COVID-19 Live Updates: News on coronavirus in Calgary for June 14

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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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Kenney to give details on vaccine lottery at 12:30 p.m.

Premier Jason Kenney and Minister of Health Tyler Shandro are scheduled to provide details on the “Open for Summer Lottery” at 12:30 p.m. today. This weekend, Kenney announced the lottery, which will award three $1-million prizes to some Albertans who get the jab.

The first draw will take place on the day Alberta enters Stage 3 of its reopening plan, and will be open to all Albertans age 18 or older who have had at least one shot.

Canada to receive 9.5M vaccine doses this week thanks to influx of Moderna shots

Canada is poised to receive around 9.5 million COVID-19 vaccine doses this week thanks to a massive infusion of shots from Moderna.

The federal government says the Massachusetts-based pharmaceutical firm will deliver a total of 7.1 million jabs in two separate shipments this week.

The first shipment of 2.9 million doses is scheduled to arrive and be sent to provinces in the middle of the week. The remaining 4.2 million will arrive later in the week, but won’t be sent to provinces and territories until next week.

Another 2.4 million doses are also due to come from Pfizer and BioNTech, which have been consistently delivering large weekly shipments since mid-March.

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Canada to donate 13 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to poorer countries, fund even more

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged 13 million surplus vaccines to help the world get immunized against COVID-19 as he and other G7 leaders wrapped up a two-day summit in Britain dominated by the pandemic, climate change and China.

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Canada previously said it would offer up to 100 million vaccine doses to help poorer countries beat back the global pandemic, but was the only country from the G7 to not say how many of those would be actual shots rather than money.

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Entering post-COVID world sparks anxiety for some, but uneasiness is normal reaction: experts

As the COVID-19 pandemic recedes and restrictions lift, the prospect of a return to the office isn’t exactly sparking sheer, unbridled joy. “Return-to-office anxiety,” Bloomberg reports, is part of broader uneasiness as people emerge from COVID’s siege.

When asked how anxious they were about “going back to the way things were,” 52 per cent of Canadians surveyed by Leger in late May reported “high” or “some level of” anxiety, slightly more than the Americans surveyed (49 per cent).

Our fear of contracting COVID-19 may be at its lowest level since the pandemic began in earnest, but when Maru Public Opinion asked a sample of Canadians what they believe is going to stick after COVID fully recedes, many said they intend to wash their hands more, avoid large crowds more, and vacation within driving distance more often rather than flying. They were less enamoured than before COVID with buffets, cruise ships, getting on a subway or bus, “working in an office with colleagues close by” or going out with someone they don’t know particularly well.

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Sunday

Alberta’s active case rate continues to decline as province reports 165 new cases of COVID-19

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More than 20 per cent of eligible Albertans have now received their second dose of COVID-19 vaccine, as the province’s active case rate continues to drop.

With 767,586 people having been given their first and second shots of COVID-19 vaccine, 20.2 per cent of Albertans age 12 and over are fully immunized, according to data released Sunday on Alberta Health’s website. This is a full one per cent higher than it was on Saturday.

Meanwhile, first doses increased by only 0.2 per cent by Sunday with 68.7 per cent of the eligible population having received at least a first jab.

Overall, the province has administered 3,384,026 doses of either the Pfizer, Moderna or AstraZeneca vaccines.

Alberta reported 165 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, and the number of active cases provincewide dipped to 3,180. This is the lowest number of active cases Alberta has documented since the start of the second wave in late October.

The new cases came from 5,799 completed tests for a positivity rate of 2.8 per cent — down from 3.3 per cent on Saturday.

There are 272 COVID patients in hospital, including 75 in intensive-care units. One death was reported Sunday, bringing the province’s death toll to 2,270.

Though overall COVID-19 infection rates are down in Alberta, one variant strain is continuing to grow.

Another 25 cases of the Delta variant, first identified in India, were detected Sunday, for a total 318 Delta variant cases discovered.

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Sunday

Vaccine lottery unlikely to be effective: U of C behavioural economist

Alberta’s new COVID-19 vaccine lottery likely won’t significantly move the needle on immunizations, according to a behavioural economist at the University of Calgary.

Robert Oxoby said the science doesn’t add up behind the new lottery program, which will award three $1-million prizes to Albertans who have rolled up their sleeve for a COVID-19 vaccine.

“You can’t change preferences with money. There’s years of evidence that you can’t do it,” said Oxoby, who heads UCalgary’s economics department.

“And these kinds of incentives, they only work so far. You can’t change people’s core beliefs. You can’t buy pro-life protesters to be pro-choice. And a vaccine is like that too.

“People who don’t trust vaccines don’t trust vaccines. Vaccines, people do out of their own concerns or concerns about their family, and the vaccine hesitancy crowd, the anti-vax crowd just doesn’t give a s—.”

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Sunday

Alberta prisoners received 1,800 doses in first months of COVID-19 vaccine drive

Alberta has administered more than 1,800 COVID-19 vaccine doses in provincial correctional facilities since opening eligibility to prisoners two months ago.

According to Alberta Health Services (AHS), as of June 9, 1,829 doses of the Moderna vaccine have been dispensed to inmates in 10 provincial correctional facilities, which house pre-trial inmates, people serving short sentences and young offenders.

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The number does not include vaccinations in federal prisons.

Prisons and jails have been particularly susceptible to COVID-19 outbreaks because of their tight quarters and poor ventilation.

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Sunday

University students volunteer to tutor K-12 kids struggling in pandemic

A small group of university students volunteering to tutor K-12 kids want to expand their ranks over for next fall as younger students face multiple learning challenges during the disruptions of COVID and online learning.

Connect Tutoring is a volunteer tutoring service created by Melia Alcantara and a corps of volunteers at the University of Calgary, wanting to support younger kids that were facing the same struggles as them with online learning and a lack of one-on-one teacher support.

“We are students too, we’ve been learning online for over a year, and we watched our younger siblings learn online, going back and forth. We know what the challenges are,” said Alcantara, who just graduated from U of C and is now pursuing graduate studies at McGill University in Montreal.

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Sunday

UK’s Johnson set to announce delay to end of COVID restrictions

LONDON — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to announce on Monday that the end of COVID-19 restrictions will be delayed following concern about the rapid rise of infections of the Delta variant of the coronavirus.

Under a roadmap outlined by Johnson back in February, the government signaled all social restrictions imposed to control the spread of the disease would be lifted “no earlier” than June 21, when pubs, clubs and other hospitality venues could fully reopen.

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