On Friday, Quebec health officials started to implement new guidelines for defining recoveries, which is in line with what other provinces have followed. Instead of requiring a negative test to declare a recovery, cases will now be marked resolved 14 to 28 days after the patient was initially diagnosed. The duration is based on factors such as if they’re immunocompromised or if they’re at least 80 years old.
Because of the revision, Quebec added 23,686 recovered patients to its tally of 49,939 on Friday. They are among the province’s 57,142 cases throughout the pandemic. The death toll is 5,647, which is up by one since Thursday, while there now remain 1,556 active cases in Quebec.
As of 11 a.m. on Friday, there have been 109,518 cases of COVID-19 in Canada, which includes 8,837 deaths and 96,623 recoveries. There are 4,058 active cases nationwide, compared to the 27,603 active cases there were a day earlier (down by 85 per cent).
On Friday, Quebec health officials announced 141 new cases of COVID-19, marking the second straight day that it has recorded over 140 cases, and the sixth straight day it has surpassed 100.
Before the recent stretch, it had not recorded at least 140 cases since June 25. Between June 26 and July 11, it stayed below 100 daily cases except on two occasions.
On Friday, Premier François Legault said that Quebec won’t close bars, a day after officials said they were considering the move. He said of the 141 recently identified cases, 97 of them involve health-care workers.
“The problem isn’t in bars, it’s in private gatherings,” Legault said, noting that private parties and barbecues are a bigger cause of concern. Under Quebec rules, both indoor and outdoor gathering must be limited to a maximum of 10 people.
On July 11, Quebec officials asked anyone who’s been to a Montreal bar since Canada Day to get tested for COVID-19. As of Wednesday evening, at least 45 cases have been linked to 14 venues.
Quebec’s testing numbers are reflective of its outputs from two days prior. In its latest 24-hour stretch, the province completed 14,344 tests for COVID-19, which is its highest output since May 27, and above its goal of 14,000.
Montreal remains the epicentre with 27,863 total cases, up by 76 since Thursday. But the spread of COVID-19 continues to gain pace in other parts of the province, in some cases in connection to bars and parties. The Montérégie region has 8,311 cases (up by 33), Lanaudière has 4,345 (up by 12), Laurentides region has 3,651 (up by seven), Laval has 5,895 (up by nine).
Of the 1,556 active cases that remain in Quebec, there are 260 people in hospital (down by 17) and 16 in intensive care (down by four).
