Updates on Covid-19 in Canada and around the world.

Many Manitoba youngsters will complete their school year at home. The battleground for COVID-19 in Canada is still lopsided, with positive advances in certain regions and ongoing obstacles in others. COVID-19 claimed the lives of two more people in British Columbia on Thursday, although the number of new cases stayed below 200 for the third day in a row.

In Canada, the fight for COVID-19 is still unbalanced, with encouraging achievements in some areas and persistent barriers in others. On Thursday, COVID-19 claimed the lives of two more people in British Columbia, bringing the total number of new cases to under 200 for the third day in a row. On Thursday, Alberta reported 296 new COVID-19 cases and five more deaths, while Manitoba reported 360 new COVID-19 cases and five more deaths.

870 new cases and 10 new deaths were reported in neighboring Ontario. According to the province, 729 persons were hospitalized with COVID-19, with 546 of them in intensive care. The news came just a day after Premier Doug Ford announced that pupils would not be returning to in-class study this year.

Canada had recorded 1,387,445 confirmed COVID-19 cases as of 6 p.m. ET, with 27,790 still active. According to the News channel, a total of 25,644 people died. On Thursday, health officials in Quebec announced 267 new COVID-19 cases and six new deaths. On Thursday, there were no new instances recorded in Nunavut, Yukon, or the Northwest Territories.

Newfoundland and Labrador reported six new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, while Nova Scotia reported 25 new cases and one extra fatality. In More Brunswick, sixteen new cases were reported, as well as one extra fatality. On Prince Edward Island, two new instances have been reported. On Thursday, Saskatchewan reported 131 new COVID-19 cases and two new deaths. According to the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 case-tracking tool, more than 171.8 million cases have been recorded around the world as of Thursday afternoon. According to the database, the global death toll was around 3.6 million people.

The Pan American Health Organization has stated that a lack of effective political leadership in the Americas has impeded efforts to stop the pandemic in Latin America, where infections are alarmingly on the rise again. Pot-smoking protests erupted in numerous Brazilian cities as President Jair Bolsonaro addressed the nation, only days after citizens flocked to the streets in protest of his handling of the pandemic.

Chile's health ministry announced on Thursday that the minimum age for men to receive the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine will be raised to 45 from 18, and that second doses will be suspended until authorities complete an investigation into a case involving a man who developed a blood clot after receiving his first shot.

Vaccine shipments have come to a "near halt" in Africa, according to the WHO, and COVID-19 cases have increased by 20% in the last two weeks. Last week, new cases in South Africa increased by more than 60%, as the country with the biggest COVID-19 burden in Africa continued to encounter difficulties in rolling out the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

More than one million J&J doses have been put on hold at a South African pharmaceuticals plant due to contamination fears at a US manufacturer. The head of Africa's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said he expects the US Food and Drug Administration to make an announcement on the contamination issues soon. Bahrain has begun offering some people a booster shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccination six months after they received two shots of China's Sinopharm vaccine. Despite being one of the top countries in the world in terms of per-capita inoculations, the Mideast island nation is seeing its worst wave of the virus.

Residents of Bahrain can register for booster shots of either the Pfizer or Sinopharm vaccines through the government's BeAware app. The government now recommends that persons over 50, those who are obese, and those who have compromised immune systems get the Pfizer shot regardless of whether they had Sinopharm first. In Europe, governments have decided to include Japan in a narrow list of nations from which they would allow non-essential travel, while British tourists would have to wait until at least mid-June.

For the first time since the pandemic, a cruise ship sailed down the Giudecca canal in Venice. Britain also withdrew Portugal from its list of coronavirus-free travel locations on Thursday, requiring thousands of UK people now on vacation there to quarantine when they return.

The "tough decision" was spurred by increased case rates in Portugal and concerns about new strains of the virus that could become resistant to vaccines, according to Transport Secretary Grant Shapps. The new policy will take effect on Tuesday. On Tuesday, the new policy will go into force.

Portugal is a favorite sun-seeking destination for Britons, and it was the only significant tourism destination on the UK government's "green list," which was announced last month, of nations that may be visited without requiring self-isolation upon return. Despite considerable concern about the likelihood of thousands of athletes and officials coming during the fourth wave of COVID-19 infections in the Asia-Pacific area, the head of Japan's Olympic organizing committee ruled out another delay of the Games on Thursday.

A scaled-down edition of the Games, with no foreign spectators, is due to begin on July 23. The Games were already postponed from last year at a cost of an additional $3.5 billion US. However, with a sluggish vaccine rollout, a state of emergency in Tokyo and nine other regions, and an increase in severe coronavirus cases, the majority of Japanese are opposed to holding the Olympics."We cannot postpone again," said Seiko Hashimoto, president of the organizing committee, to the Nikkan Sports newspaper.