Plus: Quebec will allow outdoor pools and parks to reopen across the province.

The latest novel coronavirusnews from Canada and around the world Saturday (this file will be updated throughout the day). Web links to longer stories if available.
7 p.m. Ontario’s regional health units are reporting 320 new COVID-19 infections, according to the Star’s latest count.
As of 5 p.m. Saturday, the health units had reported a total of 29,212 confirmed and probable cases, including 2,316 deaths. The daily counts have fallen from a spike that saw totals above 400 cases per day most of last week.
The growth of new infections has not been felt equally in the province this month. The daily numbers have been falling outside of the GTA. Meanwhile, new cases inside the region have remained relatively high.
Saturday’s tally included 123 new cases in Toronto and 114 more in Peel Region; together, the two health units accounted for nearly three-quarters of the province’s new infections.
According to a provincial database of COVID-19 cases, nearly 80 per cent of the 3,933 Ontarians with an active case of COVID-19 reside in the GTA, with nearly 85 per cent of those in Toronto or Peel Region.
In many parts of the province, only a handful of patients still have an active illness. Nineteen of Ontario’s 34 regional health units — including all six in northern Ontario — have fewer than 10 active cases.
Meanwhile, the 19 fatal cases reported in the province since Friday evening was down slightly from a recent flat trend. The rate of deaths has fallen considerably since peaking at more than 90 in a day in early May, about two weeks after the daily case totals hit a first peak in mid-April.
Because many health units publish tallies to their websites before reporting to Public Health Ontario, the Star’s count is more current than the data the province puts out each morning.
Earlier Saturday, the province reported 801 patients are now hospitalized with COVID-19, including 121 in intensive care, of whom 84 are on a ventilator — numbers that have fallen sharply this month. The province also says more than 21,000 patients who have tested positive for the coronavirus have now recovered from the disease — about three-quarters of the total infected.
The province says its data is accurate to 4 p.m. the previous day. The province also cautions its latest count of total deaths — 2,247 — may be incomplete or out of date due to delays in the reporting system, saying that in the event of a discrepancy, “data reported by (the health units) should be considered the most up to date.”
The Star’s count includes some patients reported as “probable” COVID-19 cases, meaning they have symptoms and contacts or travel history that indicate they very likely have the disease, but have not yet received a positive lab test.
5:20 p.m.: Italy’s health minister confirmed the country can go ahead with a plan to start allowing travel across the nation next week, even as some local governors oppose letting people from the hard-hit Lombardy region move freely.
Data on the spread of the virus is improving and allows for the reopening among regions, Health Minister Roberto Speranza told newswire Ansa. The announcement came after a late-night meeting with Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and various coalition party representatives and ministers.
The government and regional governors have been at loggerheads over the fate of citizens from Lombardy, Italy’s richest and most populous region, located around Milan, and the epicentre of one of Europe’s worst virus outbreaks. Some regional authorities, including the governor of the Naples region, Campania, have threatened to close their borders to people coming from Lombardy once free travel within Italy restarts.
Though new virus cases continue to decline, Lombardy still has the highest ratio of new cases per 100,000 people, according to data published by the Health Ministry on the May 18-24 period, after lockdown measures were eased further. A total of 33,229 fatalities have been reported in Italy since the start of the pandemic in February, most of them in northern Italy and 16,012 of them in Lombardy.
5:15 p.m.: The massive protests sweeping across U.S. cities following the police killing of a Black man in Minnesota have sent shudders through the health community and elevated fears that the huge crowds will lead to a new surge in cases of the coronavirus.
Some leaders appealing for calm in places where crowds smashed storefronts and destroyed police cars in recent nights have been handing out masks and warning demonstrators they were putting themselves at risk.
Minnesota’s governor said Saturday that too many protesters weren’t socially distancing or wearing masks after heeding the call earlier in the week.
But many seemed undeterred.
“It’s not OK that in the middle of a pandemic we have to be out here risking our lives,” Spence Ingram said Friday after marching with other protesters to the Georgia state capitol in Atlanta. “But I have to protest for my life and fight for my life all the time.”
The demonstrations over the killing of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white Minneapolis officer pressed a knee into his neck, are coming at a time when many cities were beginning to relax stay-at-home orders.
That’s especially worrisome for health experts who fear that silent carriers of the virus who have no symptoms could unwittingly infect others at gatherings with people packed cheek to jowl and cheering and jeering without masks.
Read the full story here.
5 p.m.: British Columbia announced no new deaths from COVID-19 for the second day in a row on Saturday, as it recorded 11 new cases of the virus.
It’s the third time this week that there have been zero deaths from COVID-19 in B.C.
The announcement comes as B.C. children gear up for a voluntary return to school starting on Monday.
Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says the government thought carefully about the time to open up schools across B.C., and the drop in cases supports their decision. Henry also pushed back over concerns about a rise in COVID-19 cases among children as schools reopen, saying the province knows how to manage those cases. Henry also announced an order restricting overnight camps for children and youth across the province during the summer.
4:15: There are 90,177 confirmed and presumptive cases of COVID-19 in Canada, according to The Canadian Press, including 7,073 deaths and 48,089 resolved cases. Following is a breakdown by province and territory. (Note: The Star compiles its own, more up-to-date totals for Ontario. See entry at 11:30 a.m., below.)

