Category Archives: Corona Virus

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy provided Albany Countys latest update Sunday on county-wide progress pertaining to vaccinations and controlling the spread of the Coronavirus. As of yesterday, 79.4% of all Albany County residents have received at least the first dose of the vaccine, and 72% have been fully vaccinated.

County Executive McCoy announced that the total number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Albany County is now at 48,226 to date, with 1,448 new positive cases identified since yesterday. The countys seven-day average of new daily positive cases is now up to just over 868. Albany Countys most recent seven-day average of cases per 100,000 is up to nearly 212 and the Capital Regions average of cases per 100,000 is now up to approximately 220.

There are now 6,644 active cases in Albany County, up from 5,771 yesterday. The number of individuals under quarantine increased to 7,192 from 6,386. So far, 41,582 of those who tested positive have now recovered, an increase of 555 additional recoveries.

County Executive McCoy reported that there were 19 new hospitalizations since yesterday, and there are now 116 county residents currently hospitalized with the Coronavirus. Fourteenof those hospital patients are in ICUs, up from 13 yesterday. There are no new COVID deaths to report and the death toll for Albany County stands at 476 since the outbreak began.

We knew we would see increased positive cases after holiday gatherings and that is what is happening now with another record high today of over 1,400 new cases, said County Executive McCoy. I hope that people have listened to what we have said about getting vaccinated and getting tested if they show signs or symptoms of the virus. There are many places to get a vaccination and local mass testing sites at Crossgates Mall and SUNY Albany to be tested. Please do the right thing to stop the spread and protect yourself, your loved ones and our community.

County Executive McCoy continues to encourage Albany County residents to report the results of positive at-home COVID tests on the county website, using its online at-home test reporting form.

Residents can receive free Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines (including booster shots) Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. 3 p.m., each week at the Albany County Department of Health, 175 Green Street. Aside from Wednesdays, appointments are now required, which can be madeon the Albany County Department of Healths website. Anyone eligible to receive a COVID vaccine booster dose and would like to receive one from the Albany County Department of Health will be required to provide their vaccination card or the Excelsior Pass Plus in order to view the formula type, lot number and date of the inoculation.

Residents who want a shot from a state-run facility should use thestates website at the link hereor call the state vaccine hotline at 1-833-697-4829. For general information on the vaccine, residents can also dial the United Way of the Greater Capital Regions 2-1-1 hotline or the Albany County Department of Health at (518) 447-4580.

COVID-19 testing sites are still in operation across the Capital Region and New York State as a whole. Help finding a testing site near you can be found on New York States website, and in Albany County on their interactive online map.

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Another record-high daily COVID-19 case increase reported in Albany County, January 9 - NEWS10 ABC

The UK has recorded 141,472 new COVID-19 cases and a further 97 deaths in the latest 24-hour period.

The latest government figures compare to 146,390 infections and 313 fatalities recorded on Saturday, which took the UK's total COVID-related death toll to more than 150,000.

This time last week, 151,663 cases were reported along with 73 deaths.

Follow the latest COVID updates from the UK and around the world

Since the beginning of the pandemic, 150,154 people have died within 28 days of testing positive for the virus.

A total of 47,677,951 people have now been double jabbed after 45,468 received their second dose - which is 82.9% of the population aged 12 and over.

Another 225,541 people were given a booster or third dose, bringing the total to 35,499,486 - 61.7% of eligible people in the country.

Cabinet minister in favour of cutting self-isolation period

Meanwhile, Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi has told Sky News he is in favour of reducing the COVID-19 self-isolation period from seven days to just five.

At the moment, people in England who test positive can come out of isolation if they receive a negative lateral flow test on days six and seven - with the tests taken 24 hours apart.

If they still test positive, they have to continue to isolate for 10 days.

Mr Zahawi said the possible reduction is being looked at by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and stressed the government would have to be "careful" about making the change.

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"It would certainly help mitigate some of the pressures on schools, on critical workforce and others," Mr Zahawi told Trevor Phillips on Sunday.

"But I would absolutely be driven by advice from the experts, the scientists, on whether we should move to five days from seven days.

"What you don't want is to create the wrong outcome by higher levels of infection."

