Montreal's COVID-19 indicators are improving but the many health orders in place are likely to remain for weeks to come, the city's public health director said Friday.
Health officials reported about 622 new daily infections between Jan. 17 and Jan. 21, down from a daily average of about 765 the week before. But hospitals in the city remain close to capacity, Dr. Mylene Drouin told reporters, with 696 people hospitalized in Montreal, including 112 in intensive care. About 1,000 health-care workers are off the job with COVID-19 or awaiting test results.
That means public health officials are far from ready to lift most of the restrictions, Drouin said. The current provincial measures are scheduled to run until Feb. 8.
"Some of the confinement measures are probably going to stay," Drouin said. "I think what we're going to ask ourselves is, what we can reintroduce that is less at-risk and help people find a normal life?" She didn't offer specifics but suggested some physical or social activities could be permitted.
Quebec has imposed many health orders in recent weeks, asking people to work from home, shutting non-essential businesses and imposing a nightly curfew between 8 p.m. and 5 a.m.
Quebec's national public health institute issued modelling Thursday that suggested the province's measures could have significant impact for all regions and even more so for greater Montreal.
"Strong support for the measures would make them even more effective in addressing the course of the epidemic," the institute said in a statement.
Drouin said there has been a sustained decrease this month in the number of new cases per 100,000 people, from 46 in December to 37 in January. She said that number might soon dip to 30.
She also said the reproduction rate — the average number of cases linked to a confirmed infection — was less than one for the first time since the fall. She said it needs to remain below one for at least two weeks, "if we want to reach a certain comfort level."
Overall, 8.8 per cent of COVID-19 tests in Montreal are positive, but officials say they'll target neighbourhoods in northern and eastern Montreal that have much higher infection rates.
Drouin said those areas were also hot spots last spring, due in large part to population density and an influx of essential workers at a higher risk of contracting the virus. "It's not that the people do not want or do not apply the public health recommendations, it's more that the context makes it difficult to apply," Drouin said.
Authorities will use rapid tests in those neighbourhoods to cut down on what is now a roughly three-day delay between the beginning of symptoms and a test result. "It is the period where the person is most contagious," Drouin said. "We have to go to where people have the symptoms and get them tested quickly."
Quebec reported 1,631 new COVID-19 cases Friday and 88 additional deaths, but hospitalizations dropped for a third consecutive day. The Health Department said the number of patients with COVID-19 in hospital fell by 27, to 1,476, with 212 in intensive care, a drop of four. Hospitalizations have decreased by 74 over the last three reporting periods.
Of the 88 deaths reported Friday, 18 occurred in the previous 24 hours. Health Minister Christian Dube said on Twitter that the number of deaths reported daily in the province remains too high, and he called on people to respect public health orders.
The province has now vaccinated 200,627 people after another 14,417 people received shots Thursday. Quebec has now inoculated 2.35 per cent of its population with one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, using a little more than 84 per cent of vaccines the province has received.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Quebec has reported a total of 250,491 infections and 9,361 deaths linked to the virus, with 223,367 people considered recovered.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 22, 2021.
Sidhartha Banerjee, The Canadian Press
