Canadian experts are cautiously optimistic as the COVID-19 pandemic enters its third year.
Get the latest news about coronavirus in Canada and worldwide on Sunday. This file will be kept updated throughout the day. If you have longer stories, web links will take you to them.
8:08 AM: Experts are cautiously optimistic that Canada has escaped the need to lockdowns or implement the safety protocols that were in place for much of the past 24 months.
After two years of dealing with an unpredictable virus for the past two years, they advise us to be prepared to adapt at all times.
Although hospitalizations and other indicators of pandemics appear to have stabilized or dropped across the country, Jason Kindrachuk, virologist, says that the COVID-19 crisis cannot be ignored until it is resolved worldwide.
“The history of COVID-19 shows us that we should be preparing for the possibility of another variant of concern. Let’s just be grateful that we’ve been there before,” Kindrachuk, an assistant professor at the University of Manitoba.
“None want to make a mistake and then have to go back for five or ten more steps. We get hit with the next thing.”
Over the past month, jurisdictions have been easing public health measures, including removing gathering limits, vaccination passports, and mask mandates.
Sunday, 8:04 AM: Shanghai directed its residents to avoid travel beyond the weekend. On Sunday, long-haul bus services were halted due to a continuing coronavirus epidemic in Shanghai and much of mainland China.
China has far fewer COVID-19-related cases than other countries, but the daily infection rate has increased rapidly. According to the country’s National Health Commission, 3,122 cases were reported on Sunday. This increased by 1,524 and 1,100, respectively, and just a few hundred per day a week ago.
Two-thirds of all cases reported on Sunday were from the northeastern province of Jilin. Two mayors were fired in the province, one in Jilin City and the Jiutai District of Changchun.
Nearly half the cases in China were not reported on Sunday. China blames this partly on a high vaccination rate, other than among the elderly, and the presence of the highly contagious Omicron variant, which can sometimes produce many cases that are not initially symptomatic. In recent weeks, a few cases of the delta variant were also detected close to China’s borders.
