Multiple choice question: why is Quebec the only place in North America to brandish a curfew in order to curb the meteoric rise of the Omicron variant?
a) Because we are “ahead of the parade”, as Prime Minister François Legault said in an emergency press briefing on Thursday.
b) Because the government was slow to impose containment measures before Christmas and that we are now paying for these few days of grace, rather advance health experts.
One thing is certain, Quebec is not doing well in light of the most recent statistics. All things considered, there are twice as many cases as Ontario and three times as many as Alberta and British Columbia. Even the United States has fared better than Quebec for the past seven days.
And the official numbers are vastly underestimated as testing clinics are overflowing. Many people are unable to make an appointment from the online platform, which was down completely on Wednesday. And among those who queue, without an appointment, some are returned home.
Alternative solution: a quick test. But here again, things get out of hand. After having shunned rapid tests for many months, Quebec decided to offer it to Quebecers too late for the holiday season. As they were being snatched up in pharmacies, the government was sending a confused message about their use. A great mess.
Left to their own devices, people who test positive for COVID-19 must now do their own tracing by warning all those with whom they have been in contact, since the government lacks the arms to take these essential steps.
Due to the chronic shortage of personnel, the time has come for difficult choices.
PHOTO SARAH MONGEAU-BIRKETT, THE PRESS
Christian Dubé, Minister of Health and Social Services
The Minister of Health and Social Services, Christian Dubé, has returned to ask caregivers to work even if they are infected with COVID-19. We do not question the validity of this instruction. After all, if your life depends on it, it is better to have an operation by a surgeon with dementia than not to have an operation. The fact remains that if it is poorly supervised, this measure of last resort could turn hospitals into a center of amplification of the pandemic, as we saw during the first wave, while the staff largely contributed to the spread of the virus. .
Our health care system is already on its knees. The number of employees absent from the network has doubled in a week, climbing to 12,500, as has the number of hospitalizations due to COVID-19, rising to 939. And it is not over.
Faced with the crisis, we must take all means to avoid service disruptions.
To replenish the troops, Quebec should grant a temporary permit to foreign caregivers and ask health care students to lend a hand in hospitals.
Despite the fatigue, the population must also stick together, as it has done so well since the start of the pandemic. And for fairness, the government must quickly extend the application of the vaccination passport for the 10% of adults who are reluctant to be vaccinated, but who still have the right to run shopping malls.
The accelerated administration of the third dose and the arrival of antivirals, as soon as Health Canada gives the green light, will also be decisive factors in slowing down this new wave, which proves how fragile our health system is.
It was well before the pandemic. And it will remain so with the aging of the population, which will continue to exert pressure until at least 2035.
We’ll probably have to open our wallet even bigger. But money does not solve all ills. Quebec is already spending more, in proportion to its GDP, than the other Canadian provinces and the average for OECD countries.
Despite a rate of general practitioners higher than the Canadian average, Quebec has a much lower proportion of people with a regular health professional than elsewhere in Canada.
And patients who do not have access to a family doctor inevitably end up in the emergency room, which creaks. We always come back to it: the solution must be to strengthen primary care.
It is expensive to have a good health care system. But it costs even more to have a bad one. We have proof of this today, with the new sacrifices imposed on the population.