que COVID-19 vaccine passport now required at big-box stores in Quebec In an attempt to convince holdouts to get vaccinated, the government has extended the vaccine passport to all all stores with surface areas of 1,500 square metres or more, with the exception of groceries and pharmacies. ont Ontario's COVID-19 case count surpasses 1,000,000, deaths top 11,000 despite 91% vaxxed The number of lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases in Ontario has passed 1,000,000 as deaths related to the disease total more than 11,000. The news comes as officials report that 3,861 people are currently in hospital with COVID-19 -- up from the 3,797 reported on Sunday -- and 615 are being treated in the ICU, an increase of 11 patients in the last 24 hours. However, not all hospitals report patient data on the weekends. According to the province, most of the cases reported today were found in Toronto (886), Peel Region (690), and York Region (384). Other areas with high case counts include Hamilton (252), Ottawa (339), and Windsor-Essex (185). As of Monday, 91.6 per cent of Ontarians over the age of 12 have one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 88.9 per cent have two doses and are considered to be fully vaccinated.

ont school 111 Ontario schools reporting staff and student absence rates above 50% New data by education ministry shows 337 schools reported staff and student absence rates above 30%. The reports came from new data published by the Ontario education ministry on Monday. A total of 337 schools had reached an absence rate of 30 per cent as of Friday and 111 schools reported absences of higher than 50 per cent for all staff and students, the data shows. The data includes all absences, not just those that might be related to COVID-19, making it tough to gauge the impact of the Omicron variant on Ontario's school system now that the province is no longer publicly reporting cases in schools. The web page includes a searchable database that families can use to see combined absence rates for schools in their area.