Townshippers urged to be cautious as case numbers rise
François Bonnardel, the minister responsible for the Estrie administrative region with Dr. Alain Poirier, the regional public health director.
François Bonnardel, the minister responsible for the Estrie administrative region, was in Sherbrooke on Thursday to urge caution in the community regarding COVID-19. Despite the launch, this week, of the vaccination campaign for 5-11-year-olds, the minister said that the situation in the Townships is “serious” and degenerating at a time when areas elsewhere in the province are considered to be relatively stable.
“The consistent increase in cases in the Estrie Region in recent weeks is worrying,” Bonnardel said, pointing out that the majority of new cases are concentrated in the region’s primary schools. Of the 60 active outbreaks being tracked in the region, half are in local schools.
The Townships reported 119 new cases of the virus on Thursday, alone, increasing the number of active cases in the region to 989, the highest number of any point this year. The three hardest hit regions in the territory were
Des Sources, Granit, and Memphremagog where the rate of infection was 914, 614, and 351 cases per 100,000 people, respectively.
Although the case numbers and outbreaks are problematic, regional public health director Dr. Alain Poirier said that the fact that the illness is concentrated in children at the moment means that there are fewer hospitalizations than the last time number got this high in the region. Also, assuming that people engage with the vaccination process, he said it also means that there is hope things could turn around in the near future.
Of the 36,700 children who are unvaccinated in the region, 6,621 booked appointments on Nov. 23 and another 2,867 followed suit on the 24. Poirier said that there has been a keen interest among parents to accompany their children in the vaccination process, which he hailed as a good thing given that the public health department will only be able to hold vaccination clinics in about half of the region’s schools, with priority going to more remote or underprivileged communities.
In order to help control the spread of the virus in local schools while the campaign gets up and running, Bonnardel said that more rapid testing will be made available to schools and daycare centres.
Poirier, meanwhile, shared that more restrictive measures may be applied in school environments depending on the need, but he reiterated the fact that the response in an outbreak situation varies from school to school.
“We want to close the smallest number of schools possible,” he said, explaining that reductions to extracurricular activities or changes to class interactions are among the measures that might be implemented, depending on the need.
The Province of Quebec reported 902 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, bringing the total number of people infected to 442,246 with 7,047 active cases.
There were five new deaths recorded, for a total of 11,571 since the start of the pandemic.
The number of hospitalizations decreased by one to 210, 45 of whom were in intensive care.