Today’s coronavirus news: Ontario reports 977 new cases, 9 deaths; Italy eyes more restrictions; Fauci warns of ‘a whole lot of hurt’ ahead

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10:15 p.m.: Vancouver police say they are disappointed after social media posts showed downtown streets crowded with party-goers on Halloween night, apparently flouting COVID-19 safety protocols.

Spokesman Const. Jason Doucette says it wasn’t possible to try to disperse the alcohol-fuelled crowd or issue tickets due to a number of factors.

He says the number of people in downtown grew larger than expected and additional resources were brought in from around the city.

Doucette says police made a number of arrests for minor offences, such as causing a disturbance, but there were no reported injuries.

He says police likely won’t have a clear picture of calls for service on Halloween until later today.

On Thursday, B.C.’s chief medical officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, said the province was in a “danger zone” with more than 2,300 active cases of COVID-19 being reported.

7 p.m.: Manitoba is reporting six new deaths from COVID-19 on Sunday, four of which are associated with an outbreak at a long-term care home in Winnipeg.

The province says the deaths of two women and a man in their 80s, as well as a woman in her 90s, were connected with the outbreak at the Maples Long Term Care Home.

The release says a man in his 70s also died in connection with an outbreak at Winnipeg’s St. Boniface Hospital, and that a man in his 50s died in the Steinbach district.

A woman in her 90s who was among the four people the government said died a day earlier was also linked to the outbreak at Maples.

The chief medical officer for Revera, the company which operates the facility, said in a news release late last week that 96 residents had tested positive for COVID-19 but that almost all were asymptomatic, and that it was working closely with Winnipeg Regional Health Authority officials.

Manitoba reported more than 300 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday.

6:34 p.m.: Diminutive figures of skeletons in facemasks and medical caps are all too common on Mexico’s Day of the Dead altars this year.

More than 1,700 Mexican health workers are officially known to have died of COVID-19 and they’re being honoured with three days of national mourning.

One is Dr. Jose Luis Linares, who attended to patients at a private clinic in a poor neighbourhood in Mexico City, usually charging about 30 pesos (roughly $1.50) a consultation.

“I told him, ‘Luis, don’t go to work.’ But he told me, ‘then who is going to see those poor people,’” said his widow, Dr. María del Rosario Martínez. She said he had taken precautions against the disease because of lungs damaged by an earlier illness.

Her Day of the Dead altar this year includes — in addition to the usual marigolds and paper cutouts — little skeleton figures shown doing consultations or surgeries in honour of colleagues who have died.

Amnesty International said last month that Mexico had lost more medical professionals to the coronavirus than any other nation.

6:34 p.m.: Maine is reinstating restrictions meant to curb the spread of COVID-19 amid a resurgence of the virus, Gov. Janet Mills said Sunday.

Maine has been one of the most successful states at controlling the virus, but it’s dealing with a wave of new infections. The rolling average of daily cases more than doubled from below 30 per day to more than 67 by Friday. The state reported 103 infections that day, the largest single day increase in cases.

The state had been slated to reopen bars Monday, but that has been postponed to a yet-to-be-determined date, said Mills, a Democrat.

The state is removing New York, Connecticut and New Jersey from its list of states that are exempt from travel restrictions, Mills said. That means visitors from those states must quarantine for two weeks or produce a negative coronavirus test.

Maine is also reducing indoor capacity limits from 100 to 50, Mills said.

The new restrictions take effect Wednesday.

1:15 p.m.: Federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has tested negative for the coronavirus.

She had been tested and isolating since the previous day after receiving a warning on the COVID Alert app.

6:33 p.m.: Facing a relentless surge in cases of coronavirus infections, Lebanese authorities are lengthening a nationwide nighttime curfew and placing a number of towns and villages under total lockdown.

The Interior Ministry’s decisions Sunday increase a nighttime curfew by four hours, asking people to stay off the streets and shops to close between 9pm local time and 5am. It did not set an end date.

The Interior Ministry also put 115 towns and villages in total lockdown for a week because of a high positive infection rate and “high level of danger.” Bars and nightclubs will continue to be closed; restaurants and cafes are to continue to operate at 50% while public gatherings and parties are barred.

