Quebec declares second wave alongside 586 new cases

By Gordon Lambie

Quebec’s public health director, Dr. Horacio Arruda formally announced the arrival of a second wave for COVID-19 cases in the province on Monday. The news came the morning after three regions saw their alert status upgraded to orange, and alongside the news that there were 586 new cases, a per-day increase of more than 100 from the previous report.
In Sherbrooke, regional public health director Dr. Alain Poirier said that although the term “second wave” is not very scientific, it is hard to deny that the situation in the province is deteriorating.
In the Estrie region, Poirier noted that although there is no sign that the alert status shifting back from yellow to green any time soon, the situation is also not showing the signs of rapid decline that other regions of the province are experiencing at the moment. As an example, he pointed out that the outbreak in Sherbrooke’s Ascot District, which took a large part of the credit for the region’s original escalation to yellow, is now considered to be largely resolved.
At the same time, however, Annie-Andrée Émond of the CIUSSS de l’Estrie-CHUS’ communications department confirmed that a fourth resident of the Lambton long-term care home has died.
Émond noted that a new testing centre has been opened in Asbestos to help with local demand for tests, although she underlined the fact that this new space is meant to be a small-scale service for the local population and will not operate on the same sort of level as the centres already open in Sherbrooke and Bromont.
Poirier also said that the criteria for recommending children for testing may be revised in the coming days, as the instruction that any child with a runny nose may be infected has led to a rush on testing that has been challenging to keep up with. That coupled with the fact that actual rates of infection among the very young remain low and positive cases tend not to be very serious have the health network reconsidering strategy when it comes to children.
There were another 14 cases confirmed in the Estrie on Monday, with two hospitalizations but no one in intensive care. A total of 1,400 out of the 1,587 people who have received confirmed diagnoses in the region are considered to have recovered at this point.
A total of 148 people were in hospital for COVID-19 across Quebec on Monday and 30 were in intensive care.

For full story and others, subscribe now.

Share this article