One week away from Christmas, the spread of COVID-19 remains stable, but the number of deaths continues to rise among seniors.
The 19 deaths reported on Friday bring the daily average calculated over seven days to 13. The trend is thus up 30% over one week. This increase does not appear to be the effect of a delay in data entry since only two of the 19 deaths occurred more than a week ago.
The most recent data from the National Institute of Public Health continues to show that deaths are concentrated among the elderly. No less than 89% of the people who died in the past two weeks were 70 or older.
Friday marks a slight improvement in hospitals, with the province reporting a decrease of 44 hospitalizations. The 2,062 people currently hospitalized, including 61 in intensive care, nevertheless represent an increase of 4% over one week. Of these, 693 patients were hospitalized directly due to their COVID-19 infection, the others having been admitted for another reason.
The number of people in hospital is expected to continue to slowly increase over the next few days, with the number of admissions narrowly outpacing discharges. On average, there are 12 more patients every day.
Stable spread
So far, the Christmas office party season does not appear to be leading to an increase in COVID-19 cases. The 1,221 new cases by PCR tests reported on Friday bring the daily average to 1,084. The trend is thus stable over one week.
These numbers likely reflect only a portion of total infections, due to limited access to PCR testing. Moreover, the proportion of PCR screening tests proving positive for COVID-19 remains high, at 12.4%.
In addition to the cases detected by PCR tests, 275 people have also reported in the past few days having tested positive on a rapid test. Self-reported cases, which are not included in daily reported cases, increased by 16% over one week.
Remember that Public Health recommends people catching COVID-19 since Wednesday not to take part in holiday gatherings, which are considered contagious for 10 days, whether they have symptoms or not. For other viruses, such as influenza, this request is limited to the period of symptoms.
Vaccination stabilizes
During this time, the pace of the vaccination campaign tends to stabilize. Quebec administers an average of 14,700 doses per day, or 4% less than last week.
The pace of the campaign nevertheless made it possible to expand vaccination coverage. Taking into account the fact that Public Health recommends getting vaccinated after five months, 28.5% of Quebecers currently have their vaccinations up to date. This represents an increase of 0.3 points over the past week. It is mainly people aged 60 and over whose vaccinations are up to date.
