alberta Alberta imposes new social gathering restrictions after setting daily record for COVID-19 cases Province brings in new measures after seeing a record 4,477 active cases on Sunday. Alberta brought in new mandatory limits of 15 people at most social gatherings in Edmonton and Calgary on Monday after the province reported 1,440 new cases of COVID-19 over the weekend, including a record of 572 on Saturday. The province also had a record 4,477 active cases on Sunday, an increase of 826 from the total seen on Thursday. A total of seven additional deaths were reported over the three-day period from Friday to Sunday. "You have heard me say many times that we need to achieve a balance between minimizing the risk of COVID-19 and minimizing the risk of harms of restrictions," Dr. Deena Hinshaw, the province's chief medical officer of health, said at a news conference on Monday. belgium Belgian doctors with coronavirus asked to keep working Doctors in the Belgian city of Liège have been asked to keep working even if they have coronavirus amid a surge in cases and hospital admissions. About a quarter of medical staff there are reportedly off sick with Covid-19. Now 10 hospitals have requested that staff who have tested positive but do not have symptoms keep working. The head of the Belgian Association of Medical Unions told the BBC they had no choice if they were to prevent the hospital system collapsing within days. Dr Philippe Devos acknowledged that there was an obvious risk of transferring the virus to patients. One in three people tested are coming back positive with the virus in the eastern Belgian city. Hospitals are transferring patients elsewhere and cancelling non-urgent surgeries, days after Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke warned the country was close to a "tsunami" of infections where authorities "no longer control what is happening". melbourne Covid: Melbourne's hard-won success after a marathon lockdown Melbourne's grinding second coronavirus lockdown began in the chill of winter. In early July, the nights were long and dark, and Australia's cultural capital was confronting the terrifying reality of another deadly wave of infections. More than 110 days later, experts say it is emerging as a world leader in disease suppression alongside places including Singapore, Vietnam, South Korea, New Zealand and Hong Kong. Raina McIntyre, a biosecurity professor at the University of New South Wales' Kirby Institute, told the BBC that Australia's response had been "light years ahead" of the US and the UK. "It is just thoroughly shocking. When we think of pandemics we don't think that well-resourced, high-income countries are going to fall apart at the seams, but that is exactly what we have seen," she said. At the end of Tuesday, Melbourne's five million residents will see an end to strict stay-home orders that put an entire city into a type of protective custody. When the restrictions are lifted, Melburnians will have endured one of the world's longest and toughest lockdowns.

ontario Ontario reports 851 new COVID-19 cases, 7-day average reaches new record high No decision on new COVID-19 restrictions in Halton, Durham coming today, premier's office says Ontario reported another 851 cases of COVID-19 on Monday, after two consecutive days of record-breaking new daily cases counts. Today's figure comes as the province's labs completed 28,652 tests for the novel coronavirus, while about 32,000 samples were added to the queue to be processed. Ontario currently has capacity for about 45,000 tests to be collected each day. Throughout the pandemic, testing levels have tended to drop off considerably on weekends. The seven-day average of new daily cases, a measure that helps limit noise in the data to provide a clearer view of longer-term trends, continued its steady upward climb and is now at an all-time high of about 878. uk It's the worst week for new virus cases since the beginning of the pandemic. Night curfews are in force in several countries as the second wave of Covid-19 sweeps across Europe.