The latest news on COVID-19 developments in Canada (all times Eastern):
6:25 p.m.
Alberta is reporting 1,293 new COVID-19 cases and five new deaths today.
Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Deena Hinshaw says in a series of tweets that there are an additional 876 cases linked to virus variants of concern, and that 47.7 per cent of active cases are now confirmed to be variants.
Hinshaw says 349 people are now in hospital with COVID-19, including 84 in intensive care.
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5:45 p.m.
B.C. residents aged 60 and older can now register to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
The province says nearly one million people have received their first dose of vaccine so far.
People born in 1961 and earlier, Indigenous peoples 18 and older, and those who are "clinically extremely vulnerable" can now register to book their vaccine appointment either online, through a call centre or at a Service BC Location.
B.C.'s age-based program runs parallel to its pharmacy-based vaccine drive for residents between the ages of 55 and 65.
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4:05 p.m.
Saskatchewan is reporting 236 new COVID-19 cases today, but no additional deaths.
The province's daily pandemic update notes that 3,212 cases have been identified as variants of concern as of Friday, up from 3,086 a day earlier.
It says 485 new lineage results are available today, and they show that of the 1,435 variants of concern with lineages that have been identified through whole genome sequencing, 1,426 are the variant first identified in the United Kingdom.
The remaining nine are the variant first identified in South Africa.
The update says an additional 12,615 vaccine doses have been administered.
Since Friday.
Everyone in Saskatchewan 55 and older is eligible to schedule their shots.
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3:45 p.m.
Newfoundland and Labrador is reporting four new cases of COVID-19 today.
Officials say the infections have been identified in the western health region.
Two of the cases involve a male and a female under 20 years old, while the other two involve women between 20 and 39 years of age.
All are close contacts of a previously known case.
The province has a total of 10 active cases, with no one in hospital due to the virus.
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3:40 p.m.
Alberta's premier and education minister say a pilot program that has been using rapid screening tests in some Calgary schools is being expanded to about 300 other schools in the province.
Premier Jason Kenney says approximately 400,000 of the rapid tests will be rolled out for use in junior and senior high schools in Edmonton, Calgary, Grande Prairie and Lethbridge.
He says that will mean rapid testing will be available for approximately 200,000 students and 20,000 staff.
Kenney has also announced that thousands of health-care workers will become eligible to receive COVID-19 vaccines starting Monday.
They include community physicians, nurses, pharmacists, dentists, and other professionals like chiropractors, physiotherapists and optometrists.
He also says to support those professions and keep their workplaces safe, their reception, cleaning and secretarial staff are also included in the expanded vaccine effort.
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3:30 p.m.
Health officials in New Brunswick say the Edmundston-Grand Falls region will go under full lockdown as of midnight because of an ongoing outbreak of COVID-19.
The province is reporting 19 new cases of the virus and one death -- a person in their 70s in the Edmundston area.
Chief medical officer of health Dr. Jennifer Russell says 15 of the new cases are in the Edmundston region, with two in the Fredericton area, one case in the Moncton region and one in the Saint John area.
The province currently has 149 active cases and Russell says it must now be assumed that all new infections in New Brunswick are caused by one of the variants that are driving case counts in many areas of the country.
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2 p.m.
Manitoba is reporting 135 new cases of COVID-19 today, along with one new death.
Public health says the death involved a woman in her 80s in the Winnipeg health region.
The new cases bring the province's overall total to 35,104, with 1,259 active diagnoses.
The province says 141 people remain in hospital recovering from the novel coronavirus.
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12:20 p.m.
Nova Scotia is reporting eight new cases of COVID-19 today.
Six of the cases are in the Halifax area with three related to travel outside Atlantic Canada and the other three identified as close contacts of previously reported cases.
The remaining two infections have been identified in the western health zone with one related to travel outside of the Atlantic region and the other under investigation.
The province currently has 43 active COVID-19 diagnoses, with no one in hospital due to the virus.
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11:10 a.m.
Quebec is reporting 1,754 new COVID-19 cases and 13 deaths attributed to the novel coronavirus, including two in the past 24 hours.
Health authorities say there are 14 more patients in hospital for a total of 583, with the number in intensive care rising by four to 138.
The province administered more than 73,023 doses of COVID-19 vaccine, for a total of more than 1.8 million since the campaign began.
While Quebec City reported more than 400 infections for a third consecutive day, it was surpassed by Montreal, which reported a province high 428 new cases.
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10:45 a.m.
Ontario is reporting 3,813 new cases of COVID-19 today as hospitalization rates across the province remain high.
There are currently 1,524 COVID-19 patients in Ontario hospitals, with 585 in intensive care and 384 on a ventilator.
Those figures come hours after the province issued a pair of emergency orders intended to address a major influx of COVID-19 patients requiring hospital care.
They include directives allowing the province to redeploy staff from home-care settings and other environments to support overtaxed hospitals, as well as a new rule allowing hospitals to transfer patients without consent if needed.
Ontario is also reporting 19 new virus-related deaths in the past 24 hours.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 10, 2021.
The Canadian Press
