COVID-19 Live Updates: News on coronavirus in Calgary for Feb. 10

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With news on COVID-19 happening rapidly, we’ve created this page to bring you our latest stories and information on the outbreak in and around Calgary.

What’s happening now

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My COVID Story: How have you been impacted by coronavirus?

Postmedia is looking to speak with people who may have been impacted by COVID-19 here in Alberta. Are you quarantining due to being exposed to the variant? Have you received your vaccine, and if so did you feel any side effects? Send us an email at reply@calgaryherald.com to tell us your experience, or send us a message via this form.

Read our ongoing coverage of personal stories arising from the pandemic.

Providence Therapeutics inks deal with Manitoba to provide made-in-Calgary COVID vaccine

A Canadian biotechnology company has inked a deal with the province of Manitoba to provide it with two million doses of a home-grown COVID-19 vaccine that would be manufactured in Calgary.

The deal is a significant win for Providence Therapeutics, which has offices in Toronto and Calgary and started clinical trials on its messenger RNA-based vaccine last month. The company hopes to receive Health Canada approval for its product this fall and has partnered with another Calgary company, Northern RNA, which aims to develop vaccine manufacturing capacity in this city.

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352 new cases, 16 deaths; Border testing pilot to be suspended at Calgary airport

Alberta chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw provided an update on the COVID-19 pandemic in the province on Thursday afternoon.

• 135,000 doses of vaccine administered; 42,000 Albertans fully immunized
• 352 new cases on 9,968 tests; 3.5% positivity rate
• 397 in hospital; 71 in ICUs
• 16 additional deaths; 1,744 total
• 5,501 active cases; 120,676 recovered
• Active alerts or outbreaks in 311 schools; 897 cases in these schools since Jan. 11
• 155 cases of in-school transmission
• Hinshaw said the border pilot at the Calgary International Airport will be suspended when the new federal rules around testing come into effect on Feb. 15; the pilot will continue at the land crossing at Coutts for the time being
• The province reported 36 more variant cases; Hinshaw said they were detected over a one-week time span
• 156 total variant cases; 96 have no link to travel
• No additional cases of in-school transmission of variants

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You can watch the full update below.

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Deliveries of COVID-19 vaccine doses to Canada set to more than quadruple next week

A month-long slowdown in Canada’s COVID-19 vaccine deliveries should end next week, with the single biggest shipment of vaccines from Pfizer and BioNTech to date and almost two million doses expected in the next month.

“We’re approaching something we’re calling the big lift,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday in a virtual roundtable with nurses and doctors from around Canada.

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Calgary law firm challenging Ottawa’s hotel quarantine order

Federal government measures requiring people entering Canada to quarantine in approved hotels for a minimum three days violates the Charter and should be struck down, a Federal Court challenge says.

An application filed by Calgary law firm Rath and Company, on behalf of a B.C. resident, argues the measures announced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are unlawful.

“The rule of law and the constitutional rights of Canadian citizens and other individuals are not suspended by the declaration of a public health crises,” the court document states about the latest response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Four things to do with your beau in Calgary this pandemic Valentine’s Day

While love in the time of COVID may not be ideal, there are a number of ways you can still celebrate this year’s Valentine’s Day with the one you love.

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Nelson: We’re headed for a brave new world of constant shutdowns

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Columnist Chris Nelson writes:

Let’s face it, never in history has one event touched so many. Even the Second World War had nowhere near the global reach of this all-consuming viral outbreak.

So, does anyone really believe life will return to what it was, barely a year ago?

Because, once we’ve carved out some breathing space when the current COVID-19 crunch abates, governments will rush to appoint pandemic czars, charged with overseeing huge new bureaucracies, on constant guard for some future viral threat. The merest sniff of one anywhere will result in pious “We cannot let this happen again” exultations and subsequent shutdowns.

