1) COVID-19 appeared to be surging in the east end of Montreal on Wednesday in a manner not even observed during the first wave of the #pandemic. In this thread, I will try to shed light on what may be going on in the metropolis amid the resurgence.
2) In the chart below, you will note a significant increase in the number of cases among three health districts in the East End of Montreal Island, with a combined total of 39 new #COVID19 positive test results. That compares with only three cases on the West Island.
3) This is an inversion from what occurred during the beginning of the first wave of the #pandemic when #COVID19 erupted in the Centre-West of Montreal in the municipality of Côte Saint-Luc and the borough of Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.
4) If you look at the map below — courtesy of covidecolesquebec.org — you will observe far more schools in the Centre and East End of the metropolis that are declaring confirmed cases of #COVID19 among students and staff than on the West Island.
5) What’s driving the increase in the East End? Are more East End residents getting tested for #COVID19? Is it because the East End is more densely populated than the West Island? It’s hard to answer these questions, especially given this is a new trend, but it's worth noting.
6) The picture is less clear among long-term care centres (CHSLDs) and seniors’ residences (RPAs). A total of nine elderly residents are infected with #COVID19 in the East End compared with seven on the West Island. Another 13 cases are concentrated in the centre of the city.
6) Meanwhile, Montreal posted 97 #COVID19 cases on Wednesday. The last time the city recorded the same number was all the way back on June 6, at the very end of the first wave of the #pandemic. Please see the rising orange line in the chart below.
7) Let's turn away now from Montreal to regions where the #coronavirus is also proliferating, possibly more so than in the metropolis. Much has been reported about Quebec City’s outbreaks, but two other regions are of great concern: Bas-Saint-Laurent and Chaudière-Appalaches.
8) Bas-Saint-Laurent’s rolling seven-day average on Wednesday was 11 cases per 100,000 population, a threshold that’s high enough to trigger being declared a red zone, according to one of the criteria that analyst @Patrickdery revealed the government has been considering.
9) The situation is even worse in Chaudière-Appalaches, with a rate of 37.19 cases per 100,000 population. Of course, case incidence is not the sole criterion to declare a region a red zone, but this demonstrates how the #coronavirus is truly spreading all over the province.
10) What’s also spreading all over the province is ER overcrowding. (See the chart below.) The #COVID19 resurgence is now occurring across Canada, with Ontario poised to announce a reduction in the size of public gatherings. Perhaps Quebec should do the same. End of thread.
Addendum: Thanks to @Patrickdery for pointing this out. I must correct an error for Bas-Saint-Laurent. Its rate should be 9.64 cases per 100,000 residents, just below the red-zone criterion. I incorrectly reported 11 cases per 100,000, another stat from my notes. My apologies.
Another correction: Chaudière-Appalaches's rate is actually 4.59 cases per 100,000 residents, compared with 2.94 in Montreal. I based my population figure on a district of that region, not the whole region. Will have to triple check these figures in the future. My apologies.
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1) BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: Record numbers of Quebec heart patients are dying while waiting for their surgery. This crisis has become exacerbated as the newly-created Santé Québec and the provincial health ministry squabble over jurisdiction. My exposé below.👇 montrealgazette.com/news/health/ar…
2) Yet the health ministry appears to be downplaying this crisis, claiming hearts surgeons' warnings amount to a bargaining tactic. The facts show the problem has been growing worse. Nearly two-thirds of heart patients now wait past medically acceptable delays. See below. 👇
3) As the orange line in the chart below indicates, the number of cardiac patients waiting beyond medically acceptable delays is rising, and the blue line shows the number undergoing life-saving operations on time is declining. The chilling result: more and more sudden deaths.
1) Author @GadSaad, who has taken an unpaid leave from Concordia University, has just written this commentary in the New York Post, headlined: "How Montreal became the antisemitism capital of North America." Here are my thoughts on this topic.
2) Obviously, it's debatable as to whether Montreal is indeed the antisemitism capital of the continent. As many Jews are painfully aware, antisemitism sadly exists everywhere. But recent events in Montreal have caused many Jews here to feel unsafe. montrealgazette.com/news/local-new…
3) A friend just sent this text: "Recently, several of my Jewish friends - lifelong Montrealers - have made the difficult decision to leave the city. They’re not leaving for better opportunities or a change of scenery, but because they and their children no longer feel safe...+"
1) BREAKING: The lengthy #COVID19 summer wave is continuing unabated in Quebec, along with other parts of North America and even around the world. Here in Quebec, it has been associated directly and indirectly with 1,100 hospitalizations for the past 12 days in a row.
2) As you can glimpse from the chart below, the #COVID testing positivity rate in Quebec was 20.9 per cent as of Aug. 11, the most recent date available. The trend line suggests the positivity rate has yet to peak.
3) Although nowhere near as fatal as it was back in 2020 (when vaccination was unavailable), #COVID this year has nonetheless been linked to 675 deaths, 38.7 per cent of which have occurred in octogenarians. But 30 Quebecers in their 50s have also died from #COVID in 2023-2024.
1) On Tuesday, the Quebec government unveiled its 2024-2025 budget, with the biggest expenditure to be made on health and social services. In this Twitter thread, I assess whether this "Health/Education Priorities" budget lives up to its hype, especially when it comes to seniors.
2) As you can see from the chart below, the lion's share of spending in the budget is for health and social services, pegged at $61.9 billion — up by 4.17% from the year before. In contrast, spending on education — so vital to Quebec's future — will rise 9.35% to $22.3 billion.
3) But as far as health and social services is concerned, Tuesday's budget may be indulging in a bit of spin. The chart below states that Quebec will spend an extra $3.7 billion over the next five years to "support a humane and effective organization of health care."
1) "The pandemic is far from over," one of the preeminent experts on #COVID19, Dr. Eric Topol, declared today, Jan. 4, 2024 — three years after the world first learned of a novel virus that was killing people in China. In this thread, I take stock of what's going on in Quebec.
2) "The pandemic is far from over, as evidenced by the rapid rise to global dominance of the JN.1 variant of SARS-CoV-2," Topol noted in a Los Angeles Times op-ed. In Quebec, nearly one in two genetic samples collected was from JN.1 as of two weeks ago. It's likely higher now.
3) "Clearly this virus variant, with its plethora of new mutations, has continued its evolution ... for infecting or reinfecting us," Topol added. Although the updated booster is considered 60% protective against hospitalization, only 17% of the Quebec population has taken it.
1) BREAKING: By every major indicator, Quebec's health-care system is now arguably the worst it's ever been. Please click on my story below on Quebec wait lists for cancer and other surgery setting record highs — again. via @mtlgazettemontrealgazette.com/news/local-new…
2) Although Quebec has made it a priority to tackle wait lists for cancer surgery, more than 4,400 oncology patients are still waiting for their operations. More than 600 are waiting longer than the medically acceptable delay of 57 days, potentially putting their health at risk.
3) Even the wait list for so-called non-urgent surgery has now swelled to nearly 164,000 people. Almost 14,000 Quebecers today have been waiting more than a year for their surgery. At a year's wait, a non-urgent surgery starts to become urgent.