With the lifting of a large portion of the province’s public health measures on Saturday, the provincial public health department has made the move to stop providing detailed updates over the weekend. As of Friday there were 1,126 people in hospital with COVID-19 across the province, 465 of whom were admitted to hospital for the virus itself. Only 65 of those people were in intensive care, and 48 of the 65 were in ICU as a result of Covid.
As a reminder, that is down from a peak of 3,425 on Jan 18, at which point there were 285 people in intensive care.
Friday’s update from the Eastern Townships included 70 people in hospital with the virus across centres in Sherbrooke, Magog, Granby, and Cowansville. Three of those people were in intensive care.
As of the end of last week, the total number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the province was 14,154, with 13 more having been recorded on Friday. The regional total for the Eastern Townships remained unchanged at 542.
For the moment masking rules remain in place with a commitment to lift them at an unspecified time later in the spring. Last week the interim Provincial Director of Public Health, Dr. Luc Boileau, suggested that the first stage of the withdrawal of mandatory masking could come by the end of the month if things continue to improve as they are.
As per an announcement at the beginning of March, masks will continue to be required on public transit longer than in other public locations.
