New day, same trend. The marked drop in hospitalizations linked to COVID-19 continues across Quebec, both in the regular network and in intensive care, while the province recorded 23 new deaths on Friday and the vaccination campaign continues to slow down.
Posted at 11:01 a.m.
Updated at 11:11 a.m.
These 23 new deaths bring the daily average calculated over the past seven days to 26 deaths per day. The trend is thus down 24% over a period of one week.
In the health network, there was a drop of 68 hospitalizations on Friday compared to the previous day, which translates into 112 new entries and 180 exits. To date, 1,834 patients therefore remain hospitalized in connection with the virus, of which 119 are still in intensive care, a drop of five cases in 24 hours in this regard (13 entries, 18 exits).
For the time being, the 1,834 people hospitalized represent a drop of 17% over one week. The decrease in intensive care over one week is 27%. On Wednesday, the province had fallen below the 2,000 hospitalization mark, a symbolic threshold that had been crossed more than 40 days ago, when the Omicron wave led to a sharp increase in hospitalizations at the beginning of January.
The National Institute of Excellence in Health and Social Services (INESSS) expects for its part in the next two weeks to “a decrease in the number of regular beds occupied by COVID patients, to reach approximately 1,500, i.e. above level 3 defined by the Ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux (MSSS)”.
On Friday, 1,837 new cases of COVID-19 were also reported, bringing the daily average calculated over a week to 1,979 cases per day. The trend is thus down 28% over one week. However, it should be remembered that the limitations imposed on screening make these data far less representative.
On Wednesday, just over 22,720 screening tests were nevertheless carried out, a relatively stable figure compared to the weekly average. So far, more than 87,260 rapid tests have been “self-declared” on the Legault government platform, the vast majority of which, around 67,870 of them, had a positive result for the virus.
On the vaccination side, the marked slowdown in the campaign continues to be observed. Thursday, barely 17,500 additional doses were administered, to which are nevertheless added 156 vaccines given before February 17 which had not yet been counted.
To date, 86.5% of the general Quebec population has received one dose, 82% has received two doses, while 47.3% of Quebecers have now received their booster dose. This all comes as Quebec authorized the administration of the booster dose on Friday for 12 to 17 year olds, which could boost the speed of the vaccination campaign in the coming days.
With Pierre-André Normandin