You could almost hear it circulating. The virus behind COVID-19 is hitting summer camps, daycares, festivals. Silently, it infects more Quebecers every day under the sun of a summer that seems normal.
Just for Laughs thought to relaunch its programming in a big way this summer with its Music-Hall Anne. But, the nightmare of the pandemic decided otherwise. The coronavirus entered the scene just before the media premiere. Everything has been postponed.
The reprieves of shows in festivals and concert halls are piling up these days, but it is hard to estimate the extent of this wave of cancellations.
“This summer wave is very bizarre,” points out David Laferrière, president of the Professional Association of Show Presenters (RIDEAU). No one wants to endanger the spectators or their employees, but no one wants to break “the super fragile bond of trust we have with the public”, he underlines. This results in cancellations or postponements of shows announced in complete discretion.
Especially since without imposed health measures, pandemic fatigue can be read on the faces. David Laferrière estimates that barely one in twenty spectators wears a mask inside. “It shows that we are not ready to live with that. »
But the swelling wave is very real. The number of hospitalizations related to COVID-19 has been growing for three weeks. No less than 147 additional hospitalizations and 20 deaths were recorded on Monday. The latest report released by the Quebec Ministry of Health and Social Services (MSSS) reports a positivity rate of 13.8%. As of Tuesday, 6,659 health network workers were absent due to COVID-19, compared to 6,285 last Wednesday.
Quebec has stopped counting infections, but the significant rise in cases is putting everyone under pressure. “It can be a technician, a musician. In a theater, a single employee who is a contact case, that worries us to death. If there were to be a transmission, even limited, in a context of labor shortage, that puts us in big trouble, ”says David Laferrière.
“It’s not anecdotal, but not a movement,” observes Martin Roy, president and CEO of RÉMI, the Grouping of major international events. Cases “here and there” leave gaps in programming and add to the headache of a busy schedule. “In the context of a festival, it is more complicated to replace an artist who isolates himself for 5 or 10 days. »
These silent contaminations are “like other sectors”, he notes.
Return of PCR tests to the camps?
The presence of the virus is also being felt in Quebec vacation camps. Three temporarily closed their doors and sent the children home because it was not possible to replace the animators placed in isolation.
“Often, we are able to contain the outbreak, but it is not possible to replace the animators”, mentions Anne-Frédérique Morin, assistant general manager of the Association des camps du Québec (ACQ), who adds that the current context of labor shortage does not help. She insists that the ACQ wants to “act early in the summer so as not to impact future weeks”, and, in this spirit, the association met with Dr. Boileau’s team at Quebec Public Health on Tuesday. in the early afternoon.
Several options will be considered by the latter, such as reintroducing PCR tests at the entrance as was the case last year. Public Health is also considering increasing the supply of rapid tests, modifying the decision tree for case management, support from regional public health with the camps and the return to wearing a mask in certain contexts, in particular for the animators.
“We want to make sure that the measures are tight enough to prevent the virus from entering the camps,” said Anne-Frédérique Morin. The ACQ is not able to say the number of outbreaks in the camps, but it is working to paint a portrait of the COVID-19 situation with its members, including certain elements “relevant to the general population” will then be released.
According to the Ministry of Health and Social Services (MSSS), environments such as summer camps are not more affected than others. “Rather, they reflect the increase in community transmission that we see everywhere,” says Marie-Claude Lacasse, coordinator of media relations.
No “major” increase
During a press briefing on Tuesday on another subject, François Legault said that public health did not expect an increase in the number of cases likely to cause problems in hospitals, the beautiful season helping.
The Prime Minister nevertheless called on the population to be careful. “We’re making sure we’re ready for September, because when we go back to school, we should see a big spike in cases,” he said of the vaccination campaign that will begin in August.
It is necessary to inform the population of the level of transmission of COVID-19 in order to live better with the virus, argues Nathalie Grandvaux, researcher at the CHUM research center on viral respiratory infections. “You have to provide information so that people can adapt their precautionary measures according to the level of risk,” she says.
Last week, the national director of public health, Dr. Luc Boileau, invited people at risk of developing a serious form of COVID-19 to “take the mask back” in crowded places, such as festivals.