Read The Star’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic here. This story is no longer updating.

9:13 p.m.: Days after U.S. President Donald Trump said he hoped the country would be “opened up and raring to go” by Easter, he instead announced on Sunday evening an extension of federal guidance on social distancing until the end of April, in a continued effort to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Calling his previous statements targeting Easter “just an aspiration,” Trump said he now expects the death rate to peak in two weeks. “Nothing would be worse than declaring victory before the victory is won,” Trump said at an evening news conference in the Rose Garden.

Trump said that by June 1, he expects that the country “will be well on our way to recovery.” The U.S. has reached more than 136,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, and more than 2,400 related deaths — with numbers continuing to climb.

8 p.m.: Alberta has seen its third death from COVID-19 — an 80-year-old woman in the Calgary area.

Government spokesman John Muir says he doesn’t have other details, including whether the woman had been a resident of one of three long-term care facilities in the city that have COVID-19 cases.

The province says that 40 additional cases of COVID-19 were confirmed as of Sunday, bringing the total number of cases in the province to 661.

7:30 p.m.: Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics organizing committee president Yoshiro Mori said Saturday it is unlikely the rescheduled 2020 Summer Games will take place in the spring of 2021.

6:45 p.m.: Peter MacKay, presumptive front-runner in the Conservative leadership campaign, is in self-isolation from his family after they returned from a holiday in Mexico.

6:30 p.m.: Joe Diffie, a country music star who won Country Music Assocation and Grammy Awards, died Sunday from complications of COVID-19. He was 61.

It has also been reported that country folk singer-songwriter John Prine is in hospital in critical condition after “a sudden onset of COVID-19 symptoms.”

5:41 p.m.: Two of Ontario’s 1,355 COVID-19 cases have died, raising fatality total to 23, the province’s online tracker indicated Sunday afternoon.

The new deaths were not lab confirmed, meaning that the province has not ascertained that the virus is to blame. More details were not immediately available, but this update would bring the national death toll to 65.

5:38 p.m.: More than 100,000 Ontario residents have been “directed to seek immediate medical assistance” due to COVID-19 symptoms in the past week, data from the province’s online assessment tool reveals.

Another half-million visitors to the online site had symptoms serious enough to be instructed to self isolate — another indication of how serious the situation in Ontario is, reports the Star’s Kevin Donovan.

5:20 p.m.: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is promising federal health authorities will not cut any corners when it comes to making sure masks provided by China meet the necessary standards for protecting Canadian health-care workers from COVID-19.

The comments follow the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa announcing that China is sending 30,000 medical masks along with thousands of gowns, gloves and goggles to Canada. There are reports the Dutch government is recalling around 600,000 defective masks that were recently shipped from China, some of which were distributed to hospitals. Spain has also raised concerns about Chinese-made COVID-19 testing kits that were faulty.

“I can assure people that Health Canada has very strong procedures for evaluating (and) ensuring what we get is up to the necessary standards,” Trudeau said during his daily news conference outside his Ottawa home on Sunday.

4:22 p.m.: Saskatchewan is reporting 22 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, bringing the provincial total to 156 confirmed cases.

It says at least seven COVID-19 cases are a result of local transmission, while the rest are travel-related or cluster-related due to exposure at mass gatherings, including a snowmobile rally dinner held two weeks ago.

The province says approximately 130 people were present at the dinner, and as of Sunday 20 cases have been linked to the event.

4:02 p.m.: After a visit to a warehouse storing Personal Protective Equipment, Premier Doug Ford said the Ontario government “is taking swift action to procure and manufacture these supplies as quickly as possible.”

3:15 p.m.: Five Toronto firefighters have tested positive for COVID-19, according to a tweet from their professional association.

3:14 p.m.: The latest numbers of confirmed and presumptive COVID-19 cases in Canada as of 3:09 p.m.: There are 6,258 confirmed and presumptive cases in Canada; 47 presumptive, 6,211 confirmed including 63 deaths, 445 resolved.

