As COVID-19 cases soar in Quebec, François Legault pleads for caution

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With 9,000 cases Thursday, premier limits gatherings in private homes and at restaurants to six people, or two family bubbles, as of Dec. 26

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As COVID-19 cases continue to surge in Quebec, the government is adjusting its guidelines around gatherings — but not until after Christmas.

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At a much-anticipated 6 p.m. news conference on Wednesday that had most Quebecers expecting a lockdown and potentially a curfew, Premier François Legault announced that as of Dec. 26, gatherings in private homes and at restaurants will be limited to six people or two family bubbles (the previous maximum was 10 people).

“Between now and Saturday, we’re letting people who absolutely want to gather as 10 to do it, however I invite all Quebecers who are able to delay these parties to do it,” Legault said, adding that he hopes people will be particularly careful during Christmas celebrations around those above the age of 60.

“Seventy per cent of the people in hospital for COVID are 60 and up,” he said. “That means it’s really those people who are at risk of hospitalization and, above all, the people who haven’t yet had the chance to have their third dose — with the Omicron variant, they are very at risk.”

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The limit on gatherings was announced two days after Quebec ordered the immediate closure of schools, bars, gyms, cinemas, spas and limited hours at restaurants (among other things), amid an explosion of Omicron cases that has seen daily case numbers shoot from 2,700 to 6,300 in the span of a week, Legault said.

He added Quebec will be reporting more than 9,000 COVID-19 cases in its daily update on Thursday, as it reaches record testing numbers that has seen wait times at walk-in centres span hours. On Wednesday, the CIUSSS de l’Est-de-l’Île-de-Montréal announced its Viau clinic will only be offering tests by appointment moving forward because high demand is “creating traffic and safety difficulties.”

Given the inability to meet the demand for testing of late, Quebec is tweaking its guidelines, public health director Dr. Horacio Arruda said Wednesday.

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“We all know someone right now who caught COVID around us, so there’s really a number of cases increasing in an exponential way over the past few days and it has brought us to revise our testing strategy,” he said.

Those who come into contact with confirmed cases of COVID-19 are no longer required to get tested in clinics, which will now be reserved exclusively for people who are showing symptoms.

Here are the new guidelines:

— If you have symptoms and no access to rapid tests, isolate and make an appointment in a centre.

— If you have symptoms, take a rapid test and if it is positive, isolate and make an appointment if possible — but you can also just isolate.

— If you’ve been in contact with a confirmed case of COVID, isolate for 10 days and only make an appointment to get tested if you develop symptoms.

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It is also recommended to make an appointment rather than show up to a walk-in clinic to avoid the transmission of COVID-19.

Arruda said he isn’t concerned about the cases the province will not be aware of as a result of the updated testing guidelines.

“We always know we cannot have the portrait of every case for different reasons,” he said. “We’ve got a good idea of the trends. Any system cannot detect all the cases.”

Quebec is also now asking those who’ve tested positive to take it upon themselves to alert people they’ve come into contact with of their result, because the province is no longer able to do contact tracing.

“The virus is faster than what we are capable of doing in terms of tracing,” Arruda said, adding the province is now moving toward “a paradigm of auto-management of the virus.”

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“It was already planned, this transition, we knew we would arrive there, the issue is that with Omicron we arrived there faster,” he said.

Health Minister Christian Dubé added asking Quebecers to take on that responsibility will allow the province to use contact-tracing personnel in other areas, notably vaccine clinics.

Eight thousand people have contacted the government to help with vaccinations over the past week, Dubé said. A lack of personnel is no longer an issue. The province is currently working through the logistics to ramp up vaccinations in January.

On Wednesday, Quebec reported 6,361 new cases of COVID-19 (for a total of 501,698 since the start of the pandemic) and two additional deaths (for a total of 11,652).

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It also announced 30 additional hospitalizations, for a total of 445 across the province (88 of which are in intensive care).

Projections released on Wednesday by the Institut national de santé publique du Québec show Montreal alone could see 100 new hospitalizations per day depending on the characteristics of the Omicron variant, the rate of administering booster doses, public health measures and how well the public follows them.

The INSPQ said even if new restrictions are closely followed, uncertainty around the severity of Omicron means it can’t exclude hospital capacity overrun.

“Despite the large impact of third vaccine doses and the announced measures, the model predicts a substantial wave of Omicron cases due to the current high level of transmission,” the institute said. 

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Referring to the projections, Dubé said the severity of Omicron is the biggest variable the province has at the moment.

“Most of the people at the hospital right now … they’re principally Delta (cases),” he said. “We haven’t yet seen the impact of Omicron.” 

Following the news conference on Wednesday, Liberal Leader Dominique Anglade took to Twitter to voice her discontent with the Legault government’s handling of the current crisis, saying it shifted the responsibility ahead of the holidays on the population and the health network.

“Like you, I was flabbergasted to see the improvisation of the CAQ government,” she said. “Many of us are looking at other jurisdictions to be more efficient at injecting the third doses, distributing rapid tests and processing PCR tests.”

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Legault, for his part, said he’s confident in Arruda’s recommendations.

“I think we’re doing still better for example than the United States in terms of hospitalizations,” he said. “Yes, I’m very confident.”

The government hasn’t ruled out adding more measures in the coming days as the situation progresses.

In the meantime, Legault has a message for the unvaccinated, who he said represent 50 per cent of hospitalizations in Quebec despite accounting for less than 10 per cent of the province’s adult population. “I’m asking you for Quebec, for others, stay at home if you don’t want to get vaccinated,” he said.

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