Legault prepares Quebecers for end to lockdown
Premier emphasizes reopenings will ‘proceed gradually’
Premier François Legault has started to prepare Quebecers mentally for the gradual lifting of the province’s lockdown, including the likelihood of reopening schools and daycares before the summer.
On the day Quebec topped 1,000 COVID -19 deaths, Legault made a point Tuesday of specifying that most of the losses have been in seniors’ residences (840 deaths out of 1,041), which means many other areas of society remain relatively untouched.
That includes the vast majority of Quebec’s CHSLDS and private residences. Of 2,600, 80 have been labelled as COVID-19 hot zones — which is, nevertheless, twice as many as a week earlier.
Legault insisted that despite the growing mortality rate and increasing number of confirmed cases — which now stands at 20,126 — Quebec is on track to meet the best-case projection, as opposed to the pessimistic Italian model. The average over the last week has been 87 deaths a day.
He said his appeal for more workers to help look after the elderly is paying off. Quebec has managed to fill half of the 2,000 job vacancies in long-term care residences. The rest should find takers by the end of Wednesday.
Doctors, medical students, nurses and even bureaucrats — some of whom are from regions that are not affected by the virus — are arriving in residences ready to help, Legault said. Canadian Army medical troops are also present.
Once Quebec gets the residence situation under control — which Legault estimates will take about two weeks — the government will move forward.
Opening up schools and businesses in regions less affected by the virus while keeping Montreal locked down is a possible scenario, he said.
“What we’re looking at now is a gradual reopening,” Legault said at his daily pandemic briefing. “In the coming weeks and months, we will gradually open the economy, daycares, schools. I am in the process of consulting my caucus plus the three leaders of the opposition, who are consulting their MNAS.
“The idea is to not precipitate anything, but to proceed gradually. The key criteria is health. I want everyone to feel safe. As I said, it’s not a good idea to return everyone at the same time.
“I don’t think it would be a good idea to wait until Sept. 1 to return one million children to schools.”
Legault agreed that such a massive influx of people could spark an even worse second wave of COVID -19, as happened when the world battled the Spanish flu in 1918.
He added Quebec does not envision summer school for students, which suggests schools might be reopened for a short period but not into July and August.
Legault, however, continues to be dogged by questions about whether Quebec’s notoriously top-heavy and slow-moving health bureaucracy is responding to his orders fast enough.
For example, in the wake of the disaster at Dorval’s Résidence Herron, he announced all seniors’ homes had been inspected, only to discover two days later that had not happened.
There has also been confusion with medical specialists offering help but not being called by the ministry.
Radio-canada reported that Quebec’s decision to delay non-urgent operations to free up beds in hospitals has sparked an increase of collateral deaths due to other ailments, such as heart disease.
Irritated, Legault responded he was clear from the start that was not supposed to happen.
On Tuesday, he again tried to shake the ministry up, appointing a second senior bureaucrat in two weeks from outside to get the machine moving.
But lifting the lockdown, even partially, raises a whole other series of questions. Horacio Arruda, Quebec’s director of public health, said Tuesday he is preparing a video on the correct use of protective masks. “We are probably going to recommend, if the distancing of two metres is not possible, that people wear masks,” Arruda said. “I think people who are using public transit will have to wear masks.”
Arruda’s views on masks have evolved. At the start of the pandemic’s arrival in Quebec, he was not recommending masks, because he said they create a false sense of security for users.
Health Minister Danielle Mccann, trying to explain the level of absenteeism in the health network, said Tuesday nurses and orderlies who are away because they fear the virus should know conditions have been vastly improved, with plenty of protective gear.
There was also a development on the question of the government-produced COVID-19 selfcare guide, which was mailed to households in French only.
Now English versions will be mailed to citizens who fill out their income tax returns in English.