Thread by @Aaron_Derfel

1) Quebec declared 16 more #COVID19 fatalities Thursday, raising the province’s death toll to 5,850. Premier François Legault cited the upswing in deaths as one of the signs the #pandemic has reached a critical point. In this thread, I will try to explain what this signifies.

2) First, Thursday’s tally of #COVID19 deaths is far from the more than 140 a day the province was recording during the peak of the #pandemic's first wave. Still, it’s noteworthy because the last time Quebec posted a higher total was more than two months ago, on July 3, with 19.

3) In recent days, it’s Quebec City and not Montreal that's been observing more #COVID19 deaths. On Thursday, the metropolis added one fatality to a #pandemic death toll that's climbed to 3,481, greater than Switzerland's (2,074), which has roughly the same population as Quebec.

4) As for the province, the Institut national de santé publique has calculated Quebec has surpassed Spain with a #COVID19 mortality rate of 685.81 deaths per million population. By comparison, the #pandemic mortality rate in the United States is 625 per million inhabitants.

5) The latest data by the INSPQ show that most of those dying from #COVID19 were in their 80s and 90s, which was the case back during the first wave. A few individuals in their 70s have died, too. On Aug. 16, 19-year-old Béni Kabangu Nsapu died, Quebec's youngest #COVID19 death.

6) Given that most of those who are now testing positive from #COVID19 are in their 20s, it’s unlikely that in the short term, Quebec will witness a surge in deaths similar to what occurred during the first wave. But that could soon change if hospitalizations start creeping up.

7) Those hospitalizations would first start with infections, and on Thursday, Montreal posted 319 #COVID cases, as the climbing orange line in the chart below shows. The city’s rolling seven-day average rose to 138.14 cases per million population, up from 132.15 the day before.

8) At the neighborhood level, the health district of Côte-des-Neiges, downtown and Parc-Extension in the centre of the city continues to dominate in the number of daily cases. (See below.) This district also includes the municipality of Outremont, which is surging with #COVID19.

9) For two weeks in a row, Outremont has been reporting a second wave of #COVID19 cases that appears to be greater than the first wave, with most of the infections coming from the community. See the chart below. This obviously warrants more attention by authorities.

10) The twists and turns of this #pandemic are impossible to foresee, but one thing's certain: #COVID19 is hitting Quebec harder than any other province, as epidemiology PhD student Jean-Paul R. Soucy confirms in his latest observations. End of thread.