No plans to scale back free lateral flow tests

It comes following a report in The Sunday Times that the government is looking to scale back free lateral flow tests to high-risk settings - something Mr Zahawi said is "absolutely not" where ministers are at.

He confirmed that there were no plans to stop handing out tests free of charge, adding he did "not recognise" the story that they could be limited to care homes, hospitals, schools and people with symptoms.

Following the newspaper's report, Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon warned the UK government about scaling back tests, saying it would be "utterly wrongheaded".

"Hard to imagine much that would be less helpful to trying to 'live with' COVID," she tweeted.

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COVID-19: UK records 141,472 new cases and further 97 coronavirus-related deaths - Sky News

Cases are soaring, hospitals are filled, people are lining up at testing sites, and yet, after nearly two years of living with COVID-19, the pandemic has fundamentally changed.

And how we track and measure the pandemic is shifting, too.Its as if we have to set aside everything weve learned since March 2020 and learn a new way of thinking about the pandemic.

How we interpret the current numbers number of cases, hospitalizations, positivity rates has to change as the epidemic itself evolves, said Joshua Michaud, associate director of global health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, a national health policy think tank.

Unlike earlier versions of the virus, the omicron variant is changing the nature of the pandemic. Omicron now causing an estimated 95 percent of all COVID-19 cases in the U.S. is much different than delta and previous variants, in its genetic structure and its behavior.

Some of its mutations make it far more contagious, fueling fears of even more hospital patients and worsened staffing shortages. But it also appears less severe, with research indicating it is more likely to stay in the upper respiratory tract and not migrate to the lungs, where it can cause more respiratory distress and the potential for long-term lung scarring.

Things are worse, but also better.

Everything is really different than it was just a few weeks ago, said Dr. Dora Anne Mills, chief health improvement officer at MaineHealth.

The ways we have measured the virus daily case counts, 7-day averages and positive tests are less useful now. Even the number of hospitalized patients the new gold standard of tracking data must change to keep up with omicron, according to some experts.

And some health experts are calling for an entirely new approach to omicron.

A NEW APPROACH

A team of Biden health care advisers published a series of health policy articles Thursday in the Journal of the American Medical Association arguing that public health policy should adjust to a new normal in the pandemic.

The new normal requires recognizing that (COVID-19) is but one of several circulating respiratory viruses that include influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and more. COVID-19 must now be considered among the risks posed by all respiratory viral illnesses combined, according to the report.

But with omicron being so much more contagious, the health system is dealing with a lot more disease all at once, again threatening hospital systems that are struggling to preserve enough capacity to care for COVID-19 patients.

Omicron is so extremely contagious it is like having a field thats completely on fire, Mills said. With delta, theres a lot of fires here and there but you could walk through the fields and not get burnt. Now the whole field is on fire.

FUTURE IS MURKY

COVID-19 has been unpredictable from the start. Now omicron is making it even more difficult to see the future.

According to some predictions by public health experts, omicron will peak in mid- to late-January or early February and then quickly subside, similar to what happened or is happening in South Africa, the U.K. and Denmark.

But there are still many unknowns because of differences in vaccination levels and demographics between Maine, the rest of the United States and other countries.

With about 75 percent of its population vaccinated, Maine has one of the highest rates of immunization in the U.S., and those who are vaccinated are about nine times less likely to be hospitalized if they fall ill with COVID-19, according to U.S. CDC research. But Maine also has uneven vaccination rates, with some areas like Cumberland County and other coastal counties nearing or topping 80 percent vaccinated, while more rural and interior areas have vaccination rates 20 percentage points lower.

The crystal ball over the next few weeks is very murky, Mills said.

Officially, 8.75 percent of samples from positive tests in Maine were found to be from omicron in late December, but public health officials believe the percentage is much higher now. With omicron causing exponential growth, public health officials expect it will soon be the dominant strain in Maine, if it is not already.

BEYOND CASE COUNTS

Case counts, long a staple of measuring the pandemic, are becoming less relevant.

The number of cases is important to know, but its not anymore a good reflection of what is happening in the pandemic. This is especially true of omicron, Michaud said.

It was always true that some cases went uncounted, whether because an infected person never had symptoms or because they recovered at home and never got tested. But with the proliferation of at-home testing, the official daily count is even less reflective of the actual number of cases. With home-tests combining with a milder version of the disease that can mimic the common cold in some cases, omicron is likely resulting in a growing undercount of daily cases.

