MONTREAL — Quebec Premier Francois Legault says the province's infection rate would be declining instead of remaining stable if it weren't for two problematic regions outside the big cities.
Legault says residents of the Saguenay region north of Quebec City and the Launadiere region north of Montreal need to pay particular attention to reducing their contacts.
"I want to ask citizens of those areas to pay attention," Legault told a Tuesday news conference. "If we didn't have those increases, we would be seeing an average decrease in the number of cases (across Quebec)."
He said the COVID-19 situation in those two regions has "greatly deteriorated." The Saguenay reported 105 COVID-19 cases on Sunday and another 48 cases Monday, the last day for which regional breakdowns are available. In the Lanaudiere region, authorities reported 140 cases on Sunday and 99 cases Monday.
Health Minister Christian Dube said he's also worried about the Monteregie region southeast of Montreal, where 151 new cases were reported on Tuesday. Dube said, however, that things are looking better in Quebec City and Montreal. Quebec's two largest cities have been under a partial lockdown since Oct. 1.
On the island of Montreal, the number of cases has gone from around 300 to 400 a day to "the low 200s" Dube said. "That's very good news." The number of new cases in Quebec City has also "decreased substantially," Dube told reporters.
The health minister called on people in regional COVID hot spots to make "the same efforts" that have been made in Montreal and Quebec City. If that happened, Dube said, the daily number of new cases in Quebec could be cut in half.
While the situation has improved, it's unlikely Montreal or Quebec City will move to a lower alert level in the short term, Dr. Horacio Arruda, public health director, told reporters.
Other than the infection rate, Arruda said his office considers other factors before changing a region's alert level, such as the number of outbreaks, the local health network's capacity, and the ability of contact tracers to ensure new cases are isolated. "It's very difficult for us to tell you where we will be in two weeks," he said.
Quebec reported 871 new COVID-19 infections on Tuesday and 34 more deaths attributed to the novel coronavirus, including five that occurred in the previous 24 hours. Health officials said the number of people being treated in hospital for COVID-19 rose by 27 to 526, and 85 people were in intensive care, a rise of four.
The province said 25 newly attributed COVID-19 deaths took place between Oct. 27 and Nov. 1, while four others occurred before Oct. 27. Authorities said an additional 920 people have recovered from COVID-19 -- a figure higher than the number of new infections -- for a total of 93,316 recovered cases.
Health officials said 15,512, COVID-19 tests were conducted on Sunday, the last day for which testing data is available. That is the fewest tests conducted in a single day in Quebec since Sept. 6. Dube said the number of tests usually drops on the weekend, adding that the province has conducted, on average, about 24,000 tests a day for the past week.
"I think what is important is that we test the right people," he said. Quebec's positivity rate is between eight per cent and 10 per cent, Dube added, a sign that the right people are being tested.
Quebec has reported a total of 108,889 COVID-19 cases and 6,317 deaths linked to the virus, the most of any province.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 3, 2020.
———
This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Facebook and Canadian Press News Fellowship.
Jacob Serebrin, The Canadian Press
