Montreal-based study estimates Quebec saw up to 32,000 new daily COVID-19 cases last week

One of the public health experts who worked on the research worries the jump in COVID-19 cases could impact the province's health-care system.

There were between 18,000 and 32,000 new COVID-19 infections per day last week across Quebec, according to an estimate released Friday by a Montreal-based research centre.

The results of the study by CIRANO should make Quebecers take the sixth wave of the pandemic seriously, Roxane Borges Da Silva, a professor at Université de Montréal’s school of public health who worked on the research, said in an interview.

The Quebec government, she added, should strengthen its messaging on COVID-19 and reconsider its plan to lift mask mandates in mid-April.

“It’s a very significant rise — non-negligible and worrisome — especially for those who are vulnerable to COVID and to health workers,” she said.

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The exact case counts presented in the study, which looked at the period from March 24-29, are difficult to confirm, she said, but the tendency is clear: the data indicates a rise in cases of between 20 per cent and 40 per cent over the previous week. The research centre, which is composed of academics from various universities, surveys 3,000 people per week to ask if they’ve received a positive COVID-19 result.

Borges Da Silva said she worries the jump in cases could impact the health-care system, especially because cases are rising most quickly in places outside major cities, where hospital capacity is reduced.

“At 20,000 cases per day, even if it’s 0.001 per cent of people who end up in hospital out of 20,000 cases, it’s still a lot of people,” she said.