Record Staff
Following similar decisions made by the provinces of Ontario, Alberta, and Manitoba Quebec’s director of public health, Horacio Arruda, told reporters that the age limit for the AstraZeneca vaccine would be dropping to a new level on Monday. As of this writing, specifics about the new age limit had not been made public, although in the three other provinces the limit dropped from 55 to 40.
Quebec also began enforcing a border closure with Ontario on Monday as an added measure to help control the spread of the virus across provincial lines.
The province of Quebec reported 1,092 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, bringing the total number of people infected 338,044. The number of active cases in the province went down from Sunday to Monday’s report, going from 13,449 to 12,852.
Monday’s report also included 15 new deaths, although the total number of deaths in the province linked to COVID-19 only increased by 14, to 10,816, due to the withdrawal of one previously reported death that could not be linked to the virus.
The number of hospitalizations in Quebec rose to 686, an increase of three; and the number of people in intensive care increased by eight, to 183.
In the Eastern Townships 31 new cases were recorded on Monday, but the overall number of active cases in the region decreased by 12, to 365. Although 141 of those cases are in the Sherbrooke area, the Du Granit and Coaticook sectors remain the areas with the highest concentration of infections in relation to their population. There were no new deaths in the region but the number of hospitalizations and people in intensive care both increased by two, for totals of 19 and six respectively.
A total of 2,399,934 doses of vaccine had been administered as of Monday morning out of 2,836,485 doses received by the province in total, accounting for 28 per cent of the provincial population. Another 230,490 doses of Pfizer are expected this week and 18,960 doses of AstraZeneca that were received last week are still in transit through the health and social services network.
In the Eastern Townships more than one in four residents have now received at least one dose, with more than 1,000 people now having received their second. The Memphremagog area continues to lead the pack in terms of vaccine coverage, with 31.9 per cent of all residents partially vaccinated.
The percentage of positive test results showing the presence of a variant in Quebec is now at 78.7 per cent, with 22,821 having been confirmed across the province. Of those, 475 confirmations have been in the Estrie region, where the average confirmation rate of variants has been 73.8 per cent over the last week.