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What is the magic number? Why we don’t know the herd immunity threshold for COVID-19

The entire planet is now locked into one of the greatest peacetime efforts in human history: Getting as many COVID-19 vaccines into as many arms as possible in order to deny new victims to the pandemic.

The brass ring of this effort is “herd immunity,” the now well-recognized principle of having a population so well-vaccinated against a virus that it becomes physically unable to spread.

Here’s what we know about herd immunity and COVID-19.

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Cancelling school break, delayed election: Provinces mull ways to slow COVID spread

Newfoundland and Labrador’s chief electoral officer is calling for the province’s election to be delayed and Ontario officials are to decide whether to cancel March break as provinces mull ways to lessen the spread of COVID-19.

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“The current significant outbreak has had a profound impact on our ability to conduct a fair election, and immediate action is required to be taken,” Bruce Chaulk wrote in a letter to party leaders Thursday.

In Ontario, Education Minister Stephen Lecce was expected to provide more details after getting advice from that province’s top doctor on whether cancelling March break would curb spread of the novel coronavirus.

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The state of COVID-19 variants in Canada: Ontario has more than half the cases

The highest concentration of COVID-19 variant cases reside in Ontario and this week, the first known case of the Brazil variant in Canada landed in Toronto.

The city’s chief medical officer said the city is entering a “new pandemic.” Across the country, not only is the U.K. variant taking hold, but so is the South African variant.

Here is the state of COVID-19 variants in Canada.

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Travel restrictions force Raptors to play rest of home games in Tampa

The Toronto Raptors will play the remainder of their home games this season in Tampa due to the ongoing COVID-19 travel restrictions between Canada and the United States, the team announced Thursday.

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Is coughing a crime? Danish court hears appeal against pandemic-linked conviction

Denmark’s top court will on Thursday begin an appeal hearing in which it will be asked to decide if coughing at someone while shouting “corona” constitutes threatening behaviour.

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The 20-year-old defendant in the case was arrested in March, when the country was under a full coronavirus lockdown, after subjecting police to what prosecutors called the “ruthless and thoughtless” actions during a routine traffic stop. He subsequently tested negative for COVID-19.

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Europe’s oldest person celebrates 117th birthday after beating COVID-19

Europe’s oldest person, French nun Sister Andre, celebrated her 117th birthday on Thursday with a cake and a prayer after shrugging off the coronavirus just weeks earlier.

Sister Andre, who lived through the Spanish flu more than a century ago, said the day had brought her immense joy.

“I met all those that I loved and thanked God for giving them to me,” said Lucile Randon, who took the name of Sister Andre when she joined a Catholic charitable order in 1944.

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Alberta reports first in-school transmission of COVID-19 variants

Alberta has identified in-school transmission of variant COVID-19 cases for the first time, as two students in the same class have been diagnosed with one of the more contagious strains of the virus.

Chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw said Wednesday that Alberta has detected 16 new variant cases overall in the province, including the new cases linked to a school setting. Alberta has now identified 120 total variant cases since mid-December, of which 113 have been the strain first detected in the U.K.

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Wednesday

Viral video shows large group defying Alberta’s COVID-19 health guidelines at Edmonton Earls

A video showing a large group defying Alberta’s COVID-19 health guidelines at an Edmonton restaurant has gone viral.

The roughly nine-second video, which was posted on Twitter on Wednesday, shows more than 10 people gathered around a table enjoying drinks.

Mark Hladik, chief restaurant officer with Earls Restaurants, confirmed in an email that there was a group of guests at their Crossroads location along Calgary Trail on Tuesday. He said the group gathered at one table for a brief period after initially being seated separated.

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Wednesday

‘Our members are scared’: Union calls on employers to make outbreak-affected meat-processing plants safer

The head of the union representing workers at two meat-processing plants with COVID-19 outbreaks is calling on employers to make their workplaces safer.

United Food & Commercial Workers Local 401 president Thomas Hesse said he had concerns about both the Cargill meat-processing plant in High River and the Olymel slaughterhouse in Red Deer after both sites reported outbreaks of the novel coronavirus.

