Montreal reported 295 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Thursday, but the regional public health director says the majority of the new infections date from earlier in the week.
Dr. Mylène Drouin told reporters 73 new cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, occurred in the past 24 hours.
“The difference between those two numbers is 222 new cases that weren’t included in our database,” she said, pointing to a backlog.
While there was a delay in tallying the cases, Drouin said the people who tested positive were immediately contacted by screening centres.
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However, she said it’s been difficult to keep up with the caseload because of the number of contacts for each case. That is why it’s important Montrealers limit their contact with others and limit the number of people at events according to Drouin.
“It has a direct impact on our capacity to keep our database up to date,” she said, adding public health has added more workers to keep up with demand.
Despite the jump in infections in Montreal and a steady increase of cases in recent weeks, Drouin said the region remains in the yellow alert zone, which calls for an early warning.
“It doesn’t change our indicators to show we would pass to another level,” she said.
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Montreal is one of eight regions in Quebec that are currently in the yellow level under the province’s COVID-19 alert system.
However, Drouin still called on Montrealers to remain vigilant in order to limit the spread of the virus. Officials say community transmission has been linked to private events, such as dinner parties.
The pandemic has led to more than 30,000 cases and 3,476 deaths in Montreal to date.
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