COVID-19 Québec/Montreal Update

Chavy Dworkind

Published Wednesday, March 17, 2021

This blog will highlight the important COVID-19 updates in Québec and in Montreal as of Wednesday, March 17, 2021.

Image by Wikipedia via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal.

Curfew

Beginning on Saturday, January 9th, 2021, an 8 p.m. curfew was put into place in the province of Québec. The 8:00 p.m. curfew was supposed to last for 4 weeks but it lasted until today, March 17, 2021 (Québec). However, tonight will be the first night since January 9th that all the citizens of Québec will be allowed to leave their house after 8:00 p.m. The curfew has now been extended to 9:30 p.m. Although, some regions of Québec that were not classified as red zones already had an extended curfew. But now, even red zones like Montreal and the surrounding regions will have an extended curfew (Kovac).

COVID-19 Vaccination

As of today at 11:00 a.m., 804,806 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in Québec and that is 9.5% of the Québec population. Over the past seven days, 204,037 individuals have been vaccinated for a daily average of 29,148 vaccinations administered. During this week, the week of March 15th, 101,790 doses of the vaccine should be received (COVID-19).

In recent news, Medicago which is a Québec-based Canadian drug developer, announced on Tuesday that it had begun a late-stage study. The study is of the company’s experimental COVID-19 vaccine in combination with a booster from GlaxoSmithKline. Additionally, Medicago would like to enrol 30,000 participants in their study. This is currently Canada’s most advanced developing COVID-19 vaccine project. Medicago plans to release a report in April from a mid-stage vaccine trial (Québec-based).

Also - shoutout to Vanier College for becoming a vaccination center in Montreal (Wilton)!

Image by Vanier College via https://www.vaniercollege.qc.ca/about-cegep/.

COVID-19 Cases and Deaths

The following data is of the COVID-19 situation in Québec over the last 24 hours (Data):

• 703 new cases

• 282,047 people have recovered

• 13 new deaths

• 532 hospitalizations

• 107 people in intensive care

• 33,728 samples conducted on March 15

• 28,812 vaccine doses administered

• 1,050,355 doses of the vaccine have been received.

The total number of people infected with the coronavirus in Québec is 299,450. The total number of deaths in Québec attributed to COVID-19 is 10,570, with 0 deaths in the past 24 hours, 9 death between March 10th and March 15th, and 4 deaths before March 10th. The number of COVID-19 hospitalizations has decreased by 1 in Québec. The number of people in intensive care in Québec has increased by 16. Lastly, the total number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in Québec is 804,806, as mentioned previously (Data).

COVID-19 Variants in Montreal

Villa Maria high school in NDG has suspended in-person classes until March 24th, upon discovering that some of their students have tested positive for COVID-19 variants. Certain students, teachers, and personnel from Villa Maria high school have been asked to self-isolate at home. Those individuals will need to test negative for COVID-19 before returning to school, in-person. Additionally, there are 14 active variant cases across schools in Québec, 8 of which were in private school systems. There are 729 schools in Québec with at least one active case of the coronavirus, including Villa Maria High School. There are 1,830 active COVID-19 cases among students and staff across Québec schools (Caruso).

Variants of the virus, which are more contagious, are making appearances in the northern section of Côte St-Luc, the Plamondon area of Snowdon/Côte-des-Neiges, Park Extension, and St. Laurent. The positivity rate of COVID-19 is higher in those regions (Riga).

Image source: Villa Maria, by CTV News, via https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/montreal-school-suspends-classes-after-discovering-two-variant-cases-of-covid-19-1.5349564.

Conclusion

In this blog, the important COVID-19 Québec updates were highlighted. We discussed the extended curfew in effect as of today, the COVID-19 vaccine, the number of cases and deaths, and we discussed the COVID-19 variants in Montreal.

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Works Cited

Caruso-Moro, Luca. “Montreal school suspends classes after discovering two variant cases of COVID-19.” CTV News 4:04 p.m., 16 Mar 2021. montreal.ctvnews.ca/montreal-school-suspends-classes-after-discovering-two-variant-cases-of-covid-19-1.5349564. Accessed 17 Mar 2021.

“COVID-19 vaccination data.” Québec. 11:00 a.m. 17 Mar 2021. www.Québec.ca/en/health/health-issues/a-z/2019-coronavirus/situation-coronavirus-in-Québec/covid-19-vaccination-data/. Accessed 17 Mar 2021.

“Data on COVID-19 in Québec.” Québec. 17 Mar 2021. www.Québec.ca/en/health/health-issues/a-z/2019-coronavirus/situation-coronavirus-in-Québec/. Accessed 17 Mar 2021.

Kovac, Adam. “Montreal-area curfew to be pushed back to 9:30 p.m.; all Québec adults vaccinated by June 24: Legault.” CTV News. 10:19 a.m., 17 Mar 2021. montreal.ctvnews.ca/montreal-area-curfew-to-be-pushed-back-to-9-30-p-m-all-Québec-adults-vaccinated-by-june-24-legault-1.5349657. Accessed 17 Mar 2021.

“Québec-based Medicago begins late-stage study of COVID-19 vaccine.” CTV News. 6:59 p.m., 16 Mar 2021. www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/Québec-based-medicago-begins-late-stage-study-of-covid-19-vaccine-1.5349921. Accessed 17 Mar 2021.

“Québec orders 8 p.m. curfew beginning Saturday, for 4 weeks.” Medical Xpress, 7 Jan 2021. medicalxpress.com/news/2021-01-Québec-pm-curfew-saturday-weeks.html. Accessed 17 Mar 2021.

Riga, Andy. “COVID-19 live updates: Variants are taking hold in Côte St-Luc, Snowden, Drouin says.” Montreal Gazette. 3:06 p.m., 17 Mar 2021. montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/covid-19-updates-montreal-Québec-new-cases-variant-vaccine-vaccination-curfew-red-orange-zone-march-17. Accessed 17 Mar 2021.

Wilton, Katherine. “How to get COVID-19 vaccinations in Montreal.” Montreal Gazette. 18 Feb 2021. montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/how-to-get-covid-19-vaccinations-in-montreal. Accessed 17 Mar 2021.