Canada, G7 urge 'all parties' to de-escalate in growing Mideast conflict
Canada called for "all parties" to de-escalate rising tensions in the Mideast following an apparent Israeli drone attack against Iran overnight.
The overcast, drizzly skies match the sombre mood at the Tshwane University of Technology, a hot spot in South Africa's latest surge of COVID-19 cases, apparently driven by the new omicron variant that is leading countries around the world to impose new restrictions.
After several students tested positive, the university postponed some exams, and officials in the larger metropolitan area of Tshwane, which includes the capital of Pretoria, are pushing vaccinations, especially among younger adults who have been slow to get the shots.
At TUT, as the university is known, few students wanted to speak about the new variant that has cast a pall. Many were not vaccinated -- only 22% of 18- to 34-year-olds in South Africa are -- and some seemed to be rethinking that, though notably the university's vaccination centre was closed for the weekend.
Manqoba Zitha, a student who has gotten the shot, said he will be pushing fellow classmates to do the same.
"I'm trying to encourage them so that they can vaccinate, so they can stay away from coronavirus because it's there, it's killing people, and now numbers are rising," said Zitha. "Now when we are watching TV we can see that people are getting coronavirus. So they must vaccinate!"
Nearly two years into the pandemic, the world is racing to contain the latest variant, first identified in southern Africa but popping up around the globe. Countries are imposing restrictions or bans on travellers from several countries -- measures that South African President Cyril Ramaphosa called deeply disappointing Sunday -- and re-imposing measures like mask mandates that some hoped were a thing of the past.
The World Health Organization named the new version of the virus "omicron" and classified it as a highly transmissible variant of concern, though its actual risks are not yet understood. Early evidence suggests it poses an increased risk that people who have already had COVID-19 could catch it again, the WHO said. It could take weeks to know if current vaccines are less effective against it.
Still, some experts are hopeful that vaccines will be at least somewhat effective at preventing serious illness and death -- and continue to encourage people to get inoculated.
Gauteng province -- home to Pretoria and South Africa's largest city of Johannesburg -- is the centre of the new surge. So far, cases there appear to be mild, according to doctors, and hospital admissions have not spiked.
But experts warn the early round of infections has been among the young and the situation may become more serious if the new surge affects older, unvaccinated South Africans. In all, 41% of those aged 18 and over are vaccinated -- but young people have been particularly slow to step forward.
At least three South African universities -- the University of Cape Town, Johannesburg's University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Free State in Bloemfontein -- have announced that vaccinations will be mandatory for students starting next year. Some experts think further measures will be needed.
"I do think that the decision that South Africa is going to have to make is probably around mandatory vaccination," said Mosa Moshabela, professor of public health at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban.
Demand for the vaccine has been so sluggish that the government recently requested slower deliveries to allow it time to use up its current stock of 19 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson shots.
In an address to the nation on Sunday, a solemn President Ramaphosa urged people to get vaccinated quickly.
"Tonight, I would like to call on every person who has not been vaccinated to go to their nearest vaccination station without delay," he said. "If there is someone in your family or among your friends who is not vaccinated, I call on you to encourage them to get vaccinated."
A new surge was long anticipated and even a new variant, but the speed with which omicron hit came as a "shock" to South Africa's health experts.
While numbers of confirmed cases are still relatively low, they have been increasing at a high rate. The new spike started after some student parties in Pretoria. Numbers quickly jumped from a few hundred cases a day to thousands. South Africa announced 3,220 new cases Saturday, of which 82% are in Gauteng, according to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases. That's still well below the peak of the last wave, when more than 25,000 were confirmed in a day.
As many as 90% of the new cases in Gauteng province are caused by omicron, Tulio de Oliveira, director of the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform, said in a tweet, citing the results of diagnostic tests.
"We did expect that we may see a new or a different variant gaining momentum in the fourth wave ... but we did not really expect to see a variant with the kind of multiplicity of mutations. And that is capable of becoming highly transmissible and escape or evade immunity at the same time," said Moshabela, the expert from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. "This was really the shock that we had."
Although the current cases are concentrated in Pretoria and Johannesburg, tests show that omicron is already in all of South Africa's nine provinces.
Back at TUT, Nhlanhla Africa Maphosa, a 25-year-old management student, is still trying to digest the news and what it will mean for his studies.
"It was just last week when they checked stats then they realize that so many students were affected by COVID-19 at the main campus," Maphosa said. "We're not that sure of the stats. ... But what we can say is that a high level or a high percentage of students has got COVID-19."
Canada called for "all parties" to de-escalate rising tensions in the Mideast following an apparent Israeli drone attack against Iran overnight.
Hospital chaplain J.S. Park opens up about death, grief and hearing thousands of last words, and shares his advice for the living.
A woman who recently moved to Canada from India was searching for a job when she got caught in an online job scam and lost $15,000.
More money will land in the pockets of some Canadian families on Friday for the latest Canada Child Benefit installment.
The World Health Organization and around 500 experts have agreed for the first time on what it means for a disease to spread through the air, in a bid to avoid the confusion early in the COVID-19 pandemic that some scientists have said cost lives.
On Friday, the pop star released her 11th album and at 2 a.m. Eastern, she released "The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology," featuring 15 additional songs.
The United States told the Group of Seven foreign ministers on Friday that it received 'last minute' information from Israel about a drone action in Iran, but didn't participate in the apparent attack, officials said.
American millionaire Jonathan Lehrer, one of two men charged in the killings of a Canadian couple in Dominica, has been denied bail.
Group of Seven foreign ministers warned of new sanctions against Iran on Friday for its drone and missile attack on Israel, and urged both sides to avoid an escalation of the conflict.
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a grade four student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.
When Les Robertson was walking home from the gym in North Vancouver's Lower Lonsdale neighbourhood three weeks ago, he did a double take. Standing near a burrow it had dug in a vacant lot near East 1st Street and St. Georges Avenue was a yellow-bellied marmot.
A moulting seal who was relocated after drawing daily crowds of onlookers in Greater Victoria has made a surprise return, after what officials described as an 'astonishing' six-day journey.
Just steps from Parliament Hill is a barber shop that for the last 100 years has catered to everyone from prime ministers to tourists.
A high score on a Foo Fighters pinball machine has Edmonton player Dave Formenti on a high.
A compound used to treat sour gas that's been linked to fertility issues in cattle has been found throughout groundwater in the Prairies, according to a new study.