Also, because there are so many confirmed infections, the Maine CDC has had a persistent backlog of cases some are several days to a week old before they are reported in the daily case count. That wasnt happening when there were 100 cases a day, but with more than 10 times that amount needing to be verified, its backing up the agency workers who release the daily count.

Dr. Nirav Shah, Maine CDC director, said the importance of the daily announcement of new cases has waned as even experts seek a better understanding of whats happening.

Were just searching for metrics that better and more granularly tell us whats really going on on a day-to-day basis, Shah said during Wednesdays media briefing. Whats a signal, and whats noise?

POSITIVE TESTS LOSE RELEVANCE

Positivity rates, another metric often used to measure how much virus was circulating, are also less telling.

The positivity rate measures the percent of tests that come back positive. Earlier in the pandemic, experts considered it a key indicator for when to tighten or loosen health safety guidelines and recommendations. Now, however, the wider availability of at-home tests is skewing the metric. Those are not included in positivity rates.

The testing shortage is also affecting positivity rates, Michaud said. With a shortage of testing appointments causing longer wait times, fewer asymptomatic people who think they may have been exposed to COVID-19 are likely to bother seeking a test. Gov. Janet Mills administration said Friday it is attempting to address the test shortage by purchasing 250,000 rapid tests from Abbott Labs to distribute to pharmacies and other places.

It is harder to draw conclusions based on the positivity rate compared to previously in the pandemic, Michaud said.

Shah said the Maine CDC now looks at positivity rates from one or two incubation periods ago 14 to 28 days but does not compare the rates to several months ago or a year ago, because so much has changed.

Maines positivity rate is 18.05 percent, about double what it was two weeks ago and higher than at any point during the pandemic. But because many people are not getting tested or are testing but not being counted, those comparisons no longer mean what they once did.

HOSPITALIZATIONS WATCHED CLOSELY

Shah said last week that hospitalizations are now a better metric to focus on.

We focus on the metrics that really tell us whats going on, Shah said. Our team really focuses on things like hospitalizations, intensive care unit utilization and ventilator utilization.

Hospitalizations reached a new peak Saturday, with 399 patients throughout Maine. But the number of intensive care patients has flattened this week, and stood at 106 on Saturday.

That decoupling of hospitalizations with ICU patients has been seen in the U.K., Denmark and so far in some hospitals in the U.S. where communities have been hit with earlier omicron waves, such as New York City. Hospitalizations increase with omicron, but with the average patient getting less sick, the number of people admitted to ICUs and on ventilators remains flat, according to some research and on-the-ground experience at hospitals.

But that may not be the case in Maine this winter, Dr. Mills warns. Thats because Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont were in the midst of delta variant surges, which had subsided in other states before omicron started taking over. The potential of a longer overlap with both delta and omicron patients in the hospital could be dangerous for the state.

Were going to be seeing more disease in our hospitals, Mills said. The next four weeks were just going to have to take everything hour by hour and day by day.

HOSPITALIZED WITH VERSUS FOR COVID

Some experts are even calling for a new way of counting hospitalizations because of omicron.

As hospitals fill with patients, hospital officials in other states are noticing a difference compared to the delta and other previous surges. With omicron, more patients in the hospital for other reasons such as a broken ankle or cancer treatment are then testing positive for COVID-19. That happened far less often with the delta variant.

The U.K. and New York state now have separate categories for these patients, one for those admitted to the hospital for COVID-19 and another for those hospitalized with COVID-19 because they tested positive after being admitted for another reason.

Some U.S. hospitals experiencing an omicron surge including in New York, California and Washington state are reporting 50 to 75 percent of their COVID-19 patients were hospitalized for another reason.

Michaud, the Kaiser Family Foundation health expert, said that as omicron sweeps through the nation, he could see more states separating COVID-19 patients into the different categories rather than lumping them all together.

I do think its an important distinction, especially with omicron, Michaud said.

New York state Friday released statistics showing that 57 percent of COVID-19 patients statewide were admitted to hospitals for COVID-19, while for the remaining 43 percent COVID-19 was not included as one of the reasons for admission.

Maine officials say they see drawbacks to separating the counts, however.

