“China eats weird animals disease”

Ontario reports 2,362 new COVID-19 cases, 26 more deaths

Ontario reported more than 2,300 new COVID-19 cases on Friday and 26 additional deaths, as the seven-day rolling average of infections continues to drop.

Provincial health officials logged 2,362 new coronavirus infections today, down from 2,759 on Thursday.

All major summer events, including CNE, Caribbean Carnival, cancelled again this year, city says

The city has confirmed that all major events in Toronto this summer, including the Caribbean Carnival and the Canadian National Exhibition, will once again be cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In March, the city cancelled all events and permits through to June 30 and today’s announcement means events typically held in Toronto in July, August, and over the Labour Day weekend will also not proceed in person.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has been consistent in his criticism of the Trudeau government for being lax at international borders, a federal jurisdiction. In a May 12 tweet, Ford shared a National Post story, which reports that almost a third of international air travellers are exempted from the three day “mandatory” hotel quarantine. Federal authorities did not provide a breakdown of the reasons for the exemptions, although in general they apply to essential workers, diplomats, and others whose need to cross borders is deemed essential by the federal government, in addition to exemptions made on humanitarian grounds.

A surge vaccination campaign could be targeted at areas where there has been a rise in cases of the coronavirus variant first identified in India, Downing Street has hinted, as the prime minister admitted he was “anxious” about how quickly the variant is spreading in the UK.

… The variant of concern – known as B.1.617.2 – is circulating in London and is “at least as transmissible” as the Kent variant that is now dominant across the UK, said Prof Paul Elliott, the director of the React programme at Imperial College London.

No word on its spread in Canada of late.

Ontario reports 2,759 new COVID-19 cases, lowest positivity rate in nearly six weeks

Ontario is reporting a slight increase in the number of new COVID-19 infections with more than 2,700 cases confirmed today but the province’s test positivity rate has now dropped to its lowest level in nearly six weeks.

Provincial health officials logged 2,759 new infections today, up from the 2,320 cases confirmed on Wednesday and 2,073 infections recorded on Tuesday.

Mixing COVID-19 vaccines appears safe — but no data on whether it works, U.K. study says

New preliminary data suggests that mixing Pfizer-BioNtech and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines is safe, but it’s still too soon to tell whether combining doses will provide protection against the virus.

The early results from a University of Oxford study found that mixing the two vaccines may increase the frequency of mild to moderate side effects. But the symptoms, referred to in the study as “reactogenicity,” were short-lived — lasting no longer than a few days — and there were no hospitalizations or other safety concerns.

Liberals’ worship of the Good Doctor has reached new extremes

Mask wearing and reverence for Dr. Anthony Fauci have become the twin pillars of Washington DC’s civic religion.

Consider what happened in the District earlier this month. Our mayor, Muriel Bowser, and the city’s public health officials decided that the time had come to lift the mask mandate. As of last Friday the city would allow fully the vaccinated to gather inside without a mask.

The order was rescinded almost immediately.