Quebec Premier François Legault announced on Tuesday that Montreal and Laval will move from red to orange zones on June 7, as the government continues to gradually loosen COVID-19 public health measures across the province.
Quebec is reporting 288 new COVID-19 cases Wednesday as the province also saw significant drop in hospitalizations.
Wednesday marks the third day that the daily tally of infections is under 300 as the number of new cases falls to levels not seen since last September.
There are five additional deaths attributable to the pandemic, but none of them took place in the past 24-hour period. Four Quebecers died last week while a fifth fatality stems from an unknown date.
The province administered another 70,847 doses of the novel coronavirus vaccine for more than 5.7 million to date.
Health Minister Christian Dubé says the province is about 54,000 shots away from reaching its goal of offering a first dose to 5.3 million Quebecers. The target date for that plan had been recently bumped up to June 15 from June 24.
“Thank you to the teams who work tirelessly to vaccinate as many Quebecers as possible, as quickly as possible,” he wrote on Twitter.
Meanwhile, hospitalizations related to the health crisis fell again by 14 to 340. This includes 77 patients in intensive care units, a decrease of nine from the previous day.
Authorities say 27,305 tests were given Monday, the latest day for which screening information is available.
Over the course of the pandemic, the province has seen 370,815 cases and 11,138 deaths, though recoveries now top 356,000.
