Coronavirus Update: How breakthrough cases are rattling the COVID-19 fight

Good evening, we’re updating the coronavirus newsletter to better reflect the pandemic as it changes. What would you like to see included? Send your thoughts to audience@globeandmail.com

Top headlines:

1. How likely is it for a vaccinated person to contract COVID-19? A Mount Sinai Hospital study sheds light
2. Families anxious over return to-school: The return to class is happening against a backdrop of deep concern, as a new chapter of the pandemic begins
3. Some restaurants in Canada are enforcing their own vaccine protocols –but it’s regulations like these that aren’t without backlash, especially on social media

In the past seven days, 14,501 cases were reported, up 12 per cent from the previous seven days. There were 92 deaths announced, up 188 per cent over the same period. At least 725 people are being treated in hospitals and 1,416,967 others are considered recovered.

Canada’s inoculation rate is 9th among countries with a population of one million or more people.

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Sources: Canada data is compiled from government websites, Johns Hopkins and COVID-19 Canada Open Data Working Group; international data is from Johns Hopkins University.

Coronavirus explainers: Coronavirus in maps and charts • Tracking vaccine doses • Lockdown rules and reopening

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Coronavirus in Canada

• Alberta’s health ministry has told the province’s nurses they could soon be forced to work mandatory overtime and holidays due staffing shortages amid surging coronavirus cases. And, in the absence of provincial guidelines, a patchwork of COVID-19 policies is emerging across school boards in the province, with rules varying by school division, rather than by the status of the pandemic in any given area.
• The final stage of B.C.’s reopening plan is being threatened by a surge of coronavirus cases.
• Yukon’s government has set out its framework for moving from a pandemic to an endemic approach, treating COVID-19 much like the flu.
• Newfoundland and Labrador’s only university, Memorial University, is requiring its students, staff and faculty to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
• The Northwest Territories is receiving help from the military as the territory deals with a surge in COVID-19 cases.
• Ontario is reporting 722 cases of COVID-19 today – the first time since June that the daily tally has passed the 700 mark.
• Quebec is reporting 463 new cases of COVID-19 today. The province has a 76 per cent vaccination rate.

Breakthrough coronavirus infections are top of mind for Canadian public-health officials as they grapple with the fourth wave of the pandemic, propelled by the Delta variant, which is the most contagious version of COVID-19 so far.

• The longer-term worry is vaccine escape, in which a new variant emerges with a combination of mutations that render vaccines completely ineffective. Against that troubling scenario, the Delta variant may become our unlikely ally, simply because its high rate of transmission makes it harder for other variants to gain a foothold even if they are more resistant to vaccines.
• According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, by the beginning of this month about 0.03 per cent of fully vaccinated Canadians had become infected with COVID-19. While the number of breakthrough infections is small, the prevalence of the Delta variant ensures that it will grow.

Back to school? The decision between in-person or virtual learning was a tough one for those parents who had to choose, while facing inconsistent COVID-19 safety protocols across different school jurisdictions.

Coronavirus and business

As the COVID-19 vaccine rollout progresses and restrictions lift, companies are beginning to welcome their employees back to the office. But they have also discovered the workforce is increasingly divided. Experts say young people are more eager to return to the office than their older colleagues.

• With many workplaces going the hybrid route, it’s not just young employees who will have to adapt. Managers will also have to adjust the way they evaluate and make promotion decisions when considering new staff who may have decided to work from home.

Also today: Few restaurants that were contacted by The Globe wanted to go on the record about plans to take extra COVID-19 precautions, but many applauded those efforts and said they wished they similarly could do them. Restaurant owners in cities such as Saskatoon, Calgary and Kelowna, B.C., worried about backlash.

And: While some companies wait on provincial governments, others say vaccination will be a requirement for employees who decide to return to the office.

Plus: Canada’s six largest banks are prepared to release financial results for the third quarter, but investors are unsure whether the COVID-19 Delta variant will play foil to an economic rebound.

Globe opinion

• A. Gavin Clark: My ‘vaccine passport’ from the 1970s tells the story of disease in our time
• Marcus Gee: A message to the vaccine hesitant: Time’s up
• Editorial Board: To beat the fourth wave, we need to vaccinate 90 per cent of Canadians. That won’t happen without vaccine mandates and passports
• Karima-Catherine Goundiam: Business owners hampered by COVID-19 should prepare for a workplace without an office

More reporting

• As fundraising events slowly return to in-person, organizers try to balance how to make a party feel safe and celebratory
• Vancouver restaurants are eying prepaid restaurant reservations and credit card deposits to offset further losses during the pandemic
• What are the back-to-office etiquette rules?

Information centre

• Everything you need to know about Canada’s travel restrictions for vaccinated and unvaccinated people
• Waiting for a second dose? We answer your COVID-19 vaccine questions
• What is and isn’t ‘paid sick leave’ in Canada? A short primer
• Got a vaccine ‘hangover’? Here’s why

Sources: Canada data are compiled from government websites, Johns Hopkins University and COVID-19 Canada Open Data Working Group; international data are from Johns Hopkins.

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