As Quebec moves to ease COVID-19 restrictions, daily death toll remains in double digits

At 87 years old, Gloria Schenke had lived a full life, but her eldest son says he can't help feeling she and her family were shortchanged.

She still drove, still lived at home in Châteauguay, Que., just southwest of Montreal with his dad, her husband of 63 years, loved Christmas shopping for her grandchildren — and she'd been extremely careful throughout the pandemic, said Stephen Schenke.

But despite that, along with receiving two COVID-19 vaccines and a booster, his mom became terribly sick from the virus and died this month — making her one of more than 1,200 Quebeckers to die from COVID-19 in the past 30 days, according to the province's public health institute.

Schenke's dad also tested positive, but was asymptomatic. Due to the hospital's COVID-19 restrictions, Schenke's younger brother was the only family member at their mom's side.

"I do feel ripped off because my mother would have had another couple of good years were it not for COVID," said Schenke, who suspects she caught the virus around the same time she got her booster, maybe before her third dose had time to take effect. "Nobody should have their life shortened by something that was avoidable."

Still grieving the loss in a province where the daily COVID-19 death toll has remained in double digits throughout January, Schenke questioned the rationale behind the provincial government's Tuesday announcement that it would start loosening pandemic restrictions next week. 

He said he wondered if Quebec is easing the rules in response to mounting political pressure.

"It's like an accordion. They open, they close. They open, they close. There doesn't seem to be a baseline policy," said Schenke. "Some doctors are saying we should be more cautious."

For the past month, as COVID-19 cases have soared across the country, Quebec has the most deaths per capita related to COVID-19 of anywhere in Canada.

The government has argued that's because it counts deaths using a different methodology that detects more of the people who died than other provinces.  

Although the highly contagious Omicron variant appears to cause less severe disease, grieving families and discouraged health care workers say it continues to cause untimely deaths in Quebec and across Canada.

And unlike past waves of the virus, when the majority of deaths were in long-term care, Quebec's public health institute, the INSPQ data shows most of the people who died in this fifth wave — like Gloria Schenke — caught the virus while living at home.

WATCH | Quebec premier says province must learn to live with COVID: 

At a news conference Tuesday, Quebec Premier François Legault announced the province would begin easing some restrictions starting next Monday.