Coronavirus live updates: As pandemic drags on, Quebec City banks on Christmas lights to boost spirits
Hospitalizations, ICU admissions drop as Quebec reports 905 new cases, 12 more deaths.
Author of the article:
Andy Riga
Publishing date:
Oct 23, 2020 • • 9 minute read
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Check this post throughout the day on Friday, Oct. 23. Questions/comments: ariga@postmedia.com
Top updates
- Start following directives or risk losing health services, Guilbault tells Quebec City
- Canada to invest up to $173 million in made-in-Quebec vaccine
- Hospitalizations drop as Quebec reports 905 new cases, 12 more deaths
- COVID-19 forces Le Château to seek creditor protection
- Opinion: My parents survived the Holocaust — I can get through a pandemic
- As workplace outbreaks flare, Quebec sends in more inspectors
- Subscribe to our nightly coronavirus newsletter
2: 40 p.m.
As pandemic drags on, Quebec City banks on Christmas lights to boost spirits
In a video posted on his Facebook page today, Quebec City Mayor Régis Labeaume says he has a plan to boost spirits as the pandemic drags on and the days get shorter.
It involves the city buying extra Christmas decorations and decorating streets early this year, he said.
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“What I’m suggesting to everybody is: start installing your Christmas decorations now so that when children go out they feel some festiveness, that there’s some happiness in their heads… and you will feel like going out for a walk.”
He said it’s not much but “we have to fight the darkness.”
Les décorations d’Halloween font sourire, elles changent le mal de place, alors pourquoi ne pas mettre les décorations de Noël un peu plus tôt cette année, c’est ce que nous ferons à la Ville. Je suis persuadé que les lumières et la couleur des ornements peuvent pallier à l’aspect maussade de novembre et son manque de clarté. C’est une idée que je vous propose, j’espère que vous serez nombreux à embarquer. Salut!
Posted by Régis Labeaume on Friday, October 23, 2020
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2: 25 p.m.
Ottawa sends first rapid tests to Ontario; unclear when Quebec will get delivery
Canadian public health officials say the first rapid screening tests have been sent to Ontario, even though Quebec has more reported cases, La Presse Canadienne is reporting.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Friday that Canada had received “hundreds of thousands” of rapid tests from pharmaceutical company Abbott that are to be distributed nationwide. Two trucks carrying tests have already arrived in Ontario, he said.
Dr Howard Njoo, deputy administrator of the Public Health Agency of Canada, was unable to explain why Quebec had been given priority.
“With what is happening on the ground in Ontario, we decided to send the first shipment of rapid tests to Ontario. But it is sure that with the other deliveries, there will be (…) enough rapid tests for all the provinces and territories,” he said at a press conference.
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2: 05 p.m.
Start following directives or risk losing health services, Guilbault tells Quebec City
Start following health directives more closely or some health services will have to be cut, Deputy Premier Geneviève Guilbault told residents of the Quebec City and Chaudière-Appalaches regions on Friday afternoon.
She said there has been a loosening of adherence to public health rules in the regions in recent weeks, leading to a surge in new infections.
“If we do not get our act together quickly, we will expose ourselves to the possibility that citizens will not receive care in certain circumstances,” Guilbault told a press conference in Quebec City.
“If we keep on the same track, we are going straight into a wall. The health care system will not even be able to take care of you anymore in some cases.”
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She said that could lead to delays in hip replacement and cancer diagnoses, for example.
“As long as COVID-19 cases remain this high we are on the brink of a service breakdown,” she said. “We are at a critical moment.”
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Quebec City Mayor Régis Labeaume, who took part in the press conference, added: “We are a tipping point.”
Many people in his city are fed up with the pandemic, Labeaume said, but “we have to be more vigilant, we have to think about it 24 hours a day and it’s not going to go away just like that.
“We have to stay together, help each other, and to succeed we have to be strong as a community.”
In Quebec City, known as the Capitale-Nationale region, there has been a big increase in cases since the end of August, the province says.
The number of outbreaks has doubled since Oct. 2, from just under 80 to more than 161 at the moment. The region ranks first among the regions in terms of the number of active cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
In Chaudière-Appalaches, the area south of Quebec City, the number of cases has quadrupled compared to the first wave, and the number of deaths has increased fivefold.
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12: 55 p.m.
77 cases at Olympel meat plant
The number of infections at an Olymel slaughterhouse/meat processing plant in the Beauce has risen to 77, Radio-Canada is reporting.
12: 15 p.m.
As millionth case looms, virus tears through France faster than in spring
The coronavirus is spreading through France faster than at the peak of the first wave in spring, a government scientific advisor said on Friday, in one of the starkest alerts yet about the scale of the resurgence engulfing Europe.
Read our full story.
11: 55 a.m.
Canada to invest up to $173 million in made-in-Quebec vaccine
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada is spending up to $214 million to produce potential COVID-19 vaccines in Canada, La Presse Canadienne reports this morning.
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Up to $173 million is to go Medicago, a Quebec company, for its candidate vaccine. The funds are to be used to advance Medicago’s research and to set up a production facility in Quebec.
Trudeau said the Medicago agreement includes the rights to buy up to 76 million doses of its vaccine, if it proves safe and effective, and funding for a factory in Quebec City to produce them.
The prime minister also said more than $41 million will be invested in other vaccine candidates across Canada, of which $18.2 million will go to Vancouver-based Precision NanoSystems.
