1) Quebec posted 637 #COVID cases Friday — a number not seen since the #pandemic's first wave — placing the entire greater Montreal region in an orange zone. Yet authorities won't impose any of their own proposed public health restrictions. In this thread, I will highlight them.
2) On Sept. 17, the government made public a previously secret “working document” on #pandemic restrictions the day after analyst @Patrickdery published them on Twitter (scooping me). The summary lists “potential” restrictions in a color-coded alert scale. See the chart below.
3) According to that chart, the government would have closed bars, taverns and casinos by now in the orange zones. Contact sports and competitions would have been banned. People would not have been allowed to eat in restaurants. But none of those restrictions have been imposed.
4) Instead, Health Minister Christian Dubé is exhorting the public to follow what he’s touting as the “28 Day COVID Challenge.” Specifically, it means limiting one’s social contacts and not holding barbecues or dinner parties. But there’s a shortcoming to this approach.
5) Dubé has already been asking Quebecers for weeks not to throw dinner parties or hold barbecues, and this appeal hasn’t worked. #COVID19 cases have been rising, outbreaks have been erupting, at least a couple of schools had to close and more people are being hospitalized.
6) This perilous moment now calls for tougher restrictions. Quebec’s neighbor to the west, Ontario, is doing just that, announcing it’s shutting all strip clubs following #COVID19 clusters in those venues. The more populous province recorded 228 fewer cases than Quebec on Friday.
7) Montreal’s director of public health, Dr. Mylène Drouin, revealed Friday the city is battling 75 active #COVID19 outbreaks, up from 53 on Monday. Let that sink in: almost two dozen more outbreaks have erupted in the metropolis in the past five days alone.
8) The city posted its second highest number of #COVID19 cases on Friday since May 23, when Montreal was still very much in the throes of the #pandemic’s first wave. See the chart below. Montreal’s rolling seven-day average has risen to 78.71 cases per million population.
9) Meanwhile, the number of city schools where at least one student or employee tested positive for the #coronavirus has surged by at least 106 in the past three weeks. Parents and students are complaining that some schools are suppressing the number of cases. See the map below.
10) At the neighborhood level, Montreal North, the so-called “epicenter of the epicenter,” added 33 #COVID19 cases Friday. Close behind is the centre of the city — Côte-des-Neiges, downtown and Parc-Extension — with 32 cases. Take a look at the chart below.
11) The #pandemic is once again pressuring Montreal hospitals directly and indirectly. Ace reporters @ThomasGerbet and @gentiled1 of Radio-Canada are reporting that Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital has closed at least a dozen cancer beds because of a shortage of nurses.
12) The nursing “hemorrhage,” as one prominent nurse has described it, was foreseen by authorities. The government anticipated the resurgent problem of ER overcrowding. (See below). Yet it spent the summer lull reopening bars and increasing the size of public gatherings to 250.
13) Over the summer, Quebec declared nearly half of Canada’s #COVID19 fatalities, as @Patrickdery has noted. On Friday, Montreal added one more to a monumental death toll of 3,478. Let not their deaths be in vain. End of thread. Please stay safe and practice #SocialDistancing.
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.