Coronavirus: What's happening in Canada and around the world on Thursday
CBC
The latest:
Canada's two most-populous provinces each shattered their previous COVID-19 case counts on Thursday, with Ontario reporting 5,790 new cases and Quebec reporting a whopping 9,397 new cases.
Ontario's case count eclipsed the previous high of 4,812, set back in mid-April, while Quebec's previous high of 6,361 was yesterday.
Dr. Kieran Moore, Ontario's chief medical officer of health, said this week that record-high daily case counts were expected and will likely continue for several weeks.
WATCH | Public spaces in parts of Quebec quiet as Omicron cases rise:
In Montreal, officials confirmed that one of every five Montrealers getting tested for COVID-19 is positive — and the latest data confirms that 90 per cent of infections in the city involve the Omicron variant of the novel coronavirus.
Dr. Mylene Drouin of Montreal public health says 60 per cent of the positive cases in the city are among people between the ages of 18 and 44, noting that contact tracers cannot keep up with the crush of new infections.
Several studies (see the "latest science" section below) suggest the Omicron variant is milder than the Delta version. But researchers say that good news may be overshadowed by the fact that Omicron spreads much faster than Delta and is better at evading vaccines.
As a result, the sheer number of infections linked to Omicron could still overwhelm hospitals.
-From CBC News and The Canadian Press, last updated at 11:51 a.m. ET
For more details on how COVID-19 is impacting your community — including hospital data and the latest on restrictions — check out the coverage from CBC newsrooms around the country.
WATCH | Omicron predominant in several areas across Canada:
Prince Edward Island announced new restrictions and a record 35 new cases. Starting Friday at 8 a.m., wedding and funeral receptions as well as wakes and visitations will no longer be permitted. Organized gatherings such as worship services, wedding and funeral ceremonies, concerts and shows will be capped at 50 people, and schools won't return to in-person learning until at least Jan. 10. The province has 165 active cases, more than the total number of cases it had during the entire first year of the pandemic.
Newfoundland and Labrador is back in COVID-19 Alert Level 3 as of this morning, the change brought on by a rapid increase in cases, the emergence of the Omicron variant and outbreaks found across three of the province's regional health authorities. At Level 3, people are asked to stay home as much as possible and to maintain a household bubble of up to 20 people.
More than 100 workers at a steel plant in eastern Ontario are being laid off either temporarily or permanently, as a company with facilities in Quebec and Ontario cuts its workforce due to challenging market conditions — including U.S. tariffs.
A small town northwest of Thunder Bay, Ont., has become the unlikely home for hundreds of foreign workers, but many may have to leave the community they've embraced after the end of a federal program put in place to fill gaps in Canada's labour market.
There's mixed reaction in Waterloo to an injuction allowing police to detain, arrest and charge anyone who is participating in unsanctioned street parties in that city this weekend.
Diabetes Canada is excited about Prince Edward Island's new pharmacare deal with the federal government, but hopes the province will reevaluate copays on diabetes supplies, says a senior manager with the organization.
After 26 years of accommodating guests from across the world, Faith Embleton says she and her husband Ken are ready to sell their bed and breakfast.
A group of big-name companies including Google, Meta and Dow have signed a pledge to support tripling the world's nuclear energy capacity by 2050, a signal of the technology's growing resurgence in popularity.
Five years on, Toronto-area doctors and public health officials are looking back at what they've learned since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic — and most agree the early experience will prove useful if the city faces another infectious disease crisis.
City staff would like Londoners to take a good look around their home and ask themselves a direct and possibly difficult question: Could everyone in your family survive at home, without leaving and with no other help, for a full 72 hours?
Liberal Leader Mark Carney will officially become Canada's next prime minister within a few hours, taking the reins as the country barrels toward a general election and continues to fend off verbal and economic attacks from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Recent cyberattacks in Newfoundland and Labrador should have been a wake up call for the federal government about the reality of an increasingly hostile world, says one cybersecurity expert.
A recent CBC News analysis found that Nova Scotia is rapidly losing some of its most affordable apartments, but housing experts say there are ways to prevent that.
Premier Susan Holt is defending her decision to not use electricity exports to Maine as leverage against U.S. tariffs, arguing the move might cause long-term pain for New Brunswickers.
Montreal's St. Patrick's Day parade first started on Saint-Paul Street in 1824, and a couple centuries later, this annual tradition is still going strong.