COVID-19 Live Updates: News on coronavirus in Calgary for March 17

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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.  Have you undergone a travel-related quarantine? Have you received your vaccine, and if so did you feel any side effects? Have you changed your life for the better because of the pandemic? 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.

Calgary pharmacies offering COVID-19 vaccine

This map shows all 48 Calgary pharmacies that are offering the COVID-19 vaccine. Appointments are still necessary and can be booked by contacting the participating pharmacies. Details on eligibility and booking can be found here.

AHS orders restaurant to close after serving past 11 p.m.

A Mediterranean restaurant in southwest Calgary has been ordered to temporarily close after being cited for breaking COVID-19 restrictions.

The order was issued on Tuesday after an Alberta Health Services inspector determined that Trio Cafe, 1504 16th Ave. S.W., was operating past 11 p.m. on March 13, “with approximately 15 patrons onsite”.

COVID-19 restrictions enacted Feb. 8 state that restaurants, bars and cafes must stop liquor service by 10 p.m. and close by 11 p.m. A maximum of six people are allowed at a table, as long as they are from the same household.

AHS will allow the restaurant to re-open after the owner provides details “of all risk mitigation measures” to prevent the transmission of COVID-19, as well as fixing a minor issue with the dishwasher.

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Roundup of COVID-19 news across Canada on Wednesday

Manitoba is reporting no new COVID-19 deaths and 96 new cases. Health officials have also confirmed nine cases of the B.1.1.7 variant first identified in the United Kingdom. The government has launched a new web page so that people can book vaccination appointments online, in addition to the existing telephone call centre. With more vaccines arriving, the province is also dropping the minimum age for the general public to get vaccinated by two years. First Nations people aged 53 and up and others aged 73 and up can now book appointments.

Quebec is reporting 703 new cases of COVID-19 today and 13 more deaths. There is also a sharp rise in the number of intensive care patients, up 16 compared with the prior day, for a total of 107. Total hospitalizations dropped by one, to 532.

Ontario is reporting 1,508 new cases of COVID-19 today, along with 14 new deaths.

Alberta pastor who defied health orders to be released from jail soon

An Edmonton-area pastor accused of violating COVID-19 health restrictions will likely be released from jail this week after prosecutors agreed to withdraw one of three charges against him, his lawyers say.

On Wednesday, the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms issued a news release claiming victory in the case of GraceLife Church Pastor James Coates, who has been jailed since mid-February after being charged with breaches of the Public Health Act.

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GraceLife was accused of repeatedly holding services without capacity restrictions, social distancing or face coverings in violation of COVID-19 health restrictions.

Read more.

Benefits outweigh the risks of AstraZeneca COVID shot as review continues: WHO

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday that it considers that the benefits of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine outweigh its risks and recommends that vaccinations continue.

The WHO listed AstraZeneca and Oxford University’s vaccine for emergency use last month, widening access to the relatively inexpensive shot in the developing world.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA), which will release its findings on Thursday, has said it was investigating reports of 30 cases of unusual blood disorders out of five million recipients of the AstraZeneca vaccine. In total, 45 million COVID shots have been delivered across the region.

Read more.

Also: Canadian health officials now recommend AstraZeneca vaccine for use on seniors

National decline in COVID-19 hospitalizations, deaths starting to level off: Tam

Canada’s top public health doctor says a national decline in severe COVID-19 outcomes, such as hospitalizations and deaths, is starting to level off.

Dr. Theresa Tam says provincial and territorial data show an average of 2,048 people with COVID-19 were being treated in Canadian hospitals every day over the seven-day period that ended yesterday. She says that includes 550 people who were in intensive care units. An average of 31 COVID-related deaths were reported each day during that same period.

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Tam has also warned in recent days that average daily case counts of COVID-19 are now on the rise again across the country after plateauing for several weeks.

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Ford to let 30,000 employees keep working from home after pandemic ends

Ford Motor Co. told employees they can continue to work from home, allowing more than 30,000 to use the office only when they need to, even after the pandemic is over.

The “flexible hybrid work model” unveiled Wednesday lets employees choose to stay home for “heads-down work,” while coming to the office for meetings and team-building activities. The system will debut as soon as July and apply mostly to salaried office staff, not factory workers.

“No more cubicle farms,” Jackie Shuk, global director of Ford’s real estate unit, said in an interview. “We’re trying to make it as easy as possible to be a Ford employee.”

