Quebecers must continue to exercise caution as the province registered 35 new deaths and a 145-patient increase linked to the COVID-19 health crisis, Premier François Legault said Tuesday.
Pandemic-related hospitalizations came to a total of 1,938 after 294 people were admitted in the last day, while 149 were discharged. Officials say 67 people were being treated for the disease in intensive care units, a drop of two.
Legault was asked about what could be done to temper the rise in hospitalizations at a news conference at the provincial legislature later in the afternoon.
He told reporters the number of patients being treated for the disease tends to be higher earlier in the week, but that he still expects an increase in the coming weeks.
“Public health is telling us that we should go up to 2,200 or 2,300 hospitalizations in the next couple of weeks and then they forecast we may see a drop,” he said.
While Legault urged caution amid the sixth wave, he also said that many of the infections in hospitals are being detected among patients who were hospitalized for other reasons.
“We continue to have to be careful,” he said. “But we also need to remember that in hospitalizations, half of them are with COVID and not for COVID.”
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The province also reported 2,596 new novel coronavirus infections Tuesday, but the daily tally is only a partial portrait of the situation since access to PCR testing remains limited.
Health authorities say 16,236 tests were given at government-run sites Sunday, the most recent day for which that data is available.
Meanwhile, the results of 1,347 rapid tests were declared by Quebecers on the province’s online portal. Of those, 1,129 were positive for the virus.
The immunization campaign administered 25,602 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine in a 24-hour period. To date, more than 18.9 million shots have been issued.
Since the start of the pandemic, Quebec has reported 1,003,491 official cases and 14,579 deaths. The number of recoveries from the virus topped 958,000 as of Tuesday.
The province’s public health institute says Quebec has an average of about 350 active COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people.
The James Bay Cree territory has 206 active reported cases. This represents the highest infection rate in the province, with more than 1,000 cases per 100,000 people.
The Gaspésie–Îles-de-la-Madeleine and the Bas-St-Laurent regions, in eastern Quebec, each have more than 700 active cases per 100,000 people.
— with files from The Canadian Press
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