A sign that a plateau has now been reached, the decline in hospitalizations continues in Quebec, with 60 fewer patients with COVID-19 in the hospital network. However, the deaths continue to pile up.
Posted at 11:01 a.m.
Updated at 1:22 p.m.
The 59 new deaths reported on Friday bring the daily average to almost 72, up 58% over one week. Deaths thus continue to increase, but we are beginning to feel a slowdown.
In the health network, a drop of 60 hospitalizations is reported on Friday, which translates into 346 new entries and 406 exits. To date, 3351 people remain hospitalized in connection with the virus. Of this number, 265 people are still in intensive care, which represents a decrease of 20 people compared to the previous day. Everything indicates that these declines will continue in the coming days.
However, the number of occupied beds in hospitals remains 9% higher than last week.
Thursday, Premier François Legault said that the health network remains despite everything “at the worst of the pandemic”, being more overloaded than ever, at a time when the peak of hospitalizations now seems to have been reached across the province. “You cannot know the number of people who write to me, who speak to me, who tell me that we have to remove the instructions. But for the moment, we cannot allow ourselves to be more flexible, ”he hammered in the press scrum.
On the vaccination side, just over 108,300 additional doses were administered on Thursday, to which are added 5,524 vaccines given before January 20 which had not yet been counted. Including people vaccinated outside the province, so far 17.1 million doses have been given to Quebecers.
Public Health also identified 5,995 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday, bringing the seven-day average of daily cases to 5,977, down 41%. It should however be remembered that the number of cases is not representative of the evolution of the pandemic, screening being restricted to certain groups of the population only. On Wednesday, 43,241 screening tests were nevertheless carried out. The positivity rate is currently 12%.
Regarding vaccination, 85.7% of Quebecers received a first dose of vaccine, 78.5% received two, and 35.4% reached out three times.
WHO recommends booster dose
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) did an about-face on Friday. After mentioning that a booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine was not necessary for healthy adults, the institution is now recommending it, starting with giving it to the most vulnerable.
Like several Western countries, Quebec had ignored the WHO’s request to declare a moratorium on the offer of booster doses until the end of 2021.
The WHO now recommends that booster doses be given four to six months after the first two injections. “We continue to focus on vaccinating the highest priority groups,” said Dr.D Kate O’Brien, Director of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals at WHO.
A study anticipates the end of the pandemic
According to a study published in the scientific journal The Lancet, the end of the pandemic is approaching, although the COVID-19 virus will not go away. The peak of the wave of the Omicron variant will take place in the various countries of the world between now and the second week of February, estimates this study.
“By March 2022, much of the world will have been infected with the Omicron variant,” it read. However, researcher Christopher JL Murray believes that “variants will surely appear and some may be more severe than Omicron”. Thus, countries can expect increased transmission of COVID-19 during the winter months.
However, the study points out that future strains of the virus will have less impact on the health of populations due to the widespread exposure of citizens to the virus and the adaptation of vaccines to the variants. However, vulnerable people will need to continue to self-isolate, wear a quality mask and practice physical distancing.
“COVID-19 will become another recurring disease that health systems and societies will have to manage,” the study authors also say.
With the Associated Press