The latest news on COVID-19 developments in Canada for Tuesday, May 25

The latest news on COVID-19 developments in Canada (all times Eastern):

5:40 p.m.

Alberta’s chief medical officer is reporting 387 new cases of COVID-19 and nine new deaths.

Dr. Deena Hinshaw says 565 are in hospital due to the virus and, of those, 158 are in intensive care.

She says the province’s positivity rate is at 9.9 per cent.

There are 12,078 active cases in the province.

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3:35 p.m.

Saskatchewan is reporting 111 new cases of COVID-19 today, and no new deaths due to the virus.

There have been 197 more recoveries, leaving the province with 1,451 active cases.

The province also reported 136 people in hospital, 30 of whom are in intensive care.

It says 63 per cent of all Saskatchewan adults have now received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

Thirty-seven per cent of those in the 80-plus age group are now fully vaccinated.

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1:55 p.m.

Saskatchewan says it will be relaxing restrictions on outdoor sports as part of the first step in its reopening plan, which is to begin Sunday.

Athletes will be able to attend practices and participate in league play. 

However, tournaments and out-of-province travel will not be allowed.

Premier Scott Moe and chief medical health officer Dr. Saqib Shahab are to provide an update on COVID-19 later today.

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1:55 p.m.

Health officials in New Brunswick are reporting nine new cases of COVID-19 in the province.

There are six cases in the Moncton region and three in the Fredericton area.

Chief medical officer of health Dr. Jennifer Russell says there are now 134 active cases in the province.

She says there are five New Brunswickers in hospital, including one person in intensive care and one person in hospital in another province.

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1:55 p.m.

Nova Scotia is reporting 54 new cases of COVID-19 today.

Health officials have identified 35 cases in the Halifax area, 15 in the province’s northern zone, three in the northern zone and one in the western zone.

The province has 846 known active cases of novel coronavirus, with 72 people in hospital, including 20 in intensive care.

The province also opened its COVID-19 vaccine appointments today to people 20 years of age and older.

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1:50 p.m.

The Manitoba government is extending strict public health orders aimed at controlling the spread of COVID-19.

With hospitals filling up and some patients being shipped to Ontario, some rules enacted for the May long weekend will remain in place until the end of the week.

That includes no gatherings, indoors or out, except among members of the same household, although there is a small exemption for people who live alone.

Some doctors in the province are calling for tighter restrictions, including a stay-at-home order to prevent intensive care units from being overwhelmed

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1:30 p.m.

Manitoba is reporting 259 new cases of COVID-19 and two deaths. 

The percentage of people testing positive, averaged over five days, now stands at 13.8 per cent provincially and 15.9 per cent in Winnipeg.

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1:30 p.m.

Premier François Legault says he expects all of Quebec to be out of the province’s highest pandemic-alert level by June 7.

Legault says five of the 10 regions at the red level will move to the orange alert level on May 31. 

Red-level restrictions will continue in Montreal and Laval until June 7.

Gyms and in-person dining can reopen in orange zones.

Health Minister Christian Dubé says the government will announce a plan to accelerate the administration of second COVID-19 vaccine doses on Thursday.

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1 p.m.

Newfoundland and Labrador is reporting 11 new cases of COVID-19.

Public health officials say they’re all part of a growing cluster of 44 infections in central Newfoundland.

In response to the area’s rising numbers, officials yesterday imposed heightened public health restrictions on a swath of the region stretching from Gambo to Badger.

There are now 93 active reported infections across the province, including four people in hospital due to the disease.

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12:15 p.m.

Procurement Minister Anita Anand says Moderna has assured her it will deliver millions of doses of its COVID-19 vaccine next month but still hasn’t confirmed the exact amount or timing of deliveries.

Anand says she has been on the phone to Moderna repeatedly, including this morning, to push for an actual delivery schedule for June and July.

Moderna was originally supposed to ship 12.3 million doses between April and June.

Later, that figure was revised to between 10 million and 12 million doses. 

However the company has only shipped 3.7 million since April 1 and has no confirmed deliveries in place now.

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12 p.m.

Ottawa is preparing to help Manitoba with health workers and more medical equipment as the province continues to see unsustainable surges of COVID-19.

The province has the worst new infection rate across North America, and some doctors in the province are asking for a province-wide stay-at-home order as hospitals get overwhelmed.

Jim Carr, Winnipeg MP and cabinet’s special representative for the Prairies, says the province’s health care system “is reaching its limit.”

Ottawa is deploying epidemiologists and interviewers to help with contact tracing, and Carr says health workers, the military and additional personal protective equipment are being prepared as well.

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11:10 a.m.

Quebec is reporting 346 new cases of COVID-19 today and six more deaths attributed to the novel coronavirus, none of which occurred in the past 24 hours.

Health officials say hospitalizations dropped by nine, to 415, and 101 people were in intensive care, a drop of one.

The province says it administered 50,934 doses of vaccine Monday, for a total of more than five million; more than 55 per cent of Quebecers have received at least one dose.

Quebec officially opened vaccination today to residents 12 and up.

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11 a.m.

Nunavut is reporting one new case of COVID-19 today.

There are now 13 active cases left in the territory, 12 in Iqaluit and one in Kinngait.

There were 30 recoveries over the weekend, shrinking the territory’s case count.

An outbreak was declared in mid-April and Iqaluit has been under a strict lockdown ever since.

Schools, non-essential businesses and workplaces remain closed in Iqaluit.

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10:30 a.m.

Ontario reports there are 1,039 new cases of COVID-19 in the province today after there were 1,446 new cases on Monday.

The Ministry of Health did not release its daily report on the Victoria Day holiday.

Today’s new case count is the lowest since since March 6 when it was 990.

Ontario says that eight people died from the virus on Sunday and 33 died on Monday.

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8:45 a.m.

Moderna says it will ask Canada to authorize its vaccine for kids between 12 and 17 years old after a study of its mRNA vaccine in teenagers shows it to be both safe and effective. 

The Massachusetts-based vaccine maker says it will submit the study results to international regulators in early June.

The company says the study of 3,700 kids in that age group found no cases of COVID-19 among the kids who got two doses of the vaccine. The youth got the same size doses as adults, four weeks apart.

The company says there were no serious safety issues, and the side-effects mirrored those seen in adults, with headache, fatigue, pain and chills the most commonly reported issues after the second dose.

More than two dozen countries, including Canada, have greenlighted the vaccine for use in adults, but thus far Pfizer-BioNTech is the only vaccine available in Canada for youth.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 25, 2021.

The Canadian Press

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. An earlier version incorrectly reported that today’s case count in Ontario was the lowest since March 16.