Shah said given the pressures from the surge, hes not sure that devoting limited resources to categorize patients with and for COVID-19 is necessary. All patients with COVID-19 in a hospital use up more resources than patients without the disease because of the safety protocols and personal protective equipment requirements for health care workers. And some medically vulnerable patients, such as cancer patients, could end up very ill with COVID-19, even if that wasnt the original reason they were admitted.

From a health system utilization perspective, the difference between with and for doesnt matter when our hospitals are under such great strain, Shah said. On some level, this is a distinction without a difference.

In England, about 70 percent of hospitalized COVID-19 patients are being treated primarily for COVID-19, with the remaining 30 percent testing positive after being admitted for another reason, according to government statistics.

John Bell, a University of Oxford medicine professor, told the BBC in late December that hospitals are also seeing an entirely different kind of COVID-19 patient.

They dont need high-flow oxygen, average length of stay is apparently three days, he said. This is not the same disease as we were seeing a year ago.

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How omicron is changing what we know about COVID-19 - Press Herald

Parks and Recreation (PARCS): All City parks and dog parks are open to the public from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. City park drinking fountains are temporarily turned off in accordance with State and County guidelines.

All Splash Pads are open 7 days a week; from 10:00 am to 8:00 p.m. (Martin Ray Reilly, Inspiration, Mosqueda, Dickey, Figarden, Melody, Todd Beamer). City swimming pools are open from 12:00 p.m. 5:00 p.m., for community swim 7 days a week (Frank H Ball, Mary Ella Brown, Mosqueda, Einstein, Fink White, Pinedale, Quigley, and Romain). Fresno Unified School District pools at Roosevelt and Edison High schools are open on weekends from 12:00 p.m. 5:00 p.m., for community swim.

Community Recreation centers and skate/BMX parks are open from 3:00 p.m. 7:00 p.m. Airways and Riverside Golf Courses are open to the public, as is the Disc Golf Course at Woodward Park. The Regional Sports Complex is open from 8:00 a.m. 5:00 p.m., Saturdays through Tuesdays, and from 8:00 a.m. 10:00 p.m., Wednesdays through Fridays for tournament play. (Park may stay open longer on weekends to accommodate scheduled tournaments.)

Senior congregate meals are temporarily suspended by order of the Fresno-Madera Agency on Aging. For information about senior meals, please click the Food Delivery tab.

Applications for Special Event permits have resumed. Reservations for park shelters, indoor facilities, or athletic fields have resumed. Please call (559) 621-2900 for Special events, park shelter, indoor facility, or athletic field reservations.

Camp Fresno and Camp Fresno Jr. are also open for private reservations. Please call (559) 621-2905 to make your reservation.

All parks are sanitized daily to ensure the health and well-being of park patrons. Park patrons are encouraged to limit family gatherings to household members while social distancing. Guidelines for social distancing, masking, etc., are posted at the park. For more information, please visit thePARCS websiteor call(559) 621-2900.

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City of Fresno | Corona Virus (COVID-19)

CHAMPAIGN The stretch before New Years is usually a productive one for Black Dog Smoke and Ale House in downtown Champaign. Family and friends reunite there after returning to town for the holiday season.

Thats what owner Mike Cochran was gearing up for until he received calls, day and night, from employees whod gotten sick from COVID-19 or other illnesses.

Black Dog offered less seating, but it surprisingly met demand. Cochran said business was down 25 to 35 percent from what he expected last week probably from customers getting sick and being careful, he said.

When it comes to the pandemic and its effects, our crystal ball broke a long time ago, and the new one has been on back-order due to shipping delays, Cochran joked.

A new year has brought new precautions. State Farm Center is requiring vaccine or test to enter. Drivers facilities are closed for two weeks. The Esquire Lounge bar, with heavy hearts closed at 4 p.m. on New Years Eve.

A year out from the advent of several effective vaccines 204 million Americans, around 62 percent, have gotten their shots. Roughly 30 percent of those vaccinated have received a booster, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Yet the emergence of the delta and omicron variants in fall and winter, both known for their transmissibility, have wreaked havoc this holiday season.

Hours-long testing lines have snaked across the country, while states and counties, including Champaign, are setting new case records 21 months and change into the pandemic. COVID-19 patients majority unvaccinated are absorbing health-care resources.

