COVID-19 in Quebec: What you need to know Monday
CBC
*The new cases are those reported to the Quebec government only. They are believed to be an underrepresentation of the virus's spread, given the limited availability of PCR tests and use of home testing kits.
*Quebec's Health Ministry announced it will no longer report its COVID-19 numbers on the weekend.
The province's public health director held a rare Sunday news conference, where he urged Quebecers to exercise more caution in the face of a potential sixth wave of COVID-19.
Dr. Luc Boileau came short of confirming another pandemic wave of infections, but said the spike in cases in recent weeks driven by the Omicron subvariant BA.2 suggests one is imminent.
He said the BA.2 variant could soon be responsible for at least two thirds of COVID-19 cases in Quebec.
Despite several regions having seen a surge in cases, including Montreal, Quebec has no plans to reintroduce public health restrictions from previous waves, Boileau said.
The province is still planning to all but eliminate mandatory masking by mid-April.
Simon Bacon, a professor in behavioural medicine at Concordia University, said the government is sending mixed signals.
"I think it's the contradiction that people pick up on," he said. "So we're removing restrictions, we're about to hit a sixth wave. So what that tells most people is that cases will go up, but that's not really important."
Benoit Barbeau, a virologist at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), says Quebec will experience a similar situation to countries such as France and the United Kingdom, where cases have risen sharply, exacerbated by the highly contagious Omicron subvariant, known as BA.2.
"We see what's happening in Europe," said Barbeau, in an interview with Radio-Canada. "We are going to live through this too.
Barbeau said it remains to be seen how intense the rise in cases will be, but said Quebecers should not automatically expect that each successive wave will be weaker than the last.
"That's not necessarily the trajectory that the virus will take. We could perhaps have another variant that is more dangerous," he said.
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