MONTREAL — Public health officials in Quebec reported 40 additional deaths associated with COVID-19 on Saturday and 1,898 new cases of the novel coronavirus.
Public health authorities said 14 of those deaths took place in the preceding 24 hours with the rest taking place at an earlier date.
The Health Department said there are now 860 people in hospital, down 11 from the day before. Of those, 129 are in intensive care, an increase of six from the previous day.
Quebec conducted 39,415 COVID-19 tests on Thursday, the most recent day for which that data is available. It is the highest number of tests conducted in a single day since the beginning of the pandemic.
The regions with the highest number of new cases were Montreal with 653; Quebec City with 210; Laval, a suburb of Montreal, with 197; and Monteregie, south-east of Montreal, with 195.
Quebec's national public health institute said there have been an additional 1,624 recoveries from the novel coronavirus. There were 16,175 active cases in the province as of Saturday, it said.
There are 31 private seniors residences and four long-term care centres where more than 25 per cent of residents have active cases of COVID-19, public health said Saturday. There are a total of 149 private seniors residences and 69 long-term care centres with at least one case of COVID-19 in Quebec.
Quebec plans to begin vaccinating residents of two long-term care centres, Maimonides in Montreal and Saint-Antoine in Quebec City, on Monday.
Quebec has reported a total of 161,921 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 7,475 deaths associated with the virus.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 12, 2020.
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This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Facebook and Canadian Press News Fellowship.
Jacob Serebrin, The Canadian Press