Our health-care staff are exhausted and really feeling the strain of the surge in our community right now with more people than ever in our hospitals, emergency rooms and ICUs, said Carle Chief Medical Officer Dr. Charles Dennis. This can have a critical impact on our ability to deliver timely, non-COVID-19-related care, especially in our more rural locations.

So the question is: where do we go from here? What could the third calendar year of dealing with this virus have in store?

We asked Dennis and local epidemiologists Rebecca Smith and Awais Vaid to lay out their best- and worst-case scenarios for COVID-19 in 2022.

First, the hopeful: Omicron could burn itself out and prove to be less pathogenic, Smith said, and we could see cases lull near the start of spring.

Perhaps the emergency-use authorization to vaccinate the youngest children will be approved earlier than expected, and the Biden administrations proposed rollout of rapid tests will go smoothly and help contain spread, she added.

We are probably experiencing the worst-case scenario with the current wave, the pandemic however will end, said Vaid of the C-U public health district.

Conversely, the omicron spike could continue to grow if we throw caution to the wind. Despite its seemingly milder nature and widespread vaccination, the sheer volume of new cases could continue to overwhelm healthcare providers across the country.

Vaccinations could stagnate, Smith said, and a delay in vaccine authorization for young children may persist, leading to more cases and spread in schools and daycares.

A poor testing rollout, with technical glitches and/or low uptake, could combine with the CDCs new shortened asymptomatic isolation policy to result in more people working while infected, eventually shutting down businesses more due to sickness than would have been solely due to the 10-day isolation, Smith said.

Regardless of how the current surge pans out the last few COVID-19 spikes have petered within four to eight weeks endemic COVID-19, where cases remain in certain areas at a stable rate, will stay with us for a very long time, Vaid said.

In the short-term, vaccinations and boosters, indoor masking, testing and staying home, improved ventilation and personal hygiene are still our primary defense system. No variant so far has changed that.

Without everyones commitment to taking the preventative measures we know it will continue to be a challenge to stop the spread, Dennis said. We dont want to let this virus continue freely mutating and continuing to infect people and impact our way of life.

These days, Pastor Matt Matthews of First Presbyterian Church preaches behind a pane of Plexiglas, to a masked audience in the pews and dozens more watching a live-stream of the service at home.

He opts for it for the congregation members who are hearing-impaired, and wouldnt be able to understand him otherwise.

I look like the President behind bulletproof glass, he said. But change is the name of the game.

For other churches, businesses, schools and more, looking ahead has often proved to be a futile exercise.

On the recommendation of the churchs own COVID-19 response team, led by a retired doctor, First Presbyterian has vowed not to have congregation-wide dinners until cases are far lower or until people of all ages have access to a vaccine.

We want to include all our children, for us thats an extension and a natural part of our baptismal vows we take, Matthews said. We raise them in the faith and support them. We would not be doing that if we had a congregation-wide dinner, and exposed them to COVID.

The Stephens Family YMCA has had to adapt its exercise programming constantly to keep up with pandemic-era adjustments. Its mask mandate was temporarily lifted for fully vaccinated individuals, until cases rose again and state guidance changed.

Could more health precautions be on the way?

Obviously there are things being discussed like requiring vaccination for entry, vaccinating staff or testing, reservations for classes and pool usage, said Stephens YMCA CEO Jeff Scott. We arent excited about any of these options, but we will do them if it is absolutely necessary to help keep the community safe.

Rising cases havent quelled local interest in their facility: In the last 2 months, nearly 500 families have signed up for YMCA memberships. More aquatic classes were offered once it became clear that pool environments posed less of a risk for spread, Scott said.

Still, sports communities especially school teams are playing on pins and needles. Monticellos high school basketball and wrestling teams have managed to evade COVID-19 pauses or cancellations, but after this weeks tournaments? Who knows.

If you think back, we thought 1,200 cases in the state was a lot, and everyone was getting shut down, said Monticello Athletic Director and Assistant Principal Dan Sheehan. Now theres 22,000 cases, and its like, OK were playing basketball.

I wake up every day thinking Oh, great, were going to get an announcement, theres going to be some new statewide rules. You dont know whats coming next, and thats whats kind of scary.

