Tweet

Aaron Derfel

29 Oct, 10 tweets, 6 min read

1) Montreal’s #COVID19 testing positivity rate has increased to 5.6% from 5.2% last week, signalling that the #pandemic's second wave is far from over in the city. A couple of boroughs are reporting rates as high as 7.6% In this thread, I will try to explain what this means.

2) By comparison, the city of Boston’s positivity rate jumped to 5.7% last week from 4.5% a week earlier, prompting authorities to close all public schools. This raises the question as to why Quebec has not imposed more restrictions on Montreal schools.

3) On Monday, Premier François Legault did require that Grade 9 students in high schools in red zones like Montreal learn online at home one out of two days a week. Legault did so as the number of active #COVID19 cases has risen steadily in schools across the province.

4) On Wednesday, the Education Ministry reported another 50 active cases in the province, raising the total among school staff and students to 2,355. On the other hand, the number of classes shuttered due to #COVID19 exposure declined by 14 to 919. See the chart below.

5) Given that #coronavirus transmission remains elevated across the province, with all of Lanaudière added as a red zone Wednesday, one could ask the question of the Legault government: why not follow Boston’s lead for Montreal, or reduce class sizes or consider other measures?

6) In #COVID19 study published Tuesday, epidemiologist Zoë Hyde warned “we can no longer afford to overlook the role children play in transmission if we hope to contain the virus,” adding “there is clear evidence that children and schools are at risk.”
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.56…

7) Meanwhile, Montreal posted 254 #COVID19 infections Wednesday, according to the orange line in the chart below. The city’s rolling seven-day average inched up to 118.86 cases from 116.71 the day before. It’s hard to conclude the #pandemic is waning in the metropolis.

8) Indeed, in the borough of Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, community transmission of the #coronavirus remains quite high, as the chart below makes clear. Transmission is up in Montreal North, Hochelaga-Maisonneuve and Saint-Léonard, too.

@mtlgazette

9) In Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, the most populous borough with lots of public schools, the four-week positivity rate stands at 7.6%, 2% higher than the city rate. And as I’ve reported for two days now in the @mtlgazette, authorities may be underestimating those rates.

10) Finally, Montreal recorded 19 #COVID19 deaths from Oct. 13 to Monday, up from 14 in the previous two-week period. And on Wednesday, the city added another three to its pandemic death toll, now at 3,521, higher than all of Morocco (3,506). End of thread. Stay safe everyone.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

More from @Aaron_Derfel

Aaron Derfel

@Aaron_Derfel

31 Oct

1) Montreal’s public health director finally acknowledged on Friday what many suspected — that it’s the schools in the city that are witnessing the biggest increase in both #COVID19 cases and outbreaks. In this thread, I will examine the implications of this in the weeks ahead.

2) Dr. Karl Weiss, one of Quebec’s leading infectious diseases expert, suggested at the end of September that the province’s second wave was triggered by the reopening of schools. Weiss told me recently he caught a lot of flak for making that remark.

3) For weeks, public health officials maintained that #COVID19 clusters in schools were merely a reflection of what was going on in the community. But on Friday, there were more outbreaks in the city’s schools (93) than in the workplace and health-care institutions combined (85).

Read 10 tweets

Aaron Derfel

@Aaron_Derfel

30 Oct

1) Quebec Premier François Legault elaborated on Thursday about his endorsement of two tweets suggesting that Ontario might be under-reporting its #COVID19 deaths. In this thread, I will fact-check this assertion and show why it is inaccurate.

@KellyGreig

2) Legault was responding to a question by CTV Montreal reporter @KellyGreig to explain why he retweeted a couple of tweets on this issue. The first was a retweet of a comment by @EricGrenierJB, editor-in-chief of L’actualité médicale regarding one by an Ontario epidemiologist.

3) In the original tweet, epidemiologist David Fisman was alluding to a July study, titled, “An analysis of mortality in Ontario using cremation data.” Fisman tweeted there was “a LOT of excess cremations.” But Fisman did not suggest Ontario was under-reporting #COVID19 deaths.

Read 20 tweets

Aaron Derfel

@Aaron_Derfel

28 Oct

1) Montreal on Tuesday reported mixed results in the #pandemic, with #COVID19 cases increasing, but the number of outbreaks in the workplace dropping from a week ago. In this thread, I will try to make sense of these conflicting trends during the second wave.

2) The chart below released late Tuesday afternoon by the Montreal public health department shows that 196 workers have tested positive for the #coronavirus, down by 50 from Oct. 20. What’s more, the number of #COVID19 clusters has decreased by 10 to 58.

3) The workplace category that is observing the most dramatic drop (13 fewer outbreaks) includes restaurants, bars, gyms, hotels, motels and temporary employment agencies. That stands to reason, since the government closed restos, bars and gyms on Oct. 1.

Read 10 tweets

Aaron Derfel

@Aaron_Derfel

27 Oct

1) Three weeks after Quebec required high school students to wear masks all day in red zones, Premier François Legault announced Monday Grade 9 students will join those in Grades 10 and 11 in learning online at home one out of two days. In this thread, I'll examine this measure.

2) Legault held his news conference at 5 p.m. after the Education Ministry released its latest statistics revealing 52 more #COVID19 cases in schools since Friday, 11 more shuttered classes and three more schools with confirmed infections. See the chart below.

3) For its part, covidecolesquebec.org reported Monday night 32 more schools with at least one positive case among students or staff since Sunday. After the number of #COVID19 cases in schools dropped a week ago, the latest figures appear to indicate an upswing.

Read 10 tweets

Aaron Derfel

@Aaron_Derfel

26 Oct

1) Has Montreal already experienced the worst of the second wave? Is it even fair to ask this question with #COVID19 still surging in the Capitale-Nationale and Chaudière-Appalaches? In this thread, I will nonetheless attempt to provide a nuanced response.

2) Montreal on Sunday posted its lowest daily tally in 33 days, 146 new #COVID19 cases, as the descending orange line in the chart below shows. The city’s seven-day average was down to 112.48 cases per million population compared with a rate of 126.32 a week ago.

3) At the neighborhood level, Montreal’s #COVID19 hotspot in the second wave — the centre of the city, including Côte-des-Neiges, downtown and Parc-Extension — posted fewer than eight cases, while the West Island health district of Pierrefonds-Lac Saint-Louis identified far more.

Read 10 tweets

Aaron Derfel

@Aaron_Derfel

25 Oct

1) With less than a week left before the month's end, Quebec posted on Saturday more #COVID19 deaths in October (259) than the previous three months combined (229), underscoring the lethality of the #pandemic’s second wave. In this thread, I'll examine fatalities by age group.

2) First, let me emphasize that any life cut short because of #COVID19 — whatever the age — is a death that should have been prevented and is therefore tragic. But in my analysis of the data I’ve come across some noteworthy findings, which I believe are worth sharing.

3) There’s an age group that is gaining in its share of the total number of #pandemic deaths: people in their 70s. Two months ago, the 70-to-79 demographic comprised 17.9% of all such deaths. On Saturday, that share crept up to 18.2% — or 15 more deaths and 1,115 in total.

Read 9 tweets

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!