• Quebec: 50,651 confirmed (including 4,439 deaths, 16,070 resolved)

• Ontario: 27,533 confirmed (including 2,247 deaths, 21,353 resolved)

• Alberta: 6,979 confirmed (including 143 deaths, 6,218 resolved)

• British Columbia: 2,573 confirmed (including 164 deaths, 2,181 resolved)

• Nova Scotia: 1,056 confirmed (including 60 deaths, 978 resolved)

• Saskatchewan: 645 confirmed (including 10 deaths, 580 resolved)

• Manitoba: 283 confirmed (including 7 deaths, 278 resolved), 11 presumptive

• Newfoundland and Labrador: 261 confirmed (including 3 deaths, 255 resolved)

• New Brunswick: 129 confirmed (including 120 resolved)

• Prince Edward Island: 27 confirmed (including 27 resolved)

• Repatriated Canadians: 13 confirmed (including 13 resolved)

• Yukon: 11 confirmed (including 11 resolved)

• Northwest Territories: 5 confirmed (including 5 resolved)

• Nunavut: No confirmed cases

4 p.m.: People from a city in northern New Brunswick lined up outside testing centres Saturday, anxiously waiting to find out if they’ve been exposed to COVID-19. Health officials have been focusing on Campbellton since earlier in the week when it was learned that a health-care professional who contracted the novel coronavirus outside the province didn’t self-isolate after returning to New Brunswick.
Public Health officials confirmed another new case in Zone 5, the Campbellton region, Saturday — bringing to nine the number of active cases in the area in just over a week. The new case, which is under investigation, is an individual in their 70s.
To date, there have been 129 confirmed cases in New Brunswick and 120 people have recovered from their illness.
3:45 p.m.: The Quebec government says parks and pools will be permitted to reopen across the province as health authorities on Saturday reported the lowest number of confirmed new cases of COVID-19 since late March.
The total number of deaths in the province linked to COVID-19 stood at 4,439 after 76 were reported over the past day, but the 419 new cases in the past 24 hours was the lowest since March 28.
The total number of confirmed cases in the province was 50,651.
On Saturday, Quebec Health Minister Danielle McCann and Municipal Affairs Minister Andrée Laforest announced in a statement that the province was giving the green light to the reopening of outdoor pools, wading pools and outdoor park structures — including splash pads — for the summer.
Physical distancing and other health and hygiene measures will be in effect. The province says those responsible for maintaining parks should clean frequently touched surfaces regularly and there should be a spot for people to wash their hands.
Aside from a reduction in the number of new cases, the province also said hospitalizations declined by 68 to 1,197 patients. The number of patients in intensive care dropped to 167, and 16,070 people across the province have recovered.
Nearly half of the confirmed cases are in Montreal, where officials extended a state of emergency in place since March 27, giving city officials flexibility in dealing with the pandemic. Montreal is the epicentre of COVID-19 in Canada, reporting 2,740 deaths as of Saturday.
3:45 p.m.: Ontario is extending its COVID-19 residential electricity rate relief for another five months, but the fixed price will be going up by nearly three cents per kilowatt hour.
Premier Doug Ford’s office said Saturday that hydro rates will now be a flat 12.8 cents per kilowatt hour, regardless of the time of day. That’s higher than the 10.1 cents per hour being that’s been charged since electricity relief was introduced on March 24, but still well below peak rates that can reach as high as 20.8 cents.
The province says the changes will be effective June 1 and last until Oct. 31, while industrial and commercial businesses will also see an extension of the COVID-19 relief through the end of June.
When the COVID-19 hydro rate relief was first announced, it was expected to affect about five million residential ratepayers, farms and small businesses subject to time-of-use pricing.
2:30 p.m.: The scene at Trinity Bellwoods Park was much calmer on Saturday than a week earlier when thousands of people defied physical distancing rules during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Most people at the west-end park stayed within circles that were painted on the grass this week to encourage people to keep their distance from others while enjoying the park on a sunny day.