By province/territory: Quebec: 2,840 confirmed (including 22 deaths, 1 resolved). Ontario: 1,355 confirmed (including 21 deaths, 8 resolved). British Columbia: 884 confirmed (including 17 deaths, 396 resolved). Alberta: 621 confirmed (including 2 deaths, 33 resolved). Newfoundland and Labrador: 135 confirmed (including 4 resolved). Saskatchewan: 134 confirmed (including 3 resolved). Nova Scotia: 122 confirmed. Manitoba: 25 confirmed (including 1 death), 47 presumptive. New Brunswick: 66 confirmed. Repatriated Canadians: 13 confirmed. Prince Edward Island: 11 confirmed. Yukon: 4 confirmed. Northwest Territories: 1 confirmed. Nunavut: No confirmed cases

2:52 p.m.: Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin ordered residents to stay in their homes, warning that the spread of novel coronavirus in Europe’s largest capital city “has entered a new phase.”

The Russian capital’s 12.7 million people were ordered to stay home starting Monday, with limited exceptions, in the strictest measures yet imposed in a major Russian city. Confirmed infections in Moscow jumped overnight to 1,014 on Sunday and make up two-thirds of the country’s total.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced this week will be a non-working one, but didn’t commit to any drastic measures during a national address March 25, instead promising benefits to get companies and individuals through the crisis. In a stark example of the mixed signals coming from the Kremlin, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday the week-long paid national holiday that Putin had publicly announced was really an order to work from home.

2:47 p.m.: Hundreds of people flouted Louisiana’s COVID-19 ban on gatherings, coming on buses and in personal vehicles to the first of three Sunday services at their church a day after New Orleans police broke up a funeral gathering on Saturday of about 100 people.

An estimated 500 people of all ages filed into the Life Tabernacle church in Central, a city of nearly 29,000 outside Baton Rouge. More than 3,500 Louisiana residents have been diagnosed with the disease caused by a new coronavirus, and more than 150 of them have died — the fourth-highest death total among U.S. states.

“Other congregations are using the Internet, Skype, and other safe ways to congregate. Why can’t they?“ said Paul Quinn, a passer-by standing across the street from Life Tabernacle. He said state police should enforce the ban.

12:30 p.m.: Canada’s chief public health officer Theresa Tam says 205,000 tests for COVID-19 have been conducted in the country, and about three per cent of them have been positive.

She also says the number of people with the disease requiring hospitalization remains around six per cent, with two per cent in critical care and one per cent of cases fatal.

Tam notes the government has the ages for only about 25 per cent of cases.

Tam is also calling on religious leaders to tailor their celebrations for events such as Easter and Ramadan to account for COVID-19 and the need to self-isolate and practise social distancing.

12:27 p.m.: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says while planning is underway for a variety of different scenarios, there are no immediate plans to deploy the military in response to COVID-19.

Defence chief Gen. Jonathan Vance on Friday put the Canadian Armed Forces on notice to stand ready should its assistance be required.

Trudeau says the military will be ready, but the federal government has not received any specific requests for military help and there are no plans for the Forces to intervene.

12:25 p.m.: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he is remaining in self-isolation at his home in Ottawa for close to two more weeks to ensure he does not have COVID-19.

12:08 p.m.: Mississauga fire Chief Tim Beckett says a Mississauga firefighter tested positive for COVID-19. Tim Beckett says the station where the affected firefighter worked has been closed temporarily and its territory covered by nearby firehouses.

10:36 a.m.: Ontario reports 211 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the provincial total to 1,355. That includes 21 deaths (two more than Saturday) and eight resolved cases.

On Saturday, the official case tally rose by 151 or 15 per cent to a total of 1,144 since the first COVID-19 patient was confirmed Jan. 25.

10:13 a.m.: Millions of Americans will be infected by the coronavirus and 100,000 to 200,000 will die, the U.S. government’s top infectious-disease expert warned Sunday, as people in and around the country’s outbreak epicentre of New York were urged to limit their travel to contain the scourge.

The dire prediction came from Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union.” As of Sunday morning, the U.S. had about 125,000 infections and 2,200 deaths.

“I would say between 100,000 and 200,000” deaths, he said. “We’re going to have millions of cases.” But he added “I don’t want to be held to that” because the pandemic is “such a moving target.”

10:05 a.m.: Spain moved to tighten its lockdown and ban all nonessential work Sunday as it hit another daily record of 838 dead. The country’s overall official toll was more than 6,500.

Spain’s health emergencies chief, Fernando Simon, said the country’s infection rate fell Sunday to 9 per cent, down from 18 per cent three days before. But he said the number of people in intensive care units keeps rising and hospitals are at their limits in several regions.