Read more.

Hinshaw to provide update at 3:30 p.m.

Alberta’s chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw will provide an update on the province’s COVID-19 numbers at 3:30 p.m.

Watch this page for a livestream of the press conference.

UK mulling vaccine passport options for at home and abroad

Britain is reviewing the idea of vaccine certificates to allow access to travel, hospitality and entertainment and discussing the best way to proceed in terms of fairness, said business minister Kwarsi Kwarteng.

P&O Cruises said on Tuesday that it would only accept as passengers those who have had both doses of the vaccine for its trips around the UK this summer, sparking a fresh debate on the issue.

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When asked about the fairness of companies requiring proof of vaccination to grant entry and what the government’s stance was on the matter, Kwarteng said it was under review.

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How COVID-19 overwhelmed seniors in long-term care

Gisela Papenfuss lost her family and everything she knew in the Second World War. But in Calgary, she rebuilt a new life, drawing in lifelong friends with her curiosity and magnetic personality.

Then COVID-19 struck.

Last October, in Alberta’s daily COVID update, you would hear Papenfuss described only as “a female in her 90s linked to the outbreak at the Mount Royal Revera care home in the Calgary zone.”

She is one of the more than 1,200 Albertans living in continuing care who died of COVID-19 over the past year, accounting for nearly two-thirds of all COVID deaths across the province.

Read more.

Johnson says he will get Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine very soon

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday he would get the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 shot very soon, voicing his confidence in a vaccine that has been suspended in some other European countries after reports of blood clots.

Several European Union countries have suspended their roll out of the shot, developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, but Britain’s regulator has said that there is no evidence of a causal link between reports of thrombo-embolic events and the vaccine.

Asked if European countries had disregarded scientific evidence, Johnson said: “The best thing I can say about the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine program is that I finally got news that I’m going to have my own jab … very, very shortly.”

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“It will certainly be Oxford/AstraZeneca that I will be having,” Johnson told parliament.

– Reuters

Tuesday

Hinshaw warns about spread of variant cases as Alberta reports another 62

Alberta’s top doctor warned the province about the spread of variant cases within the community on Tuesday ahead of St. Patrick’s Day celebrations, as another 62 variant cases were detected.

The variants of concern account for 11 per cent of the province’s active cases, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, explained. As of Tuesday, there were 509 active variant cases provincewide.

The toll the variants have taken in hard-hit countries like Italy and the United Kingdom should serve as a cautionary tale that must be taken seriously, Hinshaw said during Tuesday’s press conference.

Read more.

Tuesday

Two northeast Calgary schools to provide rapid COVID tests over the next week

Two Calgary schools chosen to take part in a COVID rapid testing pilot to screen students and staff without symptoms are both in the city’s northeast, where school cases and community spread are an ongoing concern.

The Calgary Board of Education’s K-6 Rundle School, located in the northeast community of Rundle, will begin testing for students and staff this Thursday after being confirmed in outbreak status, with five to nine cases of COVID-19.

The Calgary Catholic School District’s St. John XXIII School, a K-9 school located in the northeast community of Falconridge, will have teams arriving next Monday after reporting two cases.

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Read more.

Tuesday

355 new cases, three deaths

Alberta’s chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw delivered an update on COVID-19 on Tuesday afternoon.

• 379,882 doses of vaccine administered
• Three more birth years eligible for vaccine tomorrow, all Albertans born 1949-1951 and First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people born 1964-1966 will now be eligible
• 355 new cases of COVID-19 on 6,018 tests; 5.9% positivity rate
• 260 in hospital; 44 in ICUs
• Three additional deaths; 1,952 total
• 4,776 active cases; 132,415 recovered
• Active alerts or outbreaks in 276 schools; 1,160 cases in these schools since Jan. 11
• 62 new cases of variants; 509 active variant cases, 11% of active cases in Alberta
• Alberta can screen up to 1,000 samples for variants if needed

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Watch the full livestream below.

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Tuesday

Study finds COVID U.K. variant 55 per cent more lethal, as ICU admissions in Ontario creep up

Yet more unnerving research is linking a fast-spreading variant of the virus that causes COVID-19 with a higher likelihood of dying.

The latest findings come from a paper published Monday by the journal Nature, in which researchers estimate the variant technically know as B.1.1.7, the so-called U.K. strain, is, on average, 55 per cent deadlier than earlier versions of the virus.

Read more.