If it seems certain that the deconfinement plan announced Tuesday by Quebec will have an “effect on transmission”, Public Health says it is confident of being able to control the situation, in particular because at least two million Quebecers have already contracted COVID. -19 since the start of the fifth wave.
Posted at 2:08 p.m.
Updated at 2:55 p.m.
“The situation is still serious, it is still fragile. The risk still exists, but it is calculated nonetheless. And everyone should be part of the equation. We must not forget that the virus is still circulating a lot, ”said the acting national director of public health, Dr.r Luc Boileau, at a press conference on Wednesday.
According to him, the deconfinement will be able to work because Quebec is much more vaccinated against the virus, but also because it has been much more infected in recent weeks.
Mr. Boileau and his teams estimate that “at least one million people have been in contact with the virus and have been infected since December 31”. “Since the start of the fifth wave, two million people have had COVID-19. It’s a lot, ”also argued the Dr Boileau, who calculates that a quarter of Quebecers have therefore contracted the disease fairly recently.
Officially, Quebec has reported 440,000 cases since the beginning of December. Two million is therefore at least four times more Quebecers infected than what government data has shown.
By adding the last four waves, “we are approaching the threshold of 50%” of Quebecers infected, “if not we are even touching it”, raised Mr. Boileau. “Despite all this, it remains imperative to get your booster dose,” insisted the national director, recalling that having the disease allows you to wait between eight and twelve weeks only before being vaccinated.
So many infections in a few weeks, “it allows us to move forward with a little more security”, specified the Dr Boileau, judging that if several people have had the disease, the risk becomes “lower” that there is again a wave of infections. “It was important information to help us announce this deconfinement plan,” he also admitted.
This two million could also be underestimated. “It was so big as a wave. We are not able to measure everything, but these are indirect calculations which lead us to announce that there are really so many people, ”clarified in this sense the Dr Boileau, who says in particular to take health care workers as a “benchmark population” in his calculations.
“The BA.2 has returned to Quebec”
The new BA.2 variant, a sub-line of the Omicron variant, “has returned to Quebec”, also warned Public Health on Wednesday. The clinical expert in support of the scientific management of the pandemic of the Ministry of Health and Social Services (MSSS), Jean Longtin, specified that the BA.2 would be “30% more transmissible” than the original strain of Omicron . “The good news is that it’s no more dangerous than the standard Omicron. But there seems to be an introduction to Quebec,” he admitted.
Mr. Longtin hopes to have more precise data on the BA.2 “soon”. For the time being, the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec (INSPQ) does not publish any data on the prevalence of this new variant. “We know at this stage that there was no second wave after the BA1 in the countries where the BA2 arrived later, so it is reassuring in terms of protection”, offered Mr. Longtin.
“We calculated the BA.2 in our projections”, for his part assured the Dr Boileau, who still plans to maintain social distancing, the wearing of a mask and the imposition of the vaccine passport until mid-March, at least. “We hope not, but we’ll see,” he limited himself to saying when asked if BA.2 could have an impact on this preliminary schedule.
Public Health also does not intend to recommend the end of the mask in schools at this time, reiterated the Dr Boileau, hammering that “the basic measures must be maintained”.
The authorities could also work on “flexibilities in the workplace” as of next week, in concert with the Commission for Standards, Equity, Health and Safety at Work (CNESST), revealed the adviser. Department of Health and Social Services (MSSS), the DD Marie-France Raynault. “We are working on scenarios to maximize the presence of deputies in the National Assembly and in the parliamentary committee,” she also indicated.