By Gordon Lambie
The 702 new cases of COVID-19 reported in the Province of Quebec on Thursday brought the total number of people infected by the virus since the start of the pandemic over the 300,000 mark. Although 300,152 people have now caught COVID-19 in the province, only 6,883 of those are considered to be currently active cases.
Thursday brought news of seven new deaths, but the total of deaths was increased by only six (to 10,576) after one previously reported death was removed for not being attributable to COVID-19.
The number of hospitalizations in the province dropped to 519, a decrease of 13; and the number of people in intensive care decreased by six, to 101.
The Province reported another 26,225 doses of vaccine administered as of 11 a.m. on Thursday, bringing the total so far to 832,469, or roughly 9.8 per cent of the total population of the province. The Estrie region, meanwhile, reported 31,596 doses administered so far. A total of 1,050,355 doses of vaccine have been received by the province of Quebec.
The number of confirmed variant cases in the province remained unchanged Thursday, at 541, although the number of presumptive cases increased by nearly 200 to 2,548. The Estrie region continues to register only nine of the confirmed cases to date, although it is impossible to know in what region a presumptive variant has been found until it is confirmed. Similarly, it remains unclear how many of either figures remain active at any given time based on the information provided by Quebec’s institute of public health, the INSPQ.
Champlain College Lennoxville confirmed to The Record that a case that is suspected to be a variant was detected within the college community. Although Campus Director Nancy Beattie was not able to provide details on the location of group within the campus community that has been affected, she said that the public health department has already been in contact with all those individuals considered to be at risk of exposure.
“All prevention and mitigation measures were deployed promptly,” Beattie said.
In the Eastern Townships six new cases were reported Thursday, but due to the withdrawal of a case previously reported in Sherbrooke, the total number of active cases only increased by five. That small increase, combined with recoveries, meant that the total number of active cases in the region decreased to 140. To date, a total of 11,832 people have been infected with the virus since the start of the pandemic.
The number of deaths in the Townships remained stable at 317, where it has been since last Sunday. The number of people in hospital due to COVID-19 decreased by five, to 12, but two new people were admitted to the region’s intensive care wards, bringing that total to four.