Lebanon, a country of over 5 million, has been witnessing a surge of infection cases, deaths and intensive care unit occupancy over the past weeks that brought the recorded cases to over 80,000. According to health ministry statistics, the number of recorded cases nearly doubled between September and October in the country that is also home to over 1 million refugees. The percentage of positive tests has increased to over 12% for every 100 tests and the average age of those who die from the virus has gone down.

6:30 p.m.: The governor of the Italian region with the largest percentage of residents older than 65 has apologized for a tweet which contended the elderly aren’t indispensable to the country’s production, as Italy battles COVID-19.

The newspaper Corriere della Sera said Liguria Gov. Giovanni Toti, in a meeting Sunday with government ministers, had advocated limiting movement outside the home for those older than 70 in a bid to avoid a generalized, nationwide lockdown amid surging spread of coronavirus infections.

“For as much as every single COVID-19 victim pains us, we must keep in mind this data: Only yesterday among the 25 deaths in Liguria, 22 were very elderly patients,” Toti tweeted on Sunday.

They are “persons for the most part in retirement, not indispensable to the productive effort” of the economy, tweeted Toti, who is 52. Nearly 29 per cent of Liguria’s residents are older than 65, compared to a nationwide percentage of just under 23 per cent.

Maurizio Gasparri, a 64-year-old senator, slammed Toti’s assessment of the elderly’s value as “delirious.” Apologizing for what he termed “misunderstandings,” Toti later claimed his tweet was “badly extrapolated” and blamed it on an error by his social media manager.

1:10 p.m.: Quebec is reporting 965 new cases of COVID-19 today, bringing the total number of cases since the pandemic started to 106,981.

Officials also reported 26 new deaths related to the disease, including six from the last 24 hours.

Officials say there were 15 from between Oct 25 and Oct. 30, two deaths from before Oct. 25 and 3 deaths from unknown dates.

The province’s death toll now stands at 6,272.

10:42 a.m.: Ontario is reporting 977 cases of COVID-19 today, and nine deaths.

There are 279 new cases in Toronto, 238 in Peel, 130 in Ottawa and 113 in York Region. Over 37,100 tests were completed (compared to 41,900 tests the previous day).

Ontario reported 350 people in hospital (up 30 from Saturday’s numbers), 72 in the ICU (down one) and 46 in ICU on ventilators (down eight).

On Saturday the province reported 1,015 cases (the second highest total) and nine deaths. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Ontario has recorded 76,707 cases according to provincial statistics.

A total of 864 more cases are considered resolved.

10:10 p.m.: The U.S. government’s top infectious diseases expert is cautioning that there will be “a whole lot of hurt” in the weeks ahead due to surging coronavirus cases. Dr. Anthony Fauci’s comments in a Washington Post interview take issue with President Donald Trump’s frequent assertion that the nation is “rounding the turn” on the virus.

Fauci says the U.S. “could not possibly be positioned more poorly” to stem rising cases as more people gather indoors during the colder fall and winter months. He says the U.S. will need to make an “abrupt change” in public health precautions.

Speaking of the risks, Fauci says he believes Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden “is taking it seriously from a public health perspective,” while Trump is “looking at it from a different perspective.” Fauci, who’s on the White House coronavirus task force, says that perspective is “the economy and reopening the country.”

In response, White House spokesperson Judd Deere says Trump always puts people’s well-being first and Deere charges that Fauci has decided “to play politics” right before Tuesday’s election.

9:39 p.m.: Iran hit another single-day record for coronavirus deaths as the country grapples with a sharp spike in cases.

The health ministry reported Sunday that 434 people had died in 24 hours from the virus, bringing Iran’s death toll in the pandemic to more than 35,000.

The ministry said it recorded 7,719 new confirmed infections since Saturday. Iran has reported more than 620,000 confirmed virus cases in all.

Most deaths have occurred in the capital, Tehran, which is also the most populated city in Iran. The head of the virology department at Masih Daneshvari Hospital in Tehran, Alireza Naji, warned that Iran could reach 900 confirmed coronavirus deaths per day if more restrictions on movement and gatherings are not imposed.