Espresso Royale General Manager Aaron Bradley would usually be on break right now, if it werent for staff members at a different location testing positive and going into quarantine.

As a business, its about straddling that line between taking it very seriously and adapting to our new reality, Bradley said. We cant put the toothpaste back in the tube, the name of the game now is learning how to live in this world where COVID is a thing.

What hes concerned about, outside of the university community he usually serves, is how COVID-19 will continue to distort our information economy, or expose its flaws.

We cant move on to higher level problems, if were still talking about what two plus two equals, Bradley said. The pandemic wouldve been fixed if we didnt have this problem.

The grief of these last few years is incalculable. The virus has claimed more than 5 million lives worldwide, including more than 820,000 in the U.S.

Vaid, too, has lost close family and acquaintances to the virus. But even he can find reasons for optimism.

Our scientific community is collaborating and innovating at scale never imagined or done before in history, he said. We are much better prepared and have many more tools to respond as compared to March of 2020.

To some, the pandemic exposed cracks in institutions that needed upheavals.

There were some parts of our educational systems that needed to be changed in certain ways and benefited from the sense of urgency that our pandemic caused, said Franklin STEAM Academy Principal Sara Sanders, days before her school reopens.

Beyond health measures, officials across the board preached kindness. The mental health toll of this pandemic has been pervasive.

While we dont have the power to change what has happened, we do have the power to be humane to one another while we work through the debris of this pandemic, Sanders said.

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Coronavirus response | Where could the virus take us in 2022? - Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) The Ohio Department of Health has released the latest numbers related to the coronavirus pandemic in the state.

The reported numbers on Sunday will reflect the past 48 hours of data with the Ohio Department of Health not reporting numbers on New Years Day.

Numbers as of Sunday, Jan. 2 follow:

The 21-day case average is just under 13,000.

The department reported 1,619 people started the vaccination process, bringing the total to 7,003,020, which is 59.91% of the states population. And6,076received booster shots.

The Ohio Hospital Association reported the following numbers related to COVID-19 patients:

Top federal health officials are looking into adding a negative test along with its five-day isolation restrictions for those who are asymptomatic. Schools across the country are returning from winter break with COVID-19 protocol tweaks. More than 200 Marines were separated from service for refusing the Pentagons COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

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Coronavirus in Ohio Sunday update: More than 37,000 new cases over past two days - NBC4 WCMH-TV

JERUSALEM Israel's prime minister is warning that the country will soon see tens of thousands of new coronavirus cases a day.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett spoke at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. He said that despite rolling out more than 4.2 million coronavirus booster shots to the country's population of 9.3 million since July, the storm is coming to us these very days.

Daily cases in Israel have risen in the past two weeks from around 700 to the more than 4,000 reported on Sunday.

These are numbers that the world has not known, and that we also havent known, Bennett said.

He said that the governments aim is to allow the economy to function as much as possible, while protecting the most vulnerable among us.

Israel has recorded at least 8,244 deaths from coronavirus since the start of the pandemic.

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Israel's PM warns of coming COVID-19 'storm' - News 5 Cleveland

The latest:

Ontario hospitals are feeling the brunt of soaring COVID-19 case counts as the virus rips through the province at record speed and infects high numbers of patients and health-care workers.

The situation has become so serious that some hospital networks are reporting that hundreds of their staff members have tested positive for the virus, are symptomatic or are in isolation after an exposure.

Kevin Smith, president and CEOof Toronto's University Health Network, says those factors combined have resulted in at least 100 staff absences per day as the highly transmissible Omicron variant drives case counts to unprecedented highs across the province.

"There aren't health-care workers growing on trees, so it's a very, very limited supply, and they're in hot demand everywhere," Smith said in a telephone interview.

The number of staff unable to work at UHN's five facilities in recent weeks including Toronto General, Toronto Western and Princess Margaret hospitals is higher than what the facilities experienced in previous waves of the virus.

The high number of unavailable staff comes as Smith has noticed fewer critically ill people entering hospital from the virus. This is despite the fact that Public Health Ontario reported 16,714 new infections on Sunday and a record 18,445 cases on Saturday, noting both figures are considered underestimates.

The number of active cases in the province has now crossed the 100,000 mark.

While Smith said staff are managing the current volumes well, he worriesabout the situation changing.

