The COVID-19 situation was looking better in the Townships and across the province on Monday than it had in months with only 10 new cases recorded in the Estrie Region and 890 throughout Quebec.
Looking at the situation during his weekly update, Regional Public Health Director Dr. Alain Poirier pointed out that this marked the first time that the province recorded fewer than 1,000 per day since November, and called the news “very positive.”
“Almost all regions are seeing the same pattern,” he continued before adding the cautionary note that although there have also been improvements in hospitalization rates, that aspect of the situation has yet to catch up to the dramatic decreases seen in daily case counts over the last week.
Looking to the Estrie specifically, Poirier said that there were 36 people hospitalized along with an additional 10 in intensive care. Five out of those 46 people were transferred from outside the region.
There was also one new death at the St-Philipe Residence in Windsor.
“From the point of view of the statistics, things are getting much better,” the public health director said.
He shared that the average number of new cases per day over the last seven days was 47, which would put the region into the orange alert level in a situation where that system of measurement was being observed. In a similar vein the positivity rate of tests taken in the region was down to 3.2 per cent, much closer to the level where the spread of the virus is considered to be under control.
With positive thinking in the air, however, Poirier said it is important to put a focus now on vaccination and prevention measures.
“There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, but the tunnel is longer than we thought,” he said referring, among other things, to the supply chain issues that have slowed Quebec’s vaccination effort to a crawl.
CIUSSS de l’Estrie – CHUS communications agent Annie-Andrée Émond explained that there will be no vaccinations at all in the region this week as the local healthcare network has not received any new doses. She highlighted, at the same time, the fact that the CIUSSS was able to complete its effort to ensure a first dose for all of those living and working in the region’s long term care homes (CHSLDs) with an 89.9 per cent coverage, and said that efforts would pick back up the moment that the CIUSSS has new vaccine doses to work with. In the meantime the region is working on preparing a series of new vaccination locations, with sites essentially ready in Granby and East Angus and plans for another six to be up and running by the end of the month.
Looking ahead to a time when vaccination can be more widespread, Poirier pointed out that since it is not yet clear how the vaccine impacts a person’s ability to transmit the virus, other sanitary measures will continue to be important even after getting the shot. Similarly he pointed out that even if the vaccines have excellent success rates so far, they are not a magic bullet and should not be considered to make one invincible to the sickness.
The total number of people infected to date in Quebec is now 263,473, of whom 13,564 are actively sick. Monday’s data also showed 32 new deaths, for a total of 9,826. The number of hospitalizations increased by eight compared to the previous day, for a cumulative total of 1,144. Among those, the number of people in intensive care decreased by eight, for a total of 183. Provincewide, 796 doses of vaccine were administered as of Sunday, for a total of 239,023.
Townships reports only 10 new cases in “very positive” report
By Gordon Lambie
