TORONTO – Canada’s most populous province recorded a new one-day high for new infections with nearly 4,460 cases across Ontario.
The latest figures released on Sunday also show a sharp rise in new confirmed cases in Toronto, which jumped nearly 400 to over 1,350.
To date, more than 3.1 million doses of vaccine have been administered in Ontario. The province has a population of 14.5 million.
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VIRUS BROUGHT:
– Ecuador and Peru go to the polls under strict virus measures
– COVID-19 produces division in the European Union
– Thailand sets a new daily record with about 1,000 cases of virus
– Follow AP pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic and https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine
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HERE IS WHAT HAPPENS MOST:
HONOLULU – The governor of Hawaii issued a new proclamation of emergency in response to the coronavirus pandemic that extends the state’s eviction moratorium for another two months and details plans for vaccinated travelers.
Democratic Gov. David Ige signed the proclamation Friday to extend the state moratorium on residential evictions until June 8. It was scheduled to expire on Tuesday.
Under the moratorium, landlords are prohibited from evicting tenants for non-payment.
The proclamation of emergency also revealed plans to allow vaccinated travelers to avoid mandatory quarantine and COVID-19 testing.
The provision must be approved by the director of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.
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TEHRAN, Iran – Iran reported its highest number of deaths from COVID-19 on Sunday this year, bringing the country’s total death toll from the pandemic to close to 64,500, state television reported.
The report indicated that 258 new deaths were recorded in 24 hours. Iran’s deadliest day of the pandemic was in mid-November, when more than 480 deaths were recorded.
Sunday’s report said health officials also confirmed more than 21,060 new cases of COVID-19 since the previous day, bringing the confirmed cases in Iran to more than 2,070,000.
On Saturday, Iran began a ten-day shutdown in the capital, Tehran, and other major cities amid a fourth wave of coronavirus infections. Iran’s vaccination campaign has been slow, with some 200,000 doses administered in the country of 84 million people, according to the World Health Organization.
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BEIJING – In a rare admission of the weakness of Chinese COVID-19 vaccines, the country’s top disease control official says their effectiveness is low and the government is considering mixing them to get a boost.
Chinese vaccines “do not have very high protection rates,” the director of China’s Disease Control Centers, Gao Fu, said at a conference Saturday in the southwestern city of Chengdu.
Beijing has distributed hundreds of millions of doses abroad as it tries to raise doubts about the effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine made through the experimental process of messenger RNA or mRNA.
Officials at a press conference on Sunday did not directly answer questions about Gao’s comment or possible changes to official plans. But another CDC official said developers are working on mRNA-based vaccines.
Experts say the vaccine mix or sequential vaccination can increase effectiveness. Researchers in Britain are studying a possible combination of Pfizer-BioNTech and the traditional AstraZeneca vaccine.
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PARIS – France’s health minister said on Sunday that residents over the age of 55 will be granted access to vaccinations against COVID-19 from Monday, which is earlier than planned.
Health Minister Olivier Veran said citizens over the age of 55 will be eligible for the AstraZeneca vaccine or the only Johnson & Johnson vaccine expected to arrive in France a week earlier than planned.
The tight schedule comes when France tries to increase the pace of its vaccination program, which has been criticized as slow, and gain ground in spreading the most contagious virus variant first identified in Britain.
At the same time, French officials have defended a policy of reserving the AstraZeneca vaccine for people over 55 with serious health problems. Unusual transfer clots have been found in a reduced number of younger recipients of this vaccine.
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SEOUL, South Korea – South Korea says it will resume administration of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine to all eligible people between the ages of 30 and 60.
Last week, South Korea suspended the use of AstraZeneca vaccines for children under 60 pending the outcome of the review by the European Medicines Agency.
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said Sunday that it will restart the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine starting Monday, citing studies showing that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risk of side effects.
A statement from the agency said people under the age of 30 will be excluded, as British authorities have recommended that they take alternative vaccines.