Record Staff
The vaccination campaign against COVID-19 continued to move forward over the weekend, with a total of 2,828,484 doses of vaccine being administered across Quebec as of Sunday. This accounts for 32.8 per cent of total population of the province, or just under one in three people. In the Eastern Townships that figure reached 153,460 doses, or about 31 per cent of the regional population. The number of people who have received a second dose remains under one per cent at both the provincial and regional level.
In addition to regularly scheduled appointments for people in the current priority groups, the CIUSSS de l’Estrie – CHUS regional healthcare establishment announced another limited set of coupon-based drop-in vaccination spots over the weekend, which were used up almost as quickly as they were announced.
On Saturday Health Minister Christian Dubé took to twitter to point out that 60 per cent of new cases are now coming from people under 40 years of age, in a group that are tending to be sick for longer periods of time and who wait longer before going to the hospital.
“No one is safe from this virus,” he said.
Vaccination is currently only available to people 45 years of age or older.
Caregivers for people with physical or mental handicaps will be able to register for vaccination appointments as of this coming Wednesday, April 28.
The Province of Quebec reported 1,014 new cases on Sunday, bringing the total number of people infected to 344,808 and the number of active cases to 10,844.
The total number of deaths increased to 10,878, nine of which were reported on Sunday.
The number of people hospitalized across the province decreased by 57 over the weekend, dropping to 654, and the number of people in intensive care also went down by nine to 165.
In the Eastern Townships, where the number of active cases and new cases each day has been trending up in recent weeks, there were 129 new cases over the weekend, 48 of which were recorded on Sunday. This increased the total number of people who have caught COVID-19 in the region since the start of the pandemic to 13,009. Despite this increase, however, the number of active cases did decrease by 13 between Thursday’s report and Sunday.
Of the 419 cases active in the Townships on Sunday, 145 were in Sherbrooke, 83 were in the Haute-Yamaska area, 78 were in the Granit area, 40 were in the Pommeraie area, 28 were in the Haut- Saint-François area, 16 were in the Val Saint-François, 11 were in the Coaticook area, 10 were in Memphrémagog, and six were in the des Sources area. There were also two not linked to a particular sub-region of the territory.
Looked at in relation to each area’s population the Granit area continues to have the highest concentration of infection at 366 cases per 100,000 people, with Memphrémagog on the other end of the spectrum at only 18.9 per 100,000.
The number of deaths in the region increased to 331, although the number of hospitalizations linked to COVID-19 decreased to 18. As of Sunday there were five people in intensive care in the region because of the virus.