“Our members are scared. One of the faults of these places is — certainly we’ve seen some improvements in PPE, some improvements in social distancing, the installation of plexiglass — but we’re still seeing excessive line speeds,” Hesse said from High River, where he visited the Cargill facility Wednesday.

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“When the line speed is too fast, workers just bump into each other. There’s 2,000 people stuffed into this food-processing plant. If you saw 2,000 people at a wedding on the six o’clock news, you’d freak out.”

At the High River Cargill plant, Alberta Health said there have been 16 cases to date, with 12 remaining active. The site saw more than 950 cases last spring, becoming Canada’s largest outbreak, with three deaths linked to the workplace.

There are 243 cases, 143 of which are still active, in the outbreak at the Olymel site in Red Deer. The plant has 1,850 employees; one worker, a man in his 30s, has died in the outbreak.

The largest issue at Olymel is the recent onboarding of new workers amid a rise in production, which Hesse alleges has led to a decline in adherence to public-health measures.
Hesse called for more consistent presence of occupational health and safety and Alberta Health Services inspectors in the plants.

— Jason Herring

Wednesday

Kenney announces one-time $1,200 payment to front-line workers

Premier Jason Kenney and Minister of Labour and Immigration Jason Copping have announced $465 million in funding to pay front-line workers a one-time bonus.

The “critical worker benefit” of $1,200 will go to front-line workers who kept working through the pandemic.

The payment will go to roughly 380,000 critical workers in both the public and private sectors. The federal government put forward $347 million in funds while the province is paying $118 million.

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“These workers are the ones who have sustained and maintained Alberta through the first and second waves at very considerable risk to themselves,” said Kenney.

He said the risk from the virus will continue until a majority of the population is vaccinated.

“We can and should reward those who face those risks,” said Kenney.

Eligible occupations include but are not limited to people in industries such as health care, social services, education, retail, warehousing, grocery stores and pharmacies.

To be eligible, private workers need to earn $25 an hour or less, and show that they worked at least 300 hours between Oct 12, 2020 and Jan. 31, 2021.

Public workers will get the bonus automatically, while private sector workers will need their employers to apply for the bonus via a website portal.

Go here for more information on the program and a list of eligible workers.

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Watch the live news conference here.

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Wednesday

City of Calgary to reopen some arenas and pools for bookings

The City of Calgary says it will open six ice sheets and four pools for bookings, in response to the provincial government’s relaxation of COVID-19 restrictions.

Rinks at Max Bell Centre, Father David Bauer/Norma Bush arenas and Southland Leisure Centre will be open for “one-on-one training” starting Thursday, Feb. 11, the city said in a release.

Also, four pools at these locations will open on Monday, Feb. 22:

“Lessons, practices and conditioning activities for minor (under 18 years) sports and activities can be held for up to a maximum of 10 individuals including participants, coaches and trainers,” said the release.

No games, league play, public skating, public swimming or group exercise are allowed. All other indoor city-operated recreation amenities, including leisure centres, weight rooms and athletic fields remain closed at this time.

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Wednesday

339 new cases, six deaths; In-school transmission likely the source in two variant cases

Chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw provided an update on COVID-19 in Alberta on Wednesday afternoon.

• 130,000 doses of vaccine; 37,000 fully immunized
• 71% of residents of long-term care and designated supportive living have received both doses of vaccine
• 339 new cases of COVID-19 on 10,873 tests; ~3.2% positivity rate
• 421 in hospital; 77 in ICUs
• Six additional deaths; 1,728 total
• 5,706 active cases; 120,136 recovered
• Active alerts or outbreaks in 303 schools; 867 cases in these schools since Jan. 11
• 16 new variant cases, including two variant cases of where in-school transmission was likely the source
• Seven classes in six schools where a variant case has attended while infectious

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You can watch the full update below.

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