The luxurious Canadian ski village of Whistler has been closed after 877 confirmed cases of COVID-19 variant P1 turned British Columbia into the hotspot of the largest variant outside Brazil, where it was first identified P1. Canada, which is sinking under a third deadly wave of the pandemic, has imposed stricter restrictions as it struggles to launch a nationwide vaccine campaign. It is unclear how the variant arrived at the ski resort, where the first 84 people who tested positive had not reported any travel outside of Canada. Since it was first identified in British Columbia, the P1 outbreak has spread to neighboring provinces and is suspected of infecting 21 of the players on Vancouver’s Canucks professional hockey team.
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