"I'm obviously worried that as we get people engaged in larger and larger amounts of social interaction, including in schools and other environments, there is risk of additional and significant spread," he said.

"Our hope is that populations like those wouldn't require hospitalization, but we have to be prepared for the fact that they will because in other countries, we're seeing kids' admissions going up."

To prepare, Smith is urging Health Canada to immediately approve Paxlovid, Pfizer's antiviral COVID-19 pills, for emergency use.

He is also looking at redeploying staff to areas most in need and pulling hospital doctors and nurses back from vaccine clinics, where they can be replaced with other regulated health-care workers.

West of Toronto, similar moves are being considered at Hamilton Health Sciences, which runs Hamilton General Hospital.

Earlier in the week, organization president and CEO Rob MacIsaac asked vacationing, part-time and casual staff to pick up extra hours in exchange for premium pay up until Wednesday.

He made the appeal as the new year began with at least 411 of his staff in isolation at home and numerous outbreaks across his hospital sites.

"Unfortunately, the Omicron variant has set us back several steps," MacIsaac said in a news release. "Consequently, we are once again facing immense pressures around hospital occupancy and staffing."

Hospitals were experiencing an increase in patients who tested positive for COVID-19. Many were admitted due to medical conditions not linked to the virus, he said.

More than 100 in-patients at his hospitals were positive for COVID-19 as of Dec. 31, and 13 were in intensive care units.

Emergency department volumes were simultaneously exceeding pre-pandemic volumes and seeing an increase in the number of patients arriving to the hospitals by ambulance on a daily basis.

On top of asking health-care workers to pick up extra shifts and hours, MacIsaac said his organization would turn to "extraordinary measures," such as ramping down "procedural and scheduled care" beginning on Tuesdayto divert resources to areas of "greatest need."

He also said he would soon share more information on plans to call back asymptomatic staff with a negative rapid antigen test, who are currently isolating at home, as well as efforts to deploy workers from ambulatory areas to support in-patient care.

With testing capacity strained,experts say true case counts are likely far higher than reported. Hospitalization data at the regional level is also evolving, with several provinces saying they will begin to report more precise data that separates the number of people in hospital because of COVID-19 from those in hospital for another medical issue who also happen to test positive for COVID-19.

In British Columbia, Pacific Coastal Airlines an operator that serves smaller communities throughout the province'sWest Coast and Interior has suspended operations for two days due to Omicron cases at its operational control centre at the South Terminal of the Vancouver International Airport.

In the Prairies, Manitoba is now permitting workers at child-care facilities, child and family services and others who have mild COVID-19 symptoms but have tested negative for the virus to return to work. Meanwhile, a number of trials and appearances scheduled to get underway in Alberta courts this month will be postponed following the enactment of stricter pandemic measures.

In Quebec,demonstrators in Montreal defied acurfew on Saturday evening to protest against measures imposed on residentsin an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19. The province reported15,845new casesofCOVID-19 on Sunday and 13new deaths.

In the Atlantic region, Newfoundland and Labrador has set asingle-day record for COVID-19 infections for asixth straight day with 466 cases announced on Sunday. Meanwhile,Nova Scotia logged1,893 infections over the past two days, and Prince Edward Island announced 137 cases since its last update onDec. 31. And starting Tuesday at 11:59 p.m., PCR tests will be available only for select populations deemed high risk in New Brunswick.

In the North, Nunavut confirmed another 22 caseson Sunday raising the territory's active case count to 196 and residents in the N.W.T. capital in need of a COVID-19 test will be able to attend a walk-in clinic on Monday morning.

As of Sunday, roughly289.4million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University's coronavirus tracker. The reported global death toll stood at more than 5.4 million.

In Asia,India reported more than27,000 newcases on Sunday, data from the Health Ministry showed, amid growing concerns of a potential new surge stoked by the Omicron variant.

In Europe,the British government has been making contingency plans in case hospitals, schools and other workplaces are hit by major staff shortages amid the country's record-breaking spike in coronavirus infections.

In the Americas, passengers on the cruise ship MSC Preziosa had to wait more than six hours to disembark at Rio de Janeiro Sunday due to an inspection by Brazilian health authorities that confirmed 28 cases of COVID-19 on board 26 among passengers and two in crew members.

