1) Although Quebec observed its fourth daily decline in new #COVID19 cases on Tuesday, the pandemic is beginning to take a toll on the acute-care hospital system, schools and the workplace. In this thread, I will examine those impacts in the provincial capital and in Montreal.
2) After treating relatively few #COVID19 patients in August and September, the McGill University Health Centre is now grappling with a resurgence, as the chart below makes clear. Total hospitalizations have crept up to 21, along with intensive-care stays at six. 
3) In the provincial capital, the CHU de Québec hospital network announced Tuesday afternoon that it has no choice but to proceed with délastage, purposely ramping down as many as 300 elective surgeries and 6,000 appointments per week because of an influx of 61 #COVID19 patients.
4) Since hospitalizations are a lagging indicator of positive cases, the province can expect more hospitalizations to come. During the #pandemic's first wave, Quebec City hospitals treated one-third of those currently being hospitalized, and the second wave is far from over.
5) In Montreal, the public health department released a detailed report Tuesday afternoon revealing a total of 65 #COVID19 outbreaks infecting 230 workers. That compares with 51 workplace clusters affecting 159 workers only six days earlier. Please see the chart below.
6) Meanwhile, two Montreal educational institutions, Collège Pasteur and Loyola High School, are closed for two weeks following #COVID19 outbreaks. Active cases have been observed in at least 132 schools in Montreal, down from 156 last week, according to covidecolesquebec.org.
7) Sadly, the Education Ministry didn't provide its daily update Tuesday on the number of shuttered classes or active cases among students. Neither did the Health Ministry nor the Montreal public health department release their daily regional and neighborhood #COVID19 breakdowns.
8) Thus, the only figures one can analyse are the provincial ones showing that new #COVID19 cases dropped to 815 Tuesday from 843 the day before, amid a marked decrease in testing. Hospitalizations, however, rose by 11, and the number of deaths by five.
9) For its part, the metropolis reported 268 #COVID19 cases on Tuesday, according to the apparently plateauing orange line in the chart below. The city’s rolling seven-day average was up slightly at 150.14 cases per million population, still a distressingly high rate.
10) Premier François Legault suggested Tuesday that the partial confinement measures imposed three weeks ago are beginning to pay off. That may be so, but given the drop-off in #COVID19 tests, the province will have to wait a bit longer to confirm a true trend. End of thread.
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