Coronavirus (COVID-19) National News

Provinces are putting new measures in place to deal with an Omicron-fueled rise in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.

The Canadian Safety Council will receive around $220,000 in funds for a COVID-19 vaccination-awareness program aimed at students from Grade 1 through Grade 8.

Speaking at a virtual news conference Thursday, Alghabra said decisions around hotel quarantines for air passengers and the eventual reopening of the border will hinge on expert advice and unspecified criteria tied to the pandemic.

Health authorities were still trying to decide whether to resume its use and if using a different vaccine for second shots makes sense. At the same time, Ottawa has been distributing hundreds of thousands of AstraZeneca doses to the provinces.

Canada is set to get one dose to more than half the population before the end of the long weekend, but remains far back of the pack in the full-vaccination race, with fewer than four per cent of Canadians fully immunized.

The large influx comes as the Liberal government faces questions about who will now lead the vaccination campaign after Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin was sidelined suddenly on Friday and reassigned from his role presiding over the national inoculation effort.

More than two million Canadians have received AstraZeneca and 17 have been confirmed to have VITT. Three women have died.

Sarah Otto, a University of British Columbia professor, said the disease's reproductive rate is hard to pinpoint, which makes it difficult to establish a herd immunity target.

Edmonton New Democrat MP Heather McPherson blasted Premier Jason Kenney and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for their handling of Alberta's COVID-19 spread.

Among them, 1,566 tested positive for a variant of concern and another 134 tested positive for a variant of interest. More than 95 per cent of the variants of concern are B.1.1.7, first identified in the United Kingdom.