Where are people catching COVID-19 in Quebec?

For the past few days, Quebec has been seeing its COVID-19 cases go into the triple digits again.

On Wednesday, the province recorded 142 new cases, and on Tuesday, 180 new cases — the most since mid-June.

“It’s much higher than it was 10 days ago and so there is a level of transmission there that justifies that,” said Dr. David Kaiser with Montreal’s Public Health department.

Speaking on Monday, Quebec’s deputy premier Geneviève Guilbault said the upwards trend is normal because the province is conducting more tests — up to 15,000 every day.

But where are people catching the disease exactly?

The province analyzed its cases from the week of June 28 to July 5th included and found that the main source is private gatherings.

According to data provided by Quebec’s Health Ministry:

• 35 per cent of cases were originated from contact with an infected family member
• Health-care workers accounted for 15 per cent of cases
• 10 per cent of cases came from a seniors’ home
• 5 per cent of cases could be attributed to workplaces
• Outbreaks in the community represented around 5 per cent of cases
• Outbreaks in health-care settings were around 3,5 per cent
• Travel-related cases were about 1 per cent of the overall total
• Schools or daycares represented less 1 per cent of the cases
• 25 per cent the cases could not be traced back

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Marie-Claude Lacasse, a spokesperson for Quebec’s Health Ministry, told Global News that young people are driving the uptick here in Quebec.

Quebec is not the only province with cases of the novel Coronavirus on the rise.

Overall, the number of cases reported across Canada each day has started to go up as well and as Global News previously reported, that is of concern for Canada’s health officials.

“We were averaging about 300 cases a day,” said Dr. Howard Njoo, deputy chief public health officer of Canada, at a briefing Tuesday. “More recently, that’s increased to 350. And now we’re in the neighbourhood of 450, 460 cases per day over the last four days or so. That is of concern.”

Quebec health officials, however, say there is no reason to panic.

Epidemiologist Dr. Christopher Labos agrees but he warns we should not be complacent.

“We have a problem in that everything that we do before a pandemic seems like an overreaction and everything you do after the pandemic starts is too little too late. So we don’t want to look back six weeks from now and say, we didn’t recognize the warning signs,” the epidemiologist told Global News.

“We have to be a little bit mindful of that and we have to keep watching it and if we start to see worrisome trends, then it’s going to require us to re-jig our strategy and re-assess our strategy. So we have to be constantly vigilant without necessarily giving in to panic.”

Labos advised people to have to look at what they’re doing and what the risk is in their community.

“In a community where you see growing numbers of cases, which means the virus is circulating, maybe certain activities are too high a risk,” said Labos, citing attending a party as an example.

Montreal has been deemed the epicentre of the health crisis in Quebec, as it consistently records the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the province.

The city’s public health officials say everybody should be very vigilant. “Public health measures are more important than ever,” said Dr. Kaiser.

Dr. Kaiser encouraged people that could have been in contact with someone with the virus or have been to a bar or a party to get tested.

— With files from Global’s Leslie Young