Police and city officials had condemned last Saturday’s mass gathering, which saw thousands of people congregating in the middle of the park in what police described as a party atmosphere with public intoxication.
Read the full story here.
12:04 p.m. The United Nations has confirmed that the election for non-permanent seats on the Security Council — which pits Canada against Norway and Ireland — will take place in June under unprecedented new rules to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
The 193 ambassadors will cast their votes on behalf of their countries in a secret ballot with the three candidates vying for two available temporary seats on the UN’s most powerful body.
But the vote won’t take place during a full meeting of the General Assembly because New York has become the epicentre of the COVID-19 outbreak and that has forced UN diplomats to work from home and rely on video conferencing.
Instead, the ambassadors will be notified in advance to come to a designated venue at UN headquarters — a staggered, solitary procession that will see the world’s leading diplomats presenting their UN security passes and then being given paper ballots.
The ambassadors will be assigned different time slots to come to the UN to cast their ballots to avoid a mass gathering during the pandemic.
The details were released in a memo that has been under consideration by the UN ambassadors for more than a week, and that carried a Friday night deadline to reach a consensus.
Read the full story here.
11:30 a.m.: Ontario’s COVID-19 testing labs have completed more than 20,000 tests in a day for the first time, the province says.
According to the province’s morning update, the labs completed 20,640 tests Friday, up more than 2,000 from the previous day and a sharp increase of more than 12,000 from Sunday, which was among a string of days in which the labs were falling well below the daily target of 16,000.
As of 11 a.m. Saturday, Ontario’s regional health units reported a total of 28,913 confirmed and probable cases, including 2,298 deaths.
The total of 369 new confirmed and probable cases reported since the same time Friday morning was down from the previous day. The numbers have fallen from a spike that saw the health unit totals rise above 400 per day for most of last week.
The growth in new infections across Ontario has not been felt equally in the province this month. The daily count of new cases has been falling outside the Greater Toronto Area over the last two weeks. Meanwhile, numbers inside the city have rebounded after falling from the peak rates seen last month.
The Saturday morning tally includes the 175 new cases in Toronto and 92 more in Peel Region reported Friday afternoon; together, the two health units accounted for more than two-thirds of the province’s new infections.
The 26 fatal cases reported in the province since Friday were in line with a recent flat trend. Still, the rate of deaths is down considerably since peaking at more than 90 in a day earlier this month, about two weeks after the daily case totals hit a first peak in mid-April.
Because many health units publish tallies to their websites before reporting to Public Health Ontario, the Star’s count is more current than the data the province puts out each morning.
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Earlier Saturday, the province reported 801 patients are now hospitalized with COVID-19, including 121 in intensive care, of whom 84 are on a ventilator — numbers that have fallen sharply this month. The province also says more than 21,000 patients who have tested positive for the coronavirus have now recovered from the disease — about three-quarters of the total infected.
The province says its data is accurate to 4 p.m. the previous day. The province also cautions its latest count of total deaths — 2,247 — may be incomplete or out of date due to delays in the reporting system, saying that in the event of a discrepancy, “data reported by (the health units) should be considered the most up to date.”
The Star’s count includes some patients reported as “probable” COVID-19 cases, meaning they have symptoms and contacts or travel history that indicate they very likely have the disease, but have not yet received a positive lab test.
11 a.m.: Ontario will begin allowing campers to return to provincial parks on Monday.
