An arrivals board displays cancelled flights at Haneda Airport in Tokyo on Tuesday. Japan has imposed a ban on new entries by all foreigners for at least one month from today in an attempt to tackle the omicron variant of the coronavirus. (Carl Court/Getty Images)

'There may be more we need to do,' Trudeau says as omicron variant spreads

Federal government ministers and officials were expected to provide an update on coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and measures to address the omicron variant after this newsletter's publication. Follow here for the latest developments.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday that Canada is considering new measures to slow the spread of the omicron coronavirus variant — a strain that may be more infectious than previous versions of the virus.

Speaking briefly to reporters before meeting with his cabinet on Parliament Hill, Trudeau said the government was watching omicron "very, very closely."

"We know that even though Canada has very strong border measures now — we need vaccinations to come to Canada, we need pre-departure tests, we need testing on arrival — there may be more we need to do and we'll be looking at it very carefully," Trudeau said.

It wasn't immediately clear if Trudeau was suggesting that COVID-19 arrival tests would become the new norm for returning travellers. Under the current travel regime, inbound travellers need to show proof of a negative molecular COVID-19 test taken before arrival in Canada — but only a small number of travellers are randomly selected for take-home tests.

Starting Tuesday, Canada dropped the pre-departure molecular testing requirement for Canadian citizens and permanent residents who take short trips across the Canada-U.S. border, the result of a previous plan. If an eligible traveller is gone from Canada for fewer than 72 hours, a test is not required to re-enter Canada from the U.S.

It is unclear if that more permissive approach will continue now that omicron is in circulation.

Also starting on Nov. 30: eight more airports across four provinces were to resume receiving international flights, while unvaccinated passengers older than 12 on planes and trains won't be allowed to board. 

Late last week, as the omicron development was first learned globally, the Liberal government barred foreign nationals who had travelled in the previous 14 days through South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini or Mozambique from entering Canada, while adding molecular test requirements for Canadian citizens and permanent residents in countries they connect through on their way to Canada.

Dr. Peter Singer, special adviser to the director general of the World Health Organization, said in an interview with CBC News that travel bans are "no silver bullet."

"WHO asks governments to make sure that those travel bans are risk-based and time-limited," Singer said.

As reported Monday in this space, confirmed omicron cases have already been noted among recent travellers in Ontario and Quebec, with Alberta joining that list on Tuesday.

Click below to watch more from The National

Several countries have instituted travel bans from southern Africa to try to prevent the spread of the omicron coronavirus variant, but some experts say they are unnecessary and that increased testing may be more effective. Watch the full video here.

IN BRIEF

Ontario hits 10,000 COVID-19 deaths, advisory group worried about winter hospital strain

Ontario confirmed on Tuesday that it had become the second province, after Quebec, to record 10,000 COVID-19 deaths during the pandemic.

The two provinces, which account for about 61 per cent of the Canadian population, have recorded about 72 per cent of all COVID-19 deaths seen nationally, although Ontario, owing in part to its large population, ranks fifth among all provinces in terms of casualties on a per capita basis. (See the graph further down in this newsletter for a breakdown by province and region)

COVID-19 has claimed the lives of Ontarians from all age groups and walks of life, but it has hit older residents hardest, with about 5,900 people aged 80 and over dying because of the virus, according to Public Health Ontario (PHO) data.

Long-term care residents have been disproportionately affected, with nearly 40 per cent of all deaths in the province occurring in that population.

In a brief released Tuesday, the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table, a panel of experts that has provided modelling and public health advice during the pandemic, called for public health measures to mitigate any influxes of critically ill patients.  

The group says Ontario's critical care system does not have the capacity to accommodate a surge of patients like it did during the second and third waves of the pandemic, thanks to worsening staffing shortages, worker burnout and health system recovery efforts.  

"Recent modelling suggests that there may be an increased number of patients with [COVID-19 related critical illness] alongside influenza over the 2021/2022 winter months, driving an increase in potential ICU admissions." 

The group says that thanks to collaboration and co-ordination, the worst-case scenario — in which there wouldn't be enough critical care capacity to care for people who need it during the pandemic — has so far been avoided.

But it pointed to the fact that between early January and early July this year, 976 critically ill patients needed to be transferred to other facilities between or within regions. Canada ranks toward the bottom of OECD countries in terms of bed capacity.

Meanwhile, the province's seven-day average for cases, which helps level out peaks and valleys in the data, now stands at 794, the highest it has been since June 5. Virus-related intensive care admissions are now at 153 persons; the number had hovered in the 130s for much of November.

Canadian economy growing again but further reports this week will shed more light

Canada's economy grew 5.4 per cent in the third quarter on an annualized basis, beating analyst expectations for a gain of three per cent, Statistics Canada data showed on Tuesday.

Canada's gross domestic product expanded by 1.3 per cent from July to September over the previous three-month stretch, when the economy contracted for the first time since the early days of COVID-19 because of tightening restrictions in many areas as the delta variant took hold.

A jump in consumer spending was the biggest reason for the overall increase, with households spending more on semi-durable goods (up 14 per cent) as well as services (up six per cent). Semi-durable good increases included clothing — up by almost 27 per cent during the quarter — and footwear, which spiked by 30 per cent. As provinces expanded access to nonessential stores and bumped up capacity limits, there were increases in spending on transportation services such as flight tickets, recreation and cultural activities, food and beverage spending and grooming services.

TD Bank economist Sri Thanabalasingam said that overall the numbers were good, but they could have been even better were it not for ongoing supply chain issues with big-ticket items.
 
"Hampered by global supply chain disruptions, consumers spent less on durable goods, specifically automobiles, and businesses invested less in machinery and equipment," he said. "If not for supply shortages, GDP growth could have been even stronger in the third quarter."

Economy watchers are expected to pay close attention Wednesday to the latest auto sales figures — a fresh indicator of the extent to which seasonally adjusted vehicle purchases are improving or worsening, as supply chain problems work their way through the economy. On Friday, jobs numbers come out, with analysts forecasting a gain of 30,000 and 40,000 jobs to tick the unemployment rate down to near 6.6 per cent.

In the U.S., Wall Street's main indexes tumbled more than one per cent on Tuesday after Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said at a congressional hearing that it is a good time to retire the "transitory" description for inflation that both he and some officials in Joe Biden's administration have been bandying about for months.

"The recent rise in COVID-19 cases and the emergence of the omicron variant pose downside risks to employment and economic activity and increased uncertainty for inflation," he said. "Greater concerns about the virus could reduce people's willingness to work in person, which would slow progress in the labour market and intensify supply-chain disruptions." 

There has been much talk about the so-called "Great Resignation" — a catchall term to describe boomers seeking early retirement instead of staying on during a pandemic, with others taking stock of their lives during the pandemic and leaving jobs in hopes of a better career path. But Powell said the American labour force participation rate did not pick up much in the fall despite the return of students to school — theoretically freeing up parents to return to work — as well as the expiration of some pandemic-related aid for the unemployed.

Before Powell and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen testified on Capitol Hill, the U.S. Conference Board reported Tuesday that its consumer confidence index dropped to a reading of 109.5, down from 111.6 in October and the lowest reading since February when the US. was at the end of a massive virus surge. The latest survey was completed on Nov. 19 so therefore did not even include the uncertainty surrounding omicron.

Stay informed with the latest COVID-19 data.

Find out more about COVID-19

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(With files from CBC News, The Canadian Press, The Associated Press, Reuters)