Experts laud Quebec for releasing short-term predictions on COVID-19
Epidemiologists and public-health experts applauded the Quebec government’s decision to release some short-term predictions on how COVID-19 might progress in the province, even if the numbers raise more questions than answers.
According to projections released by the Quebec government Tuesday, between 1,263 and 8,860 Quebecers could die of COVID -19 by the end of April, but considering Quebec’s actual fatality numbers to date, the curve seems to be hugging closer to the best-case scenario.
As of Tuesday, 150 Quebecers had died, a number that puts Quebec’s curve much closer to the experience in Germany — where deaths have been relatively few — than Italy, where the health-care system quickly was overwhelmed.
The real numbers seem to corroborate Premier François Legault’s optimism that Quebec may be approaching the peak in cases. Quebec Public Health is projecting that Quebec’s cases should hit a peak between April 15 and 20, then start to plateau and diminish.
Dr. Joanna Merckx, adjunct professor in the department of epidemiology at Mcgill University, noted the projections for hospitalizations and intensive care admissions show Quebecers why their efforts at self-isolation have been so crucial.
For that graph, public health compared Quebec to Italy (worst case) and Portugal ( better case) and estimated that if Quebec is following Italy’s curve, it could have more than 1,000 patients requiring treatment in intensive-care units by mid-april. As of April 6, Quebec had only 164 people in intensive care, well below the better-case scenario of the Portuguese experience and comfortably below Quebec’s existing ICU capacity of 633 beds.
“It’s clear at this point we are not going the route of Italy,” Merckx told the Montreal Gazette. “It’s clear that in Quebec, we have done a lot, and in (good) time. So we are making our own curve and we are doing everything to make it a good one.”
She said revealing these projections was a way to get the public to understand the great uncertainty involved in predicting how the new virus will progress, and that “governments need to make decisions and predictions without certainty.”
Nima Machouf, an epidemiologist and lecturer at the Université de Montréal’s School of Public Health, agreed it was time for the government to release some projections.
“This virus is invisible, the illness in half the cases is invisible because we don’t see symptoms, and we keep seeing the number of new cases growing — and yet it has been three weeks since people have had to stay in their houses,” Machouf said.
“People are starting to say, ‘This makes no sense, where are we going with this?’ So I think pedagogically, it was a very good idea to release some numbers ... We see the numbers and it’s having an effect ... It is bearing fruit, so maybe it will encourage people, mentally, to continue these measures, especially as it gets nicer outside.”
But she said comparing Quebec’s curve with Germany’s is complex and questionable, since Germany has tested much more aggressively than any other jurisdiction. She also noted that Quebec’s death rate is actually substantially higher at this point than the German scenario.
She said Quebecers should brace for a jump in death rate coming up, since Quebec is now concentrating its testing on an older population, whereas at first travellers were the focus. She said deaths from COVID-19 occur, on average, 19 days after diagnosis, and many cases have been detected recently in long-term care facilities and seniors’ homes.
“What may be comforting is that we will have this higher number of deaths at a time when the number of new cases is diminishing, so mentally we will be able to cope with it,” she said.
We are making our own curve and we are doing everything to make it a good one.