COVID shuts hospital unit

The Vancouver Coastal Health authority says a COVID-19 outbreak has been declared on a unit at a Vancouver hospital.

Patients on T12A, a respiratory unit at Vancouver General Hospital, tested positive for COVID-19, prompting the hospital and health authority to close it.

The health authority says no new admissions and transfers will be allowed.

The hospital remains open, with the outbreak having a limited impact.

The health authority said the outbreak will not affect the care of patients with respiratory diseases, including transplant patients or others that require specialized care.

Vancouver Coastal Health says it is in the process of notifying patients on the unit, as well as their families.

A hospital in Windsor, Ont., is taking the lead on managing a long-term care home weathering a deadly COVID-19 outbreak that has sickened more than 150 people.

Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare said in a statement that it is taking responsibility for communications, infection prevention and control, relations with residents and families, physician oversight and leadership at the Village at St. Clair.

According to provincial data as of Wednesday, 12 residents at the Village at St. Clair have died from COVID-19. Windsor-Essex County Health Unit says 97 residents and 67 staff members at the home have tested positive for the virus.

The day before, the North York General Hospital in Toronto said it's been asked to take control of the Tendercare Living Centre in Scarborough, Ont., where nearly half of all residents have tested positive for COVID-19 and more than 20 people have died.

At the national level, the Public Health Agency of Canada said Thursday that there is no evidence that new variants of COVID-19 identified in the United Kingdom and South Africa are in Canada.

However, Dr. Theresa Tam said in the statement released Thursday that the government continues to analyze genomic databases and is “actively monitoring” the new variants.

In Quebec, a provincewide lockdown went into effect Friday, with businesses deemed non-essential ordered to remain closed until at least Jan. 11. Similar restrictions come into effect in Ontario on Saturday.

While some provinces, including Quebec and Ontario, have said they didn't plan to release new data on the spread of COVID-19 on Christmas, New Brunswick reported a single new infection Friday.

As of Friday afternoon, federal public heath authorities said there were more than 75,000 active cases of COVID-19 across Canada and that an average of 3,392 people with COVID-19 were in hospitals across the country during the seven-day period ending Wednesday.

An average of 114 deaths associated with the virus were reported each day during that same period.