1) Some Quebec hospitals outside Montreal may run out of beds to treat #COVID19 patients before Christmas, a government institute warned on Friday in