10:03 a.m.: The confirmed global death toll surpassed 31,000 and new virus epicentres emerged in U.S. cities like Detroit, New Orleans and Chicago. Even rural America has not been immune, as virus hotspots erupt in Midwestern towns and Rocky Mountain ski havens.

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8:51 a.m.: A second employee has tested positive for COVID-19 at the Real Canadian Superstore location on Gibb Street in Oshawa.

The information was shared on social media Saturday night. “The store has been closed, and a third-party crew will come in to thoroughly clean and disinfect this location,” a notice reads, adding the store is expected to re-open Sunday at 10 a.m.

The news comes several days after the first employee at the store to be diagnosed died.

8:12 a.m.: Iran’s president lashed out at criticism of its lagging response to the worst coronavirus outbreak in the Middle East, saying the government has to weigh economic concerns as it takes measures to contain the pandemic.

Hassan Rouhani said authorities had to consider the effect of mass quarantine efforts on Iran’s beleaguered economy, which is under heavy U.S. sanctions. “Health is a principle for us, but the production and security of society is also a principle for us,: Rouhani said at a cabinet meeting. “We must put these principles together to reach a final decision.”

8:04 a.m.: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi apologized to the public on Sunday for imposing a three-week national lockdown, calling it harsh but “needed to win” the battle against the coronavirus pandemic.

“I apologize for taking these harsh steps that have caused difficulties in your lives, especially the poor people,” Modi said in his monthly address, broadcast by state radio. “I know some of you will be angry with me. But these tough measures were needed to win this battle.”

The unprecedented lockdown order, which came into effect Wednesday to keep India’s 1.3 billion people at home for all but essential trips to places like markets or pharmacies, is meant to prevent the spread of the virus from surging and overwhelming India’s health-care system.

Indian health officials have confirmed 867 cases of the coronavirus, including 25 deaths.

7:15 a.m.: As of Saturday night, Ontario’s regional public health units are reporting 1,439 confirmed or presumptive cases of COVID-19, with 21 deaths. The total, the Star’s count of the latest public tallies and news releases posted to the websites of Ontario’s 34 public health units, is up 213 cases from Friday night, a 17.3 per cent single-day increase.

The COVID-19 epidemic has grown rapidly in the province this week, and all 34 regions are now reporting confirmed cases.

The Middlesex-London Health Unit reported its first COVID-19 death Saturday, a man in his 70s who had tested positive on March 17 after returning from a trip to Portugal. Elsewhere, the rural Haldimand-Norfolk Health Unit, south of Hamilton, also reported its first death late Friday, a resident of a retirement home who died in hospital.

The count of cases reported by the public health units is significantly higher than the total that was reported by the province earlier Saturday. The province has reported 1,144 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19, with 19 deaths

As of Saturday night, the five public health units in the GTA were reporting 966 cases of COVID-19, including 10 deaths

7:07 a.m. Late Saturday, Holland America released a statement saying they had received reports that the Panama Canal authority would allow its cruise ship Zaandam to transit the canal.

Four people have died of COVID-19 and more than 100 others have flu-like symptoms. The Zaandam had a total of 1,243 passengers and 586 crew on board, though some passengers have begun transferring to another ship. The ship had 247 Canadian passengers. Zaandam has been at sea off the coast of Panama after it left Buenos Aires, Argentina, on March 7.

“This remains a dynamic situation, and we continue to work with the Panamanian authorities to finalize details,” according to the statement from the cruise line.

7 a.m.: There are 5,655 confirmed and presumptive cases in Canada.

Quebec: 2,498 confirmed (including 22 deaths, 1 resolved)

Ontario: 1,144 confirmed (including 19 deaths, 8 resolved)

British Columbia: 884 confirmed (including 17 deaths, 396 resolved)

Alberta: 621 confirmed (including 2 deaths, 33 resolved)

Saskatchewan: 134 confirmed (including 3 resolved)

Newfoundland and Labrador: 120 confirmed (including 4 resolved)

Nova Scotia: 110 confirmed

Manitoba: 25 confirmed (including 1 death), 39 presumptive

New Brunswick: 51 confirmed

Repatriated Canadians: 13 confirmed

Prince Edward Island: 11 confirmed

Yukon: 4 confirmed

Northwest Territories: 1 confirmed

Nunavut: No confirmed cases

Total: 5,655 (39 presumptive, 5,616 confirmed including 61 deaths, 445 resolved)

With files from Canadian Press and USA Today

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