotia: 1,102 confirmed (including 65 deaths, 1,031 resolved)

New Brunswick: 334 confirmed (including 6 deaths, 273 resolved)

Newfoundland and Labrador: 291 confirmed (including 4 deaths, 282 resolved)

Prince Edward Island: 64 confirmed (including 63 resolved)

Yukon: 22 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: 222,886 (3 presumptive, 222,883 confirmed including 10,001 deaths, 186,460 resolved)

6:01 a.m.: Global shares are mostly lower as countries tighten precautions to try to stem rising numbers of coronavirus infections.

Optimism that the pandemic may have been brought somewhat under control has dissipated as infections continue to rise in Europe, the U.S. and other parts of the world.

Caution continues to hang over markets. Governments have begun to impose restrictions on businesses and other activities to help curb surging infections. That could choke off improvements seen since the summer. Fresh pandemic precautions are also drawing a public backlash despite spiking levels of illness in European countries.

France’s CAC 40 dropped 3.5 per cent in early trading to 4,565.93, while Germany’s DAX dropped 3.3 per cent to 11,663.00. Britain’s FTSE 100 lost 2.3 per cent to 5,595.22. U.S. shares were poised for declines, with Dow futures down 1.7 per cent at 26,893.0, while S&P 500 futures were trading at 3,335.38, down 1.5 per cent.

6 a.m.: German Chancellor Angela Merkel is pressing for a partial lockdown as the number of newly recorded infections in the country hit another record high Wednesday.

The Robert Koch Institute, Germany’s disease control agency, said 14,964 new cases were recorded across the country in the past days, taking the total since the start of the outbreak to 449,275. Germany also saw a further 27 COVID-related deaths, raising its overall death toll to 10,098.

Merkel meets Wednesday with the governors of Germany’s 16 states and senior government officials say she will demand they introduce measures to drastically reduce social contacts, echoing her repeated public appeals to citizens over the past two weeks that have so far not resulted in a drop in new cases.

5:59 a.m.: Small, yet so divided, Belgium has been hit hard again by the pandemic, and now presents some of the most worrying statistics in a continent reeling under the virus’ resurgence.

This week, news struck that the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control had recorded Belgium — shoehorned in between Germany, France and the Netherlands — as having the highest 14-day cumulative number of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 citizens, just surpassing the Czech Republic.

At 1,390.9 per 100,000 people, it far outstrips even hotbeds like France or Spain. Nearly 11,000 people have died so far, and experts say all such confirmed numbers undercount the true toll of the pandemic.

All this in a wealthy nation of 11.5 million people where no fewer than nine ministers — national and regional — have a say on health issues. The dictum “less is more” never reached the Belgian high echelons of power.

5:57 a.m.: Drugmakers Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline have agreed to provide 200 million doses of their potential COVID-19 vaccine to the COVAX Facility, a collaboration designed to give countries around the world equal access to coronavirus vaccines.

The Sanofi-GSK vaccine candidate is in early stage trials, with results expected in early December. The drugmakers said Wednesday that they plan to begin phase three trial by the end of the year and request regulatory approval of the vaccine in the first half of 2021.

The facility is part of COVAX, a coalition of governments, health organizations, businesses and charities working to accelerate the development of COVID-19 vaccines.

5:56 a.m.: A shipping container holding more than six million medical gloves was stolen from a supplier in Florida on Sunday evening in a swift maneuver that left three hospital systems battling the pandemic without some of the crucial equipment that they were waiting for.

The gloves, worth about $1 million, were delivered Friday evening to Medgluv, the supplier, at its Coral Springs, Florida, office, about 40 miles north of Miami. The gloves had been running 12 days late during their delivery from the manufacturer in Malaysia, Medgluv’s vice president of sales and marketing, Rick Grimes, said Tuesday.

“That’s why hospitals were, for lack of a better term, clamouring” for the gloves, he said.

The container was parked at Medgluv’s loading dock on a chassis, Grimes said, waiting to be unloaded the next week. The trucking company had asked Medgluv’s owner if it could be delivered after the business day had ended, which was “a little bit unusual,” he said, although the owner accepted the after-hours delivery because Medgluv had been waiting so long for the products.

On Sunday around 11:40 p.m., according to surveillance footage, a semitruck pulled up to the container along with a white pickup truck.

The people in the trucks hooked the container to the truck “like it was any other type of day,” Grimes said. “These guys were in no hurry.”

They moved the container forward slightly and fumbled for a moment with its doors, which had been opened but shoved against the dock so that the cargo could not be reached unless the container was moved or the building’s loading door was opened, Grimes said.

They closed the doors and drove off. Grimes said the operation had taken them “less than six minutes.”

5:55 a.m.: The United States reported a record of more than 500,000 new coronavirus cases over the past week, as states and cities resorted to stricter measures to contain the virus that is raging across the country, especially the American heartland.

The record was broken Tuesday, even as the Trump administration announced what it called its first-term scientific accomplishments, in a press release that included “ENDING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC” written in bold, capital letters.

The record reflects how quickly the virus is spreading. It took nearly three months for the first 500,000 coronavirus cases to be tallied in the United States — the first was confirmed Jan. 21, and the country did not reach the half-million mark until April 11. Testing was severely limited in the early days of the pandemic.

5:54 a.m.: No dogpile, no champagne and a mask on nearly every face — the Los Angeles Dodgers celebrated their first World Series title since 1988 in a manner no one could have imagined prior to the coronavirus pandemic.

They started the party without Justin Turner, too, after their red-headed star received a positive COVID-19 test in the middle of their clinching victory.

Turner was removed from Los Angeles’ 3-1 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 6 on Tuesday night after registering Major League Baseball’s first positive test in 59 days and wasn’t on the field as the Dodgers enjoyed the spoils of a title earned during a most unusual season.

The 35-year-old Turner, a staple in the Dodgers’ lineup for seven of their eight consecutive NL West titles, returned to the field with his wife about an hour after the game and took photos with the World Series trophy. He got a hug from longtime teammate Clayton Kershaw and sat front-and-centre for a team photo.

“Thanks to everyone reaching out!,” Turner said on Twitter moments earlier. “I feel great, no symptoms at all. Just experienced every emotion you can possibly imagine. Can’t believe I couldn’t be out there to celebrate with my guys! So proud of this team & unbelievably happy for the City of LA.”

Wednesday 5:52 a.m.: If Joe Biden wins next week’s election, he says he’ll immediately call Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert. He’ll work with governors and local officials to institute a nationwide mask-wearing mandate and ask Congress to pass a sweeping spending bill by the end of January to address the coronavirus and its fallout.

That alone would mark a significant shift from President Donald Trump, who has feuded with scientists, struggled to broker a new stimulus deal and reacted to the recent surge in U.S. virus cases by insisting the country is “rounding the turn.”

But Biden would still face significant political challenges in combating the worst public health crisis in a century. He will encounter the limits of federal powers when it comes to mask requirements and is sure to face resistance from Republicans who may buck additional spending.

“There are no magic wands,” said Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, vice dean for public health practice at Johns Hopkins University and former Maryland state health department chief who recently briefed Biden on reopening schools during the pandemic. “It’s not like there’s an election, and then the virus beats a hasty retreat.”