“As we head into the winter months with a strained health system in many areas … a high degree of caution is needed to minimize spread and impact, particularly during the upcoming holiday season,” said chief medical officer Theresa Tam.

Canada has so far recorded 87 COVID-19 cases caused by the Omicron variant, all of them asymptomatic or mild. Most of the initial cases detected were linked to recent international travelers or their close contacts.

Omicron has the potential to spread much faster than the highly transmissible Delta variant, which is responsible for most Canadian cases, Tam said.

“The trend in average daily case counts has shifted from decline to a gradual but steady increase,” she told a briefing. “With daily new cases increasing, there is concern that national severity trends could begin to rise again.”

As of Nov 27, 86.2% of Canadians above the age of 12 had been fully vaccinated.

The Omicron variant has been reported in 57 nations and the number of patients needing hospitalization is likely to rise as it spreads, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.

Federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said this meant Canadians wishing to travel abroad had to be vigilant.

“Things are happening very quickly outside of Canada. So if you think of traveling, that should be a serious alarm bell,” he said, adding that Canadians returning home “should expect delays and hassles”.

Canada is blocking entry to people who have recently been in 10 southern African nations and is requiring everyone arriving by air to take a COVID-19 test. The measure does not apply to flights from the United States.

Ottawa has not yet formally advised Canadians to avoid foreign travel, Duclos said, adding “that could come”.

Abdulrahman Al-Hussein, the spokesman of Ministry of Commerce said that people with at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccination will be allowed to enter malls.

Al-Hussein also indicated that the dressing rooms will be reopened and touchscreens will be allowed in the malls, commercial centers, and shops, while ensuring social distancing and continuous disinfection.

However, four activities will still remain prohibited. Those are:

• Inviting celebrities and advertisers.
• Conducting ceremonies for shops and markets.
• Commercial competitions that require attendance.
• Launching events for products or services.

Ministry of Interior recently declared that from August 1, only vaccinated people will be allowed to attend the events related to sports, entertainment, and cultural activities, and also to enter the private and public buildings.

“I feel guilty, I feel very sad, because I want all my family safe,” Daiq told.

As a Palestinian living in Jerusalem, Ismail Daiq is used to negotiating the dividing lines between communities: the daily commute to his Jordan Valley date farm involves crossing a checkpoint on his way home.

Now the coronavirus pandemic has created another faultline for him to navigate: the stark difference between access to vaccines in Israel and in the Palestinian territories.

Living within the Israeli health system, Daiq, 62, has already received his second COVID-19 vaccination in a country that is a leader in the world’s inoculation drive.

But his Palestinian siblings and 95-year-old mother in Jericho are still awaiting a vaccine rollout that has only just begun under the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited sovereignty in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Daiq is eligible for vaccination because he became a Jerusalem resident two decades ago when he married a woman from the city.

The rest of his family, friends and employees do not qualify, because they only have West Bank identity papers that do not let them pass through the Israeli checkpoints that control entry to the city.

So when the date farmer travels each day into the Palestinian territories, he is uncomfortably aware that while he feels safe, his loved ones are still at risk from the virus.

“I feel guilty, I feel very sad, because I want all my family safe,” Daiq told Reuters.

“When you see that you can get these services, the vaccination, and all of the family, they can’t get this vaccination, you feel that there is a difference between you and your family.”

Although Israel and the Palestinian Authority coordinate on security issues, political relations have foundered. Negotiations last broke down in 2014.

In January, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry accused Israel of ignoring its duties as an occupying power by not including Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in their inoculation programme.

Israeli officials have said that this is the job of the Palestinian authorities.

“If it is the responsibility of the Israeli health minister to take care of the Palestinians, what exactly is the responsibility of the Palestinian health minister?” Israeli Health Minister Yuli Edelstein told the BBC last month.

While Israel has so far vaccinated a third of its 9 million citizens, the Palestinian Authority received its first batch of 2,000 vaccines – supplied by Israel – on Monday. West Bank health workers received the first shots.

Daiq said he tried to avoid the subject with his family, because his mother kept asking him when she would be inoculated.

His brother Ibrahim, 60, said that he wished good health to “every person on this land” but that there was a sense of unfairness among Palestinians.

“Because of this, my natural rights as a human being, me and the rest of the people living in the West Bank and Gaza, considering we are a country living under occupation, we should also have the right to benefit from this vaccination.”

The West Bank, where 3.1 million Palestinians live, has reported 101,221 coronavirus cases, with 1,271 deaths. Gaza, with a population of two million, has registered more than 51,000 cases with 523 deaths. Israel has reported 663,665 coronavirus cases and 4,888 deaths.