7:14 a.m.: Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte is expected this week to order more restrictions to combat the spread of COVID-19.

Conte addresses lawmakers at noon Monday to lay out the next measures and press for widespread public support after a week of nightly protests by Italians angered by limits on the personal freedom and the economic damage suffered by closed businesses. Conte was conferring on Sunday with governors and representatives from cities and towns in a bid to ensure local support. He has said he is determined to keep schools open if possible.

For two days straight, Italy registered more than 30,000 new confirmed infections. Just a week ago, Conte shuttered gyms, pools, cinemas and theatres and ordered bars and cafes to stop serving customers at 6 p.m., except for takeaway and delivery service.

4:49 a.m.: A Turkish politician from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party has died from the coronavirus.

Burhan Kuzu, 65, had been receiving treatment for COVID-19 since Oct. 17, the country’s health minister tweeted. He passed away Sunday.

A constitutional lawyer and a founding member of the governing Justice and Development Party, Kuzu served in parliament four times.

Two senior officials close to Turkey’s leader — presidential spokesperson Ibrahim Kalin and Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu — tweeted on Saturday that they had contracted COVID-19. Both said they were doing well. Soylu was in a hospital.

4:33 a.m.: There are 234,511 confirmed cases in Canada.

_ Quebec: 106,016 confirmed (including 6,246 deaths, 90,576 resolved)

_ Ontario: 75,730 confirmed (including 3,136 deaths, 64,717 resolved)

_ Alberta: 27,664 confirmed (including 323 deaths, 22,169 resolved)

_ British Columbia: 14,381 confirmed (including 263 deaths, 11,670 resolved)

_ Manitoba: 5,723 confirmed (including 69 deaths, 2,646 resolved)

_ Saskatchewan: 3,144 confirmed (including 25 deaths, 2,380 resolved)

_ Nova Scotia: 1,109 confirmed (including 65 deaths, 1,033 resolved)

_ New Brunswick: 343 confirmed (including 6 deaths, 299 resolved)

_ Newfoundland and Labrador: 291 confirmed (including 4 deaths, 284 resolved), 1 presumptive

_ Prince Edward Island: 64 confirmed (including 64 resolved)

_ Yukon: 23 confirmed (including 1 death, 17 resolved)

_ Repatriated Canadians: 13 confirmed (including 13 resolved)

_ Northwest Territories: 9 confirmed (including 8 resolved)

_ Nunavut: No confirmed cases

_ Total: 234,511 (1 presumptive, 234,510 confirmed including 10,138 deaths, 195,876 resolved)

4:22 a.m.: Facing financial difficulties aggravated by the coronavirus pandemic, the southern African nation of Zambia appears headed for a default on debt owed to private investors.

One of the world’s top copper producers, Zambia for years has been heavily indebted but now could get an undesired reputation for financial unreliability if a group of investors who hold $3 billion of the country’s eurobonds insist on payments that have come due. Zambia seeks a holiday of six months, but the bondholders’ final decision is pending.

12:10 a.m.: Australia has recorded no new locally transmitted coronavirus infection for the first time in five months.

In Melbourne, the capital of Victoria state, which had the highest number of cases in the country, residents were enjoying the first weekend of cafes, restaurants and pubs reopening to walk-in customers.

The city only has one mystery case without a known source. There are 61 active cases left across the state, down from 70 on Saturday.

7:25 p.m.: Boris Johnson announced a national lockdown across England starting next week as the coronavirus outbreak spreads faster than even his U.K. government’s worst-case scenario.

The prime minister announced the measures Saturday with Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance and England’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty in London. It comes as the official number of coronavirus cases in the U.K. topped 1 million and more details began to trickle out.

Restaurants and nonessential retail will be closed across England until Dec. 2, ITV’s Robert Peston reported, following a meeting of Johnson’s Cabinet on Saturday. International travel will be banned except for work purposes. But schools and universities will remain open, marking a key difference with the first national lockdown imposed by Johnson in March.