The latest news on COVID-19 developments in Canada for Monday, April 26, 2021

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

3:55 p.m.

Saskatchewan is reporting 245 new cases of COVID-19 today.

Health officials say one person who is in their 60s from the province’s far northwest has also died.

The new cases are located across Saskatchewan, but 80 are in Regina and another 39 are in Saskatoon.

There are 187 people in hospital, and 45 of those patients are in intensive care.

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3:35 p.m.

Newfoundland and Labrador is reporting four new cases of COVID-19 today.

Health officials say the new cases involve travel within Canada.

That brings the province’s total to 1,062 reported cases since the pandemic began.

The province has 28 active reported cases and one person in hospital with the disease.

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3:30 p.m.

Prince Edward Island is reporting two new cases of COVID-19 today.

Health officials say the cases involve people in their 20s: one had recently travelled outside Atlantic Canada and the other is a close contact of the traveller.

Prince Edward Island has 11 active reported cases of COVID-19.

No one is in hospital with the disease.

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2:25 p.m.

New Brunswick is reporting a COVID-19 case involving a variant first identified in India.

Health officials say the case in the Fredericton region involves a previously reported infection.

Officials are also reporting seven new COVID-19 cases today: three in the Saint John area, two in the Fredericton region and two in the Edmundston area.

An outbreak has been declared at a residence at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, which is connected to at least six cases.

New Brunswick has 122 active reported infections and seven patients in hospital with the disease, including three in intensive care.

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2 p.m.

The Manitoba government is tightening some of its public-health orders as COVID-19 numbers rise.

Starting Wednesday, people will not be allowed to have any visitors at their homes, indoors or out, with some exceptions for people who live alone.

Attendance at religious services will be cut to a maximum of 10 people.

Food courts in shopping malls will have to close, and retail store capacity will be reduced to 25 per cent from 33 per cent.

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1:55 p.m.

Health officials say all public schools in the Halifax Regional Municipality and surrounding areas will close Tuesday, and move to at-home learning beginning Thursday.

With an outbreak of COVID-19 in the Halifax area, Education Minister Derek Mombourquette says moving to at-home learning is a “necessary step at this important juncture.”

The decision affects all pre-primary children and grades primary to 12 public school students administered by the Halifax Regional Centre for Education.

It also includes Conseil scolaire acadien provincial schools and schools in the Enfield, Elmsdale and Mount Uniacke areas under the Chignecto Central Regional Centre for Education.

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1:35 p.m.

Manitoba is reporting 210 new COVID-19 cases and one death.

About three-quarters of the cases are in the Winnipeg region. 

The test positivity rate over the last five days is 7.6 per cent provincially and 8.2 per cent in Winnipeg.

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1:05 p.m.

The Ontario government is working on a pilot project that would see some pharmacies administer the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

Health Minister Christine Elliott says the province is looking into how to manage the vaccine’s strict transportation and storage requirements in a pharmacy setting.

Ontario pharmacies have so far only administered the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, but the province said last week it had fewer than 350,000 left and no new deliveries expected until next month.

Elliott says the government is also considering acting on a recommendation from its science table that would see vaccines allocated to communities based on transmission rate rather than age group.

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1 p.m.

Nunavut is reporting its first cases of the novel coronavirus variant first identified in the United Kingdom.

Chief public health officer Dr. Michael Patterson says 21 samples have come back from a laboratory and are all positive for the variant known as B.1.1.7.

He says although the variant may spread more quickly than the original virus, the Moderna vaccine — the only vaccine available in Nunavut — is effective against it.

To date, 15,163 people in the territory of about 40,000 have received one dose of the vaccine and 12,181 have had both doses.

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12 p.m.

Manitoba is expanding its COVID-19 vaccination priority program to include all adults in the northern health region and in the Seven Oaks West neighbourhood in Winnipeg. 

Anyone 18 years old and up who doesn’t live in those areas but who works there in certain public-facing jobs such as teachers, grocery store workers and childcare staff can also get a shot. 

The province announced similar priority measures last week for three neighbourhoods in central Winnipeg.

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11:30 a.m.

Alberta’s health minister says he’ll be announcing plans later today to vaccinate meat plant workers across the province.

Tyler Shandro says on Twitter that COVID-19 vaccines will be offered to 15,000 workers at 136 federal and provincial meat-packing plants starting this week. 

He says the inoculations will be done at a combination of on-site and community locations. 

Plans for a vaccination clinic at Cargill’s beef slaughterhouse south of Calgary were put off last week.

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11:10 a.m.

Quebec is reporting 889 new cases of COVID-19 today and eight more deaths attributed to the novel coronavirus, including one in the past 24 hours.

Health officials say hospitalizations rose by 10, to 664, and 167 people were in intensive care, a rise of two.

The province says 41,731 doses of vaccine were administered Sunday, for a total of 2,871,140.

Quebec has reported a total of 345,697 cases of COVID-19 and 10,886 deaths linked to the virus.

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11 a.m.

Conservative party Leader Erin O’Toole says Canada needs to bar incoming flights from all “hot spot” countries, not just India and Pakistan.

He said today that Canada should “perhaps” go as far as to stop all international flights “until we can rectify and secure our border.”

The Public Health Agency of Canada says 100 flights landed in the country between April 11 and April 22 carrying at least one passenger who tested positive for COVID-19 after landing.

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10:30 a.m.

Ontario is reporting 3,510 new cases of COVID-19 today and 24 more deaths attributed to the novel coronavirus.

Health Minister Christine Elliott says there are 1,015 new cases in Toronto, 909 in Peel Region and 391 in York Region.

The Health Department says 2,271 people are in hospital with COVID-19, but notes that more than 10 per cent of hospitals did not submit data over the weekend and that number will likely go up when those reports are received.

There are 877 COVID-19-related patients in intensive care and 605 are on ventilators.

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9 a.m.

Nova Scotia health officials are again reporting a record number of new COVID-19 cases.

The Health Department tweeted today the province has 66 new cases, surpassing the 63 reported Sunday.

Fifty-eight of the new cases are in the central health zone that includes Halifax, while there are five in the eastern zone, two in the western zone and one in the northern zone.

The province now has 323 confirmed active cases of COVID-19.

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 26, 2021.

The Canadian Press