Coronavirus: What’s happening in Canada and around the world on Monday – CBC.ca
Japan’s coronavirus state of emergency will continue through Sept. 12 rather than finishing at the end of this month as initially planned, the government announced Monday.
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Japan’s coronavirus state of emergency will continue through Sept. 12 rather than finishing at the end of this month as initially planned, the government announced Monday.
With the virus continuing to spread in the country, the state of emergency for Tokyo, Osaka, Okinawa and three other regions that began in July will be extended and expanded.
The measures were enforced throughout the recently concluded Tokyo Olympics, which took place with no spectators from the general public at many events. With the latest extension, the emergency will remain in force during the Tokyo Paralympics, which open Aug. 24 and close on Sept. 5.
“The surge in infections is reaching alarming record highs,” Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said after meeting with other ministers about the move.
The decision will become official Tuesday, Suga said, noting that an expansion of hospital care is a priority, and that people waiting at home for hospital beds are getting checkups by phone.
The emergency measures centre on asking eateries and bars to close at 8 p.m. and not serve alcohol. They will be expanded to several more prefectures including Kyoto, Hyogo and Fukuoka, which are currently under a less severe cautionary “quasi-emergency.”
New cases are reaching record highs in many areas, hovering at about 5,000 on most days during the last week in Tokyo.
Local mayors and governors have prodded the national government to declare broader emergencies to send a stronger message to people to discourage them from going out.
“We feel the situation has reached an extremely serious and critical state that puts human life at risk,” said Eikei Suzuki, governor of Mie prefecture in central Japan, where infections have jumped.
Nationally, only about a third of the population has been fully vaccinated as the more infectious delta variant spreads. Japan’s vaccine rollout got off to a late start and is proceeding at one of the slowest paces among industrialized nations.
Critics say the government has not done enough to prepare hospitals to accommodate COVID-19 patients.
Japan has had more than 15,000 COVID-19-related deaths, and worries have been growing about the health-care system increasingly becoming stretched thin. Japanese media reports have shown people stuck in ambulances for hours looking for a hospital that will accept them.
The Health Ministry said the number of seriously ill people has now reached a record 1,603 nationwide.
-From The Associated Press, last updated at 9:30 a.m. ET
What’s happening in Canada
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What’s happening around the world
As of early Monday afternoon, more than 207.3 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, according to a tracking tool maintained by U.S.-based Johns Hopkins University. The reported global death toll stood at more than 4.3 million.
In the Americas, all health-care workers in New York state must be vaccinated against COVID-19 unless they have a medical or religious exemption, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a new mandate issued on Monday. They must have received at least one dose of a vaccine by Sept. 27, he said in a statement.
Cuomo previously ordered all patient-facing workers in state hospitals to get vaccinated in a mandate issued in July.
About 75 per cent of the state’s roughly 450,000 hospital workers are fully vaccinated, according to the statement.
In the Asia-Pacific region, Australia’s most populous state on Monday reported its worst day of the pandemic with 478 new COVID-19 infections and seven deaths.The previous record daily tally in New South Wales was 466 new cases reported on Saturday. Two of the dead had taken a single dose of a two-shot vaccine. The rest were unvaccinated, New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said.
Only 26 per cent of Australians aged 16 and older had been fully vaccinated by Saturday. Australia has one of the slowest vaccine rollouts among wealthy countries, which is making the delta variant outbreak particularly dangerous.
In the Middle East, Iran recorded a new high number of deaths from COVID-19 for a second day in a row. The official IRNA news agency said Monday that 655 patients died in the previous 24 hours, and health workers found some 41,194 new cases over the same period. On Sunday, Iran reported 620 deaths.
The report came as the country imposed a five-day lockdown starting Monday. It includes a travel ban on personal cars crossing between provinces.
In Europe, Germany’s standing committee on vaccination, the Stiko, has given the go-ahead for all young people above the age of 12 to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. The country’s disease control agency said Monday the Stiko found that data from the United States, where almost 10 million adolescents have been vaccinated, shows that the benefits of the vaccines outweigh the risks for children and teenagers.
In Africa, health officials in South Africa on Sunday reported 10,139 new cases of COVID-19 and 272 new deaths.
-From Reuters, The Associated Press and CBC News, last updated at 12:20 p.m. ET
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