Quebec reports highest daily COVID-19 case increase ever

Quebec health officials have added nearly 4,000 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours. Today’s count is the province’s highest daily increase since reporting began in April 2020.

Since Thursday morning, the Ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux has reported 3,768 new COVID-19 cases.

The province’s previous high was on January 3 of this year, when Quebec added 3,127 cases.

Public health has also added seven additional virus-related deaths over the past 24 hours.

Throughout the pandemic, there have been 478,246 total cases and 11,634 deaths.

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Hospitalizations have decreased by seven since Thursday and equal 312 across the province. Intensive care numbers have declined by one over the past 24 hours and now total 66 within Quebec.

For comparison, at this time last year, Quebec reported 1,855 new COVID-19 cases and 22 deaths. Hospitalizations were at 1,002 on December 17, 2020, 134 of whom were in intensive care.

Over the past day, 56,097 COVID-19 vaccines were administered. Since December 2020, 14,194,764 total vaccines have been distributed.

As of Monday, December 20, all businesses in Quebec are to function at half capacity, meaning restaurants, bars, theatres, and event venues.

Premier François Legault says Quebec has seen an “explosion” of new COVID-19 cases over the past few days. “Experts believe the number of cases will continue to increase, likewise will hospitalizations, because of the presence of the new Omicron variant,” said the premier in French.

Quebec also limited the waiting period between the second dose and a booster shot from six months to three.

On Wednesday, Canada re-introduced its advisory against non-essential travel due to the rapidly circulating Omicron COVID-19 variant. Montreal’s public health director Dr. Mylene Drouin says there are currently 95 Omicron cases across the metropolitan area.

The distribution of COVID-19 cases in Quebec by age group is as follows:

The distribution of provincial deaths per age group is as follows:

Canada’s national COVID-19 death toll is now 30,012. There have been 1,857,999 total cases.

More information regarding the Omicron COVID-19 variant in Quebec can be found on the Institut national de santé Publique du Québec website.