The latest news on COVID-19 developments in Canada

The latest news on COVID-19 developments in Canada (all times Eastern):

7:25 p.m.

Alberta health officials are reporting 461 new cases of COVID-19 and seven deaths.

They say 591 people in the province are in hospital, with 112 in intensive care.

The province says there have been 20 cases of the variant first identified in the United Kingdom since Monday.

There have also been five cases of the variant first identified in South Africa since Monday.

Since the pandemic began, there have been 122,821 COVID-19 cases in Alberta and 8,041 deaths.

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7:20 p.m.

Alberta’s health minister says the province will receive 63,000 fewer COVID-19 vaccines that were promised to be shipped by end of March.

Tyler Shandro says the federal government is failing all Albertans.

As of Wednesday, 101,123 Albertans had been vaccinated, with about 11,000 of them having received the required second dose.

The province’s chief medical officer of health also says there is a global shortage of syringes that can extract a sixth dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

Dr. Deena Hinshaw says the province still has a supply of the syringes, but will soon run out.

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7:05 p.m.

British Columbia is reporting 546 new cases of COVID-19 and a dozen new deaths.

The new figures from the Health Ministry bring to total confirmed cases over the past year to 66,265 and the death toll to 1,184.

There are 4,455 people with active infections, 291 of whom are hospitalized, including 75 in intensive care.

To date, 127,255 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in B.C., 4,185 of which are second doses.

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4:45 p.m.

Prince Edward Island is reporting one new case of COVID-19.

Health officials say the case involves a man in his 30s who recently travelled outside Atlantic Canada.

P.E.I. now has six active reported cases of COVID-19 and has reported a total of 111 infections since the start of the pandemic.

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4 p.m.

Manitoba health officials are reporting eight more deaths and 133 new cases of COVID today.

They say there were 94 new cases Tuesday and 95 on Wednesday.

Of the 133 cases, the Northern Health Region has the highest number with 61.

A new outbreak has also been declared in that region at St. Paul’s Personal Care Home in The Pas.

All but one of the deaths — a woman in her 60s from the Winnipeg area — are connected to known outbreaks.

Starting tomorrow, all those who travel outside the province will be required to self-isolate for 14 days.

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3:05 p.m.

Ontario says COVID-19 cases are going down across the province, but the spread of the U.K. variant of the virus presents a “significant threat” to controlling the pandemic. 

The findings come in new projections released by the province’s health and science advisers.

Data shows cases began decreasing after the start of a provincial lockdown at the end of the December, and that decline continued after a stay-at-home order was imposed two weeks ago.

The data also shows that a more contagious variant of the virus first identified in the U.K. is spreading in Ontario and is a significant concern. 

The experts compiling the data say that maintaining public health measures can still reduce case counts, despite the variant’s presence, and allow schools to reopen.

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3 p.m.

Saskatchewan is reporting 244 new cases of COVID-19.

The province says there are 208 people in hospital, with 37 of them receiving intensive care.

Another 11 residents have died from the virus.

Health officials say 34,672 doses of vaccine have been administered so far, but Premier Scott Moe says supply is running short.

The province expects another 5,850 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to arrive next week.

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1:55 p.m.

Newfoundland and Labrador is reporting four new COVID-19 infections, including three cases that are linked to a case reported Wednesday.

Chief medical officer of health Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says those three cases along with the case announced Wednesday form a cluster of connected infections whose origin cannot be identified.

She also says there is a suspected case of COVID-19 at a daycare in the province, though no positive cases have yet been confirmed in connection with the facility.

The fourth case announced today is related to international travel and Fitzgerald says there are now nine active reported infections in the province.

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1:50 p.m.

Nunavut is reporting one new case of COVID-19.

The new case is in Arviat, which saw its second outbreak of the novel coronavirus last week after being COVID-free since Jan. 2.

Chief public health officer Dr. Michael Patterson says all those infected are asymptomatic and a rapid response team is in the community to work on contact tracing.

There are 18 active cases of COVID-19 in Nunavut, all in Arviat.

So far, 5,224 people in Nunavut have received their first dose of the Moderna vaccine.

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1 p.m.

Arianne Reza, an associate deputy minister at Public Services and Procurement Canada, says Canada has a supply of the special, low-dead volume needles needed to extract six doses from vials of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine.

But she says there will be two million arriving in Canada next week, part of a new order for 37.5 million of the syringes.

Health Canada has not yet made a decision about whether it will amend the label on the vaccine to say it always contains at least six doses.

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12:55 p.m.

New Brunswick is reporting 27 new cases of COVID-19 today.

Health officials say 14 of the new cases were identified in the Edmundston region, which has been under a lockdown since Sunday. 

They say 11 other cases were reported in the Moncton area and two in the Saint John region.

The province says it has 313 active reported infections and four people are in hospital with the disease, including two in intensive care.

New Brunswick has reported a total of 1,202 infections and 16 COVID-related deaths since the onset of the pandemic.

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12:15 p.m.

The man overseeing the country’s national vaccine rollout says Canada is getting 149,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine over the next two weeks.

That’s only one-fifth of what had been promised before the company slowed production in a bid to ramp up operations in Belgium.

Canada has been saying for several weeks that the shipments would return to normal in mid-February, but Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin now says Pfizer is sending 335,000 doses the week of Feb. 15, which is still only 91 per cent of the previous delivery schedule.

Fortin says the deliveries still are based on five doses per vial.

Earlier in the day Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said the feds had lowered their estimates for total Pfizer vaccines in-hand by end  of March from four million to 3.5 million.

But Fortin says Canada is still on-pace to get four million doses by that time, saying the government had given the provinces more conservative figures for planning purposes.

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11:15 a.m.

 for the latest:

11:15 a.m.

Quebec is reporting 1,368 new cases of COVID-19, as well as 39 additional deaths due to the virus.

Hospitalizations declined by 26 to 1,264, while the number of people in intensive care dropped by nine to 212.

Two deaths were removed from the provincial count after an investigation found they were unrelated to COVID-19, for a total of 9,667 deaths and 258,698 cases since the pandemic began.

The province delivered 3,767 doses of vaccine yesterday, and has used up all but about 5,100 of the 238,100 doses it has received so far.

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11 a.m.

Schools in four more public health units in southern Ontario can reopen for in-person learning on Monday.

The government says students will be able to return to physical classrooms in the Ottawa, Eastern Ontario, Southwestern, and Middlesex-London public health units.

All students began their winter term online as part of a provincial lockdown, and the government extended remote learning for many as the province continues to fight COVID-19.

The government allowed schools in seven other public health units to resume in-person learning this week, but students in the rest of southern Ontario’s public health districts continue to learn online.

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10:50 a.m.

Ontario is reporting 2,093 new cases of COVID-19 and 56 more deaths linked to the virus.

Health Minister Christine Elliott says there are 700 new cases in Toronto, 331 in Peel Region, and 228 in York Region.

The province reports nearly 12-thousand doses of a COVID-19 vaccine were administered since the last daily update.

Ontario says it had misinterpreted data on the number of people who received both doses of the vaccine, leading to an incorrect doubling of that figure in previous updates.

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 28, 2021.

The Canadian Press