The province says backcountry camping will resume under physical distancing measures that limit the number of people who gather.
No more than five people will be allowed to occupy the same campsite, unless they live in the same household.
The reopening measures include access to paddle and portage routes, as well as hiking trails.
Ontario Parks will also expand permission for picnics and off-leash pet areas.
Overnight camping sites will remain closed, however, until at least June 14.
“We are all eager to get outside this time of year, and backcountry camping will give people a low-risk way to enjoy the benefits of being outdoors while following physical distancing rules,” Environment Minister Jeff Yurek said in a statement.
The expanded reopenings come as the province announces plans to allow drive-in movie theatres and batting cages to reopen on Sunday.
10 a.m.: Police across Canada say they’ve been dealing with more complaints about loud, fast vehicles and have issued more tickets for excessive speeding on city streets and provincial highways since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
“Some Edmonton drivers seem to feel that lower traffic volumes are an excuse to speed,” Sgt. Kerry Bates, of the Edmonton police traffic section, said earlier this spring. In particular, he said, there’s been more extreme speeding.
Bates said officers issued more than a dozen tickets to drivers exceeding a posted speed limit by 40 kilometres per hour or more in a two-week period.
Two of those drivers were going 100 km/h and 110 km/h as they passed a police vehicle with its emergency lights activated — a situation where drivers are required to slow down to 60 km/h. A third driver was speeding through a 50-km/h construction zone at 119 km/h.
In southern Alberta, Cochrane RCMP stopped two drivers going 199 km/h in a 110-km/h zone. Both drivers, two men in their 20s, were charged with speeding.
Officers in Saskatchewan have charged drivers and seized their vehicles for excessive speeding.
Manitoba RCMP have reported lower traffic volumes, but higher speeds.
Several police departments have begun cracking down on traffic violations in the last month.
Alberta Mounties, who often do long-weekend enforcement, focused on speeding, distracted driving and impairment in May. They said officers issued 1,700 speeding tickets and 50 distracted driving tickets across the province in one week.
In Ontario, York Regional Police charged 30 drivers and impounded their vehicles on the May long weekend after they were caught driving more than 50 km/h over the speed limit.
Peel Regional Police have begun an education and enforcement program after seeing an increase in street racing.
7:29 a.m.: India on Saturday registered another record single-day jump of 7,964 coronavirus cases and 265 deaths, a day before the two-month-old lockdown is set to end.
The Health Ministry put the total number of confirmed cases at 173,763 with 4,971 deaths. The infections include 82,369 people who have recovered.
More than 70 per cent of the cases are concentrated in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, New Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan states.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in an open letter marking the first year of his government’s second term, said India was on the path to victory in its battle against the virus. He said India will set “an example in economic revival” and asked the nation to show a “firm resolve.”
6:33 a.m.: President Donald Trump’s announcement that he was cutting U.S. funding for the World Health Organization prompted criticism Saturday, as spiking infection rates in India and elsewhere served as a reminder the global pandemic is far from contained.
Trump on Friday charged that the WHO didn’t respond adequately to the pandemic, accusing the United Nations agency of being under China’s “total control.”
The WHO wouldn’t comment on the announcement but South African Health Minister Zweli Mkhize called it an “unfortunate” turn of events.
“Certainly, when faced with a serious pandemic, you want all nations in the world to be particularly focused … on one common enemy,” he told reporters.
The U.S. is the largest source of financial support for the WHO, and its exit is expected to significantly weaken the organization. Trump said the U.S. would be “redirecting” the money to “other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs,” without providing specifics.