In Africa,South Africa has lifted a midnight to 4 a.m. curfew on people's movements, believing the country has passed the peak of its Omicron-driven fourth wave.

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Coronavirus: What's happening in Canada and around the world on Sunday - CBC News

An unvaccinated couple with four children died on the same day after contracting COVID-19.

Alvaro and Sylvia Fernandez, of Loma Linda in Southern California, died within hours of each other on 19 December, their family said.

Mr Fernandez, 44, was hesitant about getting a COVID vaccination so had not got his jab before developing symptoms a few days before. His wife, 42, was also unvaccinated.

Read more: What does the latest death and hospitalisation data tell us about Omicron?

His sister, Alma Hernandez, told Sky News affiliate NBC Los Angeles: "He wanted to wait and do more research. He googled information. He didn't want to believe everything that was on the news.

"This is kind of an eye-opener for everybody in my family that whoever is not vaccinated definitely should have their vaccinations."

She added that her brother suffered from underlying health problems, including diabetes.

Alvaro and Sylvia Fernandez had been together since she was 15 after meeting at high school, and were married for 25 years.

They both tested positive for COVID days before dying due to complications from the virus, Mr Fernandez's sister said.

The couple leave behind four children, including twins aged 17.

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"My brother and my sister-in-law, they were very close," said Salvador Fernandez, Alvaro's brother. "They were high school sweethearts. They've been together since she was 15.

"One couldn't live without the other."

An online fundraiser set up by Mr Fernandez's sister to help support their children had reached nearly $20,000 (14,800) by 2 January.

California has been experiencing a rise in COVID hospital admissions, with an increase of about 12% in the last seven days to 4,401.

However, this is less than half the late summer peak and a fifth of a year ago, before vaccines were widely available.

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COVID-19: Couple with four children die on same day after contracting coronavirus - and family encourages others to get vaccinated - Sky News

JETTE, Belgium (StudyFinds.org) People with long COVID may have suffered heart damage if they are still struggling to breathe during exercise a year on, researchers warn. Medical scans show patients who experience breathlessness a year after leaving hospital are more likely to experience cardiovascular problems, even if they never have before.

There is increasing evidence that coronavirus and its long-lasting symptoms such as shortness of breath, also known as dyspnoea, could cause heart issues. Belgian scientists have confirmed that those long COVID symptoms could be linked to the toll the virus takes on peoples hearts.

New scanning techniques could help identify patients who areat risk of developing long COVIDafter being infected.

The findings could help to explain why some patients with long COVID still experience breathlessness one year later and indicate that it might be linked to a decrease in heart performance, says study author Dr. Maria-Luiza Luchian, of University Hospital Brussels in Belgium, in astatement.

Researchers examined data from 66 patients without previous heart or lung diseasewho were hospitalized with COVID-19between March and April 2020. The patients lung capacity and longterm COVID symptoms were assessed a year after being discharged from hospital using special x-ray equipment known aschest computed tomography. Ultrasounds and a more modern imaging technique known asmyocardial workwere also carried out to examine patients heart health.

Scans of patients who continued to be short of breath a year after being hospitalized with COVIDshowed greater heart damage, the researchers report.

Our study shows that more than a third ofCOVID-19 patientswith no history of heart or lung disease had persistent dyspnoea on effort a year after discharge from hospital, says Dr. Luchian. When looking in detail at heart function by cardiac ultrasound, we observed subtle abnormalities that might explain the continued breathlessness.

According tothe American Academy of Physical and Rehabilitation, approximately 10% to 30% of Americans with COVID report having at least one symptom after six months.

New imaging techniques like myocardial work could help doctors keep an eyeon peoples heart healthafter recovering from COVID.

Myocardial work could be a new echocardiographic tool for early identification of heart function abnormalities in patients with long COVID-19, who might need more frequent and long-term cardiac surveillance, says Dr. Luchian. Future studies including differentCOVID-19 variantsand the impact of vaccination are needed to confirm our results on the long-term evolution and possible cardiac consequences of this disease.

The findings were presented at EuroEcho 2021, a scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology.

South West News Service writer Tom Campbell contributed to this report.

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Long COVID sufferers may have heart damage if battling shortness of breath a year later - KFOR Oklahoma City