More cases of U.K. COVID-19 variant found in Canada

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The agency had initially said the couple had no known history of travel or contact with people who had recently travelled.

Public Health Ontario said it is screening large volumes of positive COVID-19 samples to investigate how prevalent the U.K. variant is in the province. But health officials are not planning to report the different strains out separately in provincial summary reports.

The Public Health Agency of Canada said while early data suggests the new variant may be more transmissible, there is no evidence the variant causes more severe symptoms or impacts vaccine effectiveness.

The Ontario government noted on Saturday that the discovery of the variant was “not unexpected” due to international travel.

The provincial government said it is prepared to start a COVID-19 testing program in airports but is calling for support from the federal government.

News of the new cases came as Ontario and Quebec both recorded more than 2,000 diagnoses of the virus Sunday.

Ontario reported 2,005 cases of COVID-19 and 18 new deaths, while Quebec announced 2,291 new infections and 12 more deaths.

They said 6,783 new cases of COVID-19 and 110 additional deaths linked to the novel coronavirus have been reported since Thursday.

The three-day total came after the province did not publish data on the number of new infections or deaths on Friday or Saturday.

Meanwhile, Alberta’s chief medical officer said there were an estimated 500 new COVID-19 cases recorded on Boxing Day, but she cautioned the low number is a result of fewer tests being performed on Christmas Day.