6:15 a.m.: Zohra Shahbuddin says she was thrilled when she received a letter of admission in April from the university of her choice in Canada.
She’s been admitted to Simon Fraser University in Vancouver for a master of publishing degree but is having sleepless nights worrying because of COVID-19.
Like other international students, Shahbuddin faces uncertainty as universities switch to online classes. She also has financial concerns, worries about a work permit and has fears about her health.
She is weighing whether to enrol this fall or put off coming to Canada from Pakistan until next year.
International students contribute $21.6 billion to Canada’s gross domestic product and supported nearly 170,000 jobs in 2018, said Nancy Caron, a spokeswoman for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.
Caron said in a statement the government is accommodating students who complete their studies outside Canada between September and Dec. 31 by not deducting that time from the length of their post-graduation work permit.
International students will also be allowed to work more than the maximum of 20 hours per week while classes are in session, provided they are working in an essential service, such as “health care, critical infrastructure, or the supply of food or other critical goods,” she said.
Shahbuddin said she’ll make her decision by June. If she gets her visa processed, she said she is OK with online classes as long as it does not affect her work permit.
6 a.m.: The mayor of a small town in eastern Quebec, just across the river from New Brunswick, says residents are breathing a small sigh of relief.
Pascal Bujold says people in Pointe-à-la-Croix have expressed fears that an outbreak of COVID-19 in nearby Campbellton, N.B., could spread to their community.
Bujold said he pushed to open a COVID-19 testing unit in his community, over concerns that residents may have been in contact with a New Brunswick health-care professional who tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
New Brunswick officials said this week that the health-care worker travelled to Quebec and returned to work without self-isolating, coming into contact with more than 100 people.
Eight cases have now been linked to the growing cluster that as of Friday has led to the adjournment of the provincial legislature and the rollback of reopening measures in the Campbellton area.
On Friday, the local health authority announced it would open a COVID-19 testing unit in the parking lot of the local clinic in Pointe-à-la-Croix, which is home to about 1,500 residents.
Friday, 9:51 p.m. Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Friday announced the deaths of the first two United Nations peacekeepers from COVID-19.
He made the announcement at a ceremony marking the International Day of UN Peacekeepers, saying both peacekeepers, who died Thursday and Friday, were serving in Mali. The UN said one was from Cambodia and the other from El Salvador.
Guterres said the coronavirus pandemic has changed almost everything, but not “the service, sacrifice and selflessness” of the more than 95,000 men and women serving in the 13 UN peacekeeping missions around the world.
According to the UN peacekeeping department, there have been 137 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in peacekeeping operations, with the greatest number by far — 90 cases — in Mali.
There were 21 cases in the UN mission in Congo, 17 in the Central African Republic, three each in South Sudan and Cyprus, and one each in Lebanon, the UN-African Union mission in Sudan’s Darfur region, and the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization in the Middle East.
5 p.m. Ontario’s regional health units are reporting 380 new COVID-19 infections, according to the Star’s latest count.
Ontario’s regional health units are reporting a total of 28,891 confirmed and probable cases, including 2,297 deaths.
The total of 380 new confirmed and probable cases reported since the same time Thursday evening was downslightly from the previous day, but still below a string of days last week that saw more than 400 new cases reported.
The recent case growth has not been felt equally in the province. The daily count of new cases has been falling outside of the GTA over the last two weeks. Meanwhile, numbers inside the region have rebounded after falling some from the peak rates seen last month.
Read more of Friday’s coverage.