| | Good evening, here is the latest on the coronavirus outbreak for Monday, Jun. 28, 2021.
Go to cbc.ca/news for complete coverage. |
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|  | Alberta pastor, brother, café owner guilty of contempt for breaking COVID-19 public health rules. |
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| | Yukon recommends parents keep children home from daycare amid 'first true wave' of COVID-19. |
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| | As Stanley Cup final begins, Montreal once again affected by COVID-19 protocols. |
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 | Vaccine recipients cheer for giveaways as the number of doses administered, 25,000, is shown on the big screen at the mass vaccination clinic at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto on Sunday. Toronto broke the North American record for delivering the most COVID-19 vaccinations at a single site in a single day. (Cole Burston/The Canadian Press) | | | | On July 1, some Albertans will be eagerly setting out plates for dinner parties, heading to the nightclub or resuming plans for large, indoor weddings.
But Robbie Babins-Wagner said as the province prepares to lift nearly all public health restrictions, clients at the Calgary Counselling Centre are much more apprehensive.
Leger surveys published in May and June found 52 per cent of Canadians are anxious about returning to how things were before the pandemic. Forty-four per cent of Albertans reported feeling afraid of contracting COVID-19 — and eight per cent of Albertans fear the worst of the pandemic is yet to come.
"Some people are absolutely thrilled that all the restrictions are going to be lifted. But most people that I talk to and that we talk to at the centre actually have a lot of concerns," Babins-Wagner said.
She said some clients have voiced concerns about the more contagious Delta variant and whether an adequate proportion of the population has been vaccinated in order to ensure herd immunity. Others are worried about a return to work.
"I would not recommend that people move faster than they're prepared to do, because that stress, uncertainty, anxiety is only going to get worse."
Sheri Madigan, an associate psychology professor at the University of Calgary, said kids will likely face stressors with reopening, too. "I think coming up with your family plan and explaining that every family may have a little bit of a different plan could be helpful for kids, because it will give some predictability about what your family choices are … and that's gonna ease some of their anxiety," she said.
"Giving them the knowledge of how they can keep themselves safe is actually great for kids. So, sometimes we avoid conversations because we think, oh, I don't want to make them more anxious, but that actually can sometimes increase their anxiety, because they don't have the knowledge."
Read more here about different approaches to reopening. | | | |  | A small number of cases of heart inflammation — specifically, myocarditis and pericarditis — have occurred in teens and young adults following mRNA COVID-19 vaccination. But experts say the benefits of a vaccine far outweigh the risk. Watch the full video here. |
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IN BRIEF | | | | Three Alberta men — a Calgary-based street preacher, his brother and a central Alberta café owner — have been found guilty of contempt for what a judge deemed "deliberate and willful" breaches of judicial orders requiring them to follow COVID-19 public health rules.
Pastor Artur Pawlowski of Street Church Ministries and his brother Dawid Pawlowski, along with Christopher Scott, who owns the Whistlestop Café in Mirror, Alta., "openly flaunted the efforts of Alberta Health Services" to keep citizens safe at a time when the province had the highest COVID case counts in North America, Court of Queen's Bench Justice Adam Germain said in delivering his decision in Calgary on Monday morning. The three will face a sentencing hearing next month.
In early May, the Alberta government introduced new measures to try to crack down on repeated COVID-19 public health order scofflaws as COVID-19 cases continued to rise in the province. Two judges issued orders aimed at getting persistent rule-breakers under control.
Throughout the pandemic, the Pawlowski brothers hosted and promoted large, maskless gatherings for church services in Calgary and also denied health officials entry to the church, which is located in the southeast neighbourhood of Dover.
Alberta Health Services has said previously that attempts by health inspectors to enter the church have been met with abusive language and racial slurs.
In the spring, health inspectors padlocked the Whistlestop Café, which Scott had been operating for months in open defiance of AHS orders to comply with COVID-19 restrictions. On May 8, 2021, despite having been served with a judge's order to obey restrictions on public gatherings, Scott decided "he would participate and incite the crowd," Germain said in his decision, in going ahead with a planned large campout and anti-restriction rally. | Read more about the verdicts here. |
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| | | | Parents are being told to keep children home from daycare for two weeks, and an outbreak has been declared at the Whitehorse Emergency Shelter as Yukon continues to experience its "first true wave" of COVID-19.
Dr. Brendan Hanley, Yukon's chief medical officer of health, reported 44 new cases — the majority in Whitehorse — over the weekend, in a news release Sunday evening,
"COVID-19 is being widely transmitted throughout Yukon, primarily affecting unvaccinated people and is now present in most Yukon communities," Hanley said.
He characterized the situation as Yukon's "first true wave" of COVID-19.
As of Sunday evening, there were 124 active cases of COVID-19 in the territory, with 44 of them reported since Friday afternoon.
Yukon has had a total of 308 cases since the start of the pandemic. Nearly two-thirds of those cases have been reported in the past month, with a Whitehorse-based outbreak associated with high school graduation events, and spread reaching nearly all of Yukon's 14 communities.
Hanley's recommendation for parents to keep children home from child care programs — not including day camps — comes after several daycares have become COVID-19 exposure locations. | | Read more about the COVID wave in Yukon here. |
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| | | | Montreal Canadiens forward Joel Armia is a game-time decision on whether he'll take part in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup final tonight.
Assistant coach Luke Richardson said Armia, bumped from the lineup over the weekend due to COVID-19 protocols, was flying to Tampa separate from his teammates, via private jet.
Richardson wouldn't elaborate on why Armia could be back in the lineup so quickly, although The Canadian Press reported the rapid timelines would suggest a false positive COVID-19 test result.
It's not the first time the Habs have been affected by COVID protocols. Montreal head coach Dominique Ducharme, who has been isolating since Game 2 of the semifinals due to a positive COVID-19 test, is scheduled to return to the Habs bench for Game 3.
The team was also forced to postpone games in late March due to the league's rules around the virus. | Read more about the Habs and COVID-19 here. | |  | Stay informed with the latest COVID-19 data. | |
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AND FINALLY... | | | | |  | Drag queen Darling Delight said they enjoyed having extra time at home during the pandemic to develop their character, though the consensus among a group of New Brunswick drag performers was that the pandemic has taken a mental toll. (Jocelyn Elsdon/CBC) | | New Brunswick drag performers say they are thrilled to be on stage again after what's been a mentally challenging time during the pandemic.
On a recent weekend at the Capitol Theatre in Moncton, several drag queens and a drag king put on a production they wrote called Jennifer Russell and COVID-19: A Press Conference Drag Show.
It was a colourful spoof of one of the many COVID-19 briefings that have been given by provincial Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Jennifer Russell and Premier Blaine Higgs in the past year and a half.
When in-person shows were cancelled because of COVID-19, Alex Saunders — who performs as "Drag King Extraordinaire" Justin Toodeep — did some online shows but found them "very mentally taxing."
Other performers echoed that experience, saying mental health issues such as depression were worse after live drag shows were cancelled.
"As a performer, you get used to refilling your soul with that good juju," said Saunders. | Read more about the return of drag performers here. |
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| | Find out more about COVID-19 | | For full coverage of how your province or territory is responding to COVID-19, visit your local CBC News site.
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See the answers to frequently asked questions from CBC viewers and readers.
Still looking for more information on the pandemic? Reach out to us at covid@cbc.ca if you have any questions. | |  | | (With files from CBC News, The Associated Press) |
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