Health officials in Québec have identified 216 new cases of COVID-19 in their latest 24-hour stretch, the most since June 7.
It comes a day after the province recorded 205 cases. It’s now the 10th straight reporting period that the province has recorded over 100 cases. Before the recent stretch, it had stayed below that mark on 14 of its last 18 occasions.
Of the most recent cases, 63 were identified in the Montréal region, 51 in the Québec City region, 34 in the Montérégie region, and 18 each in the Laval and Lanaudière regions.
The recent amount of daily cases by Montréal and Québec City are more than what Saskatchewan (34), Prince Edward Island (three), Nova Scotia (two), Newfoundland and Labrador (one) and New Brunswick (one) combined to report all of last week (41).
Québec health minister Christian Dubé said on Aug. 25 that Quebec should not go beyond 160 cases per day, which works out to about 20 cases per one million residents. It’s now eclipsed that mark on five straight occasions.
The recent update is part of a concerning trend for the province, considering it’s now navigating the COVID-19 pandemic at the same time as its school reopening plan.
On Friday, Québec health officials released a list of 46 schools that have had a case of COVID-19 among either students or staff members throughout the first week of reopening. However, Dubé said there have been no outbreaks, and instead in most instances the school has had an isolated case involving an individual who was infected outside of the school setting.
For example, on Wednesday, health officials announced that a karaoke bar outbreak in Québec City resulted in 40 infected patrons, leading to secondary spread among three students in three different schools.
Throughout the pandemic, Quebec has led the way with 63,713 total cases of COVID-19. Eighty-nine more patients have recovered in the province’s latest 24-hour stretch. No one has died, but officials added one more fatality to its death toll of 5,770, which occurred between Aug. 31-Sept. 5.
There are now 1,983 active cases of COVID-19 in Quebec, the most of any province in Canada. According to Steve Faguy of the Montreal Gazette, it’s now the ninth straight day that the province’s active case count has risen — most recently by 126.
