Canada, after delivering 7% of Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s $260M domestic opening weekend, will see its Quebec province shut down cinemas in addition to bars and gyms as public health officials look to slow the spread of the Omicron Covid variant.
CBC reports that Quebec Health Minister Christian Dubé made the decision to prevent a strain on the province’s health care system.
Over the weekend, due to rising Covid concerns, theater capacities in Canadian provinces Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick were reduced to 50%.
In addition, concert venues and spas in Quebec are being told to close as of 5 p.m. today. Restaurants will reduce their indoor capacity to 50% and limit hours between 5-10PM. Professional sports will be held without audiences. Schools will shutter early for the holiday break until Jan. 10.
The province reported 4,571 new cases of COVID-19 today and three new deaths. Currently there’s 397 people in hospitals, including 82 in intensive care. Quebec has administered 14.3M doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, including 45K in the last 24 hours. Of the province’s population, 89% have received one dose, while 81% received two doses.
Covid cases are spiking across half the U.S according to NBC News, especially in the Northeast with NY seeing a +76% increase in the last two weeks. The seven-day average of Covid cases hit 133,243 yesterday, repping the first time the national average surged north of 130K since late September.
President Joe Biden will talk to the nation Tuesday, “issuing a stark warning of what the winter will look like for Americans that choose to remain unvaccinated,” tweeted White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
This morning, Deadline’s Jill Goldsmith reported that stocks were flattened by bad news of the Omicron variant, further heightened by pending interest rate hikes and economic tightening the Fed signaled last week, and after Sen. Joe Manchin scuttled Biden’s key social policy legislation.