Canada has received “hundreds of thousands” of test kits from medical company Abbott to be distributed to the provinces and territories, Trudeau said.
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11: 15 a.m.
Updated charts: Quebec cases, deaths
11: 10 a.m.
Hospitalizations drop as Quebec reports 905 new cases, 12 more deaths
The number of new cases dipped below 1,000 today, with hospitalizations and ICU admissions dropping.
Quebec reported 905 infections.
Montreal added the most cases of any region – 237, followed by the Montérégie region (137) and Quebec City (117).
Twelve new deaths were reported – four over the past 24 hours, six between Oct. 16 and 21, and another two on unknown dates.
The number of hospitalizations decreased by 13 to reach 540.
Among those in hospital, 99 are in intensive care, a drop of two.
On Wednesday, 27,183 people were tested. That’s the last day for which screening data is available.
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This chart shows the seven-day trend:
10: 55 a.m.
Pandemic forces Le Château to seek creditor protection
Citing plummeting sales due to COVID-19 and the inability to refinance or be sold to a third party, clothing retailer Le Château announced today that it has filed a request for creditor protection with Quebec Superior Court in order to “ensure an orderly liquidation of its assets … and the termination of its activities.”
Read our full story.
10: 30 a.m.
Opinion: My parents survived the Holocaust — I can get through a pandemic
“The way I look at it, my parents survived the Holocaust and the Hungarian Revolution. I can get through a pandemic.”
Read Tommy Schnurmacher’s full opinion piece.
10: 25 a.m.
At current rate, hospitalizations could soon stabilize or drop – report
If the transmission rate remains unchanged, “the number of new hospitalizations in Quebec could stabilize or even begin to decrease,” according to a new report by Quebec’s institute for excellence in health and social services.
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Based on data collected up to Oct. 18, “projections do not predict that hospital capacity dedicated to COVID-19 will be exceeded over the next four weeks.”
Other key points from the report by researchers at the Institut national d’excellence en santé et en services sociaux (INESSS):
- Among new cases confirmed last week, 358 presented a high risk of hospitalization (versus 351 the previous week).
- The number of new infections was relatively stable compared to the previous week (6,895 versus 6,923).
- There was a 13-per-cent increase in the number of cases originating outside the Montreal and Quebec City regions.
“Although the latest data provided by INESSS is reassuring, I would like to point out that the situation remains fragile and that our efforts should in no way be reduced,” Health Minister Christian Dubé said.
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“This situation proves that the measures put in place so far are starting to bear fruit, but we still need to act to protect the health network. We must stay the course in the coming weeks. ”
10: 05 a.m.
Employers urged to establish clear workplace policies on telecommuting
With a record number of people working from home due to the pandemic, Quebec employers are being urged to establish clear workplace policies on telecommuting.
Such a policy could address expectations of productivity, the criteria for being required to be present in an office, employee performance evaluations, access to technical support, expenses incurred by workers, norms for the storage of personal information and the limits to how available an employee should be after their work shift.
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Read our full story.
9: 50 a.m.
Quebec has no plans to close schools: Legault
“There is no scenario that talks about the closure of our schools,” Premier François Legault said this morning in an interview with Trois-Rivières radio station 106,9 Mauricie.
9: 40 a.m.
As workplace outbreaks flare, Quebec sends in more inspectors
With workplaces emerging as important infection hotspots, Quebec says it is intensifying inspections and prevention promotion to fight the spread of COVID-19.
“The current situation calls for rapid and effective action to limit outbreaks,” the province’s workplace safety commission said in a press release.
Three hundred inspectors and 300 prevention-promotion agents will fan out across the province’s places of work, according to the Commission des normes, de l’équité, de la santé et de la sécurité du travail (CNESST).
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That includes “immediate intervention blitzes” in two particularly hard-hit areas – Quebec City and the Chaudière-Appalaches region.
The CNESST is reminding employers that they “must implement measures to identify, control and eliminate this biological risk. The recommended preventive measures are based on the principles of excluding symptomatic people from the workplace, physical distancing, hand hygiene, respiratory etiquette, as well as maintaining hygiene measures with regards to tools, frequently touched equipment and surfaces.”
Workers, for their part, have a “responsibility to take the necessary measures to protect their health, safety or physical well-being and to ensure that they do not endanger the health, safety or physical well-being of other people.”
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“The presence in the field of CNESST inspectors and prevention promotion agents will help us to curb the spread of the virus in the workplace,” Labour Minister Jean Boulet said. “This is not the time to spare our efforts in this particular context. In all workplaces, large and small, we must remain vigilant, for the health of all.”
Between March 13 and Oct. 17, CNESST inspectors have carried out more than 12,000 interventions relating to COVID-19, the agency says. It has received 3,375 complaints about workplace issues.
9: 30 a.m.
Video: Do Montrealers think we’ll be in a lockdown all winter?
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9: 20 a.m.
Quebec nurses call off overtime strike planned for this weekend
A major Quebec union of health workers has called off a work action planned for this weekend that would have seen nurses refuse to work mandatory overtime.
Read our full story.
9: 15 a.m.
Montrealers can get tested at clinics across the island
Montrealers can be screened at test centres across the island.
You can check screening clinic wait times here.
8: 45 a.m.
Quebec has reported 14,329 infections over two weeks
This was the situation across Canada as of last night, according to the Canada COVID-19 Situational Awareness Dashboard.
8: 30 a.m.
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