1) As the #pandemic’s second wave shows signs of subsiding in Quebec during the nightly curfew, authorities are already bracing for the prospect of a third wave, with the confirmation of three more #coronavirus variants in the province on Tuesday.
2) Dr. Michel Roger, head of Quebec’s #coronavirus tracking program, told me he was worried about the impact of a variant-fueled third wave on the province’s testing capacity. “If there is a third wave with the variants, it will be difficult,” Roger said. montrealgazette.com/news/quebec/qu…
3) Meanwhile, #COVID19 was trending downward Tuesday in all categories except in schools. The Education Ministry reported the temporary closing of eight more schools since last Friday, suggesting transmission remains elevated in this sector. 
4) I asked Roger whether authorities planned to screen schools for the three variants: B117, B1351 and P1. This is how he responded: “We will sequence as a priority the samples in schools as well.” Let’s hope it’s not too late to detect potential variants in classrooms.
5) After an uptick on Monday, Montreal hospitals reported that the number of #COVID19 hospitalizations dipped by nine to 487 on Tuesday. But emergency-room overcrowding remained a problem in the #pandemic, as you can glimpse from the chart below.
6) Following the usual low weekend #COVID19 testing, Montreal posted 381 cases on Tuesday. The city’s seven-day rolling average dipped to 23.37 infections per 100,000 residents. That’s down from a high of 50.64 per 100,000 on Jan. 9, the day the curfew kicked in across Quebec.
7) At the neighborhood level, transmission of the #coronavirus remained elevated in Saint-Léonard and the centre of the city, but much lower than a month ago. On Jan. 9, Saint-Léonard reported 659.7 active #COVID19 cases per 100,000 residents. On Tuesday, that rate was 412.4.
8) Montreal added a dozen #COVID19 fatalities Tuesday to a death toll of 4,395. There are signs that the number of deaths is trending downward, but the province is still declaring about 30 a day, still a tragically high number. Please see the chart below.
9) In the U.S., B117 cases are doubling every 10 days. California has its own variant, blamed for the surge in Los Angeles when some hospitals ran out of oxygen. Quebec now has confirmation of both those variants, plus the one that originated in South Africa.
10) It’s in this context of more transmissible variants lurking in Quebec that retail stores reopened on Monday. And in two weeks’ time, Quebec will hold its annual March break. Recall what happened after last year’s March break. End of thread. Please limit your social contacts.
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