Impose `circuit-breaker lockdown' after weekend COVID-19 surge, expert urges
Quebec should impose a “circuit-breaker lockdown” of two to three weeks — closing schools and the workplace — to counter the latest surge in the pandemic, suggests a Montreal infectious-disease specialist after the province reported dramatic increases over the weekend in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.
Dr. Matthew Oughton, an associate professor in Mcgill University's medical school, warned the record 2,031 COVID-19 cases in Quebec on Saturday and 1,691 infections on Sunday should served as a wake-up call to authorities. The province's hospitals were also treating 788 patients, 102 of whom were receiving intensive care on Sunday.
“What we've been doing now after 10 weeks of the current level of restrictions is clearly not working,” Oughton said. “What I'm worried about is we're sort of cruising along doing these partial lockdowns and we're not getting any measurable benefit out of doing that.
“There are more and more indicators that we are gradually becoming more and more like the first wave,” he added. “And as the weather gets colder and as more people spend time indoors, we will see further increases in community transmission if we don't do anything.”
Oughton recommends Quebec enforce another general lockdown, albeit one much shorter than last spring, perhaps running from Dec. 18 to Jan. 8.
“There's no better time to do this than during the upcoming few weeks when all schools are going to be closed and most businesses will either be closed or have reduced hours. This would be the time to really make a serious dent in viral transmission.”
Neither Premier François Legault nor Health Minister Christian Dubé have broached the idea of another major lockdown. On Sunday, Dubé urged Quebecers to continue their efforts to limit their social contacts.
Last week, Legault ruled out Christmas gatherings in red zones like Montreal because of rising infections, hospitalizations and deaths. Saturday's increase in cases was the highest single-day tally for the province since the pandemic began, surpassing the previous record of 1,514 cases on Dec. 2.
However, the Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ) cautioned that a portion of
Saturday's total included cases from the previous day that hadn't been recorded in time. Despite the INSPQ'S caveat, Oughton said the province crossed a worrisome psychological threshold Saturday with more than 2,000 cases.
“Two thousand cases is an important psychological barrier because we never had a day like that in this province or anywhere else in the country, but honestly, whether it's 2,000 or 1,900 makes very little difference.”
Quebec's pandemic death toll climbed by 48 fatalities Saturday and 24 Sunday to reach 7,255.
Although Montreal's COVID-19 command centre has set aside 1,000 hospital beds (of which 150 are for ICU patients), the city's health system is beset with a shortage of nurses.
“As much as we look at the number of ICU beds, that's really only a part of the picture because it doesn't do any good to have the physical beds if you don't have the staff or you do have the staff but they're burned out after working full tilt since March,” said Oughton, who is also an attending physician at the Jewish General Hospital.