The overall picture of COVID-19 continues to improve in Quebec, despite a slight increase in hospitalizations recorded on Tuesday. The number of deaths associated with the disease is also falling sharply, having fallen by half in the last seven days.
Posted at 11:24 a.m.
The three new deaths reported on Monday bring the daily average calculated over seven days to eight. The trend is thus down 51% over a period of one week.
In the health network, there was an increase of four hospitalizations linked to the virus on Tuesday, which stems from 45 new entries and 41 exits. To date, 1351 patients remain hospitalized in connection with COVID-19, of which 47 are still in intensive care, a decrease of nine cases in 24 hours on this plan (2 entries, 11 exits).
These 1,351 people currently hospitalized represent a drop of 17% over one week. In intensive care, the 47 patients represent a drop of 13% over one week. The number of people in hospital is expected to continue to decline over the next few days, with the number of discharges continuing to outpace admissions. On average, there are 40 fewer patients every day.
Interestingly, approximately 38% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients were admitted due to the coronavirus. Conversely, 62% of patients were hospitalized for another reason but tested positive for COVID-19. In intensive care, this same proportion is 64-36%.
Transmission and rapid tests
Quebec also reports 417 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, bringing the daily average to 537. The trend is thus down 29% over one week. These numbers likely reflect only a portion of total infections, due to limited access to PCR testing. On Sunday, Public Health nevertheless carried out 9,094 screening tests, a relatively stable figure compared to the weekly average.
Moreover, the proportion of PCR screening tests proving positive for COVID-19 remains high, at 5.5%. In addition to the cases detected by PCR tests, 1,274 people also reported over the long weekend having tested positive on a rapid test.
Self-reported cases, which are not included in daily reported cases, are down 13% over the past week. So far, more than 211,155 rapid tests have been self-reported on the online platform of the Ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux (MSSS), of which approximately 173,045 presented a positive diagnosis for COVID-19.
Just over 4,000 health care workers are still absent from work for reasons related to COVID-19, such as isolation, preventive withdrawal, or because they are awaiting screening results.
On the vaccination side, the Quebec campaign continues to run out of steam. On Monday, just 2,300 additional doses were administered. Quebec administers an average of 9,700 doses per day, down 37% over one week. To date, 83.3% of Quebecers have received two doses, but only 52% have three and 12.6% four. The province has administered nearly 20.2 million doses since the start of the pandemic, including Quebecers vaccinated outside Quebec.
With Pierre-André Normandin