COVID-19 in Quebec: What you need to know Friday
CBC
Note: Quebec's vaccination rate has been adjusted to include five- to 11-year-olds, causing the overall percentage to drop. Vaccinations for the group began last week.
Quebec's Health Ministry does not publish the number of vaccines administered on weekends and public holidays.
Quebec's health minister is urging people not to panic even though the province recorded the highest number of new COVID-19 cases since mid-January on Thursday.
Dubé said the spike in case numbers was to be expected, after the province loosened certain health restrictions last month. He said he expects the situation to stabilize when more children aged five to 11 are vaccinated.
The number of cases in Quebec increased sharply by 29 per cent compared to last week, according to INESSS, a government health-care research institute known by its French acronym.
The number of new hospitalizations could increase across the province in the coming weeks, INESSS said in a projections report released Thursday.
Still, compared to the second wave of the pandemic, the report revealed hospitalizations are down 81 per cent.
With the government easing gathering restrictions in time for the holidays, Gilbert Boucher, head of Quebec's association of emergency medicine specialists, says we need to remember that last year was "very chaotic for everyone in the health-care system."
Quebec's Health Ministry has announced that all preschool and elementary school students will be receiving rapid COVID-19 screening tests that can be used at home.
Starting this week, tests will be distributed to school boards and service centres in Montreal, the Eastern Townships, Chaudière-Appalaches, Lanaudière, the Montérégie and the Laurentians — regions where the epidemiological situation is "more worrisome," according to the Health Ministry.
As the holidays approach, each student will be given a kit in their school bag that includes five tests as well as the materials and instructions for performing them. Rapid tests, which provide results in as little as 15 minutes, may be used for children who have any symptoms similar to those of COVID-19.
Distribution will be carried out by the Health Ministry and will take place gradually. Other regions will receive the tests starting the week of Dec. 13.
Since rapid tests are deemed to be less reliable than those used in the laboratory, in the event that a child tests positive, parents must make an appointment to have the diagnosis confirmed at a screening centre.
Police officers across the province will be out in great numbers over the next two weekends to ensure people in restaurants and bars comply with COVID-19 health measures.
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