Thread by @Aaron_Derfel

1) Quebec’s Health Minister expressed concern on Sunday that 58% of new cases across the province are being identified in people under the age of 40 in the third wave. In this thread, I will show how #COVID19 hospitalizations are occurring here in younger age groups, too.

2) Quebec on Sunday posted a total of 608 #COVID19 hospitalizations, up by 25 since Saturday. The chart below shows that 10 of those hospitalizations occurred in Quebecers in their 30s. Still, the predominant group are those in their 60s, 20 years younger than in the first wave.

3) This is happening for two reasons. Many Quebecers in their 80s and 90s have already been vaccinated against #COVID19, although a good number are still being hospitalized for the #pandemic illness, as the chart below reveals.

4) The more transmissible B.1.1.7 variant — now circulating widely in Quebec — was found in a Danish study to pose a hospitalization risk that’s 64% higher than the older so-called wild type strains. In Brazil, the P.1 strain has led to most ICU stays occurring in those under 40.

5) Quebec posted an increase of 728 variant cases Sunday for a cumulative total of 16,173. Montreal posted the biggest increase by far, 388, suggesting the third wave is rising in the city. Authorities have yet to make public the genetic sequencing of thousands of variant cases.

6) To date, nearly 90% of the variants sequenced in Quebec have turned out to be of the B.1.1.7 lineage. The next most common strain is B.1.351, which first arose in South Africa. It’s been detected in seven regions and comprises 9.64% of all sequenced cases in Quebec.

7) Since B.1.351 has been shown to be resistant to the AstraZeneca vaccine, authorities are not administering it in the hot spot of Abitibi-Témiscamingue, which has 128 such cases. A new Israeli study has found that this variant may evade the Pfizer vaccine, too.

8) Meanwhile, Montreal’s seven-day rolling average of #COVID19 cases per 100,000 residents rose to 17.10 on Sunday from 15.48 on April 1, another sign that the third wave is rising in the city. Please take a glimpse of the chart below.

9) At the neighborhood level, the east end of the city has been responsible for most #COVID19 cases as well as hospitalizations in the past seven days. The number of hospitalizations at Santa Cabrini Hospital near Saint-Léonard has nearly doubled to 33 in a week.

10) On Saturday, health professionals administered just over 9,000 vaccines in Montreal, down from the record of more than 15,000 the day before. To date, 26.37% of the city’s population has been partially inoculated. That compares with 20.34% in the Capitale-Nationale.

11) Finally, as Montreal was to return to an 8 p.m. curfew on Sunday, the province added five #COVID19 fatalities to a death toll of 10,742, representing 46.08% of all such deaths in Canada. End of thread. Please limit your social contacts and wear a mask in public.