Three weeks after Omicron appeared in Quebec, it now makes up 80 per cent of cases

Quebec only detected its first Omicron case on Nov. 29, but the new variant already accounts for about 80 per cent of the province's cases, the public health authorities announced Tuesday.

In fact, that rise to dominance happened even more quickly when you look at specific milestones over that period, wrote the Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ) in an overview of its efforts to keep up with the pace of the spread.

An "unfinished" Dec. 14 screening project found Omicron to be "at least" 28 per cent of cases at that point, the institute wrote.

The organization quickly moved on anyway to a new screening strategy and a week later, is estimating that Omicron has already reached the 80 per cent level.

Its new lab-testing strategy "reveals very rapid progression of the Omicron variant, with a prevalence of around 80 per cent, barely three weeks after the first confirmed case in Quebec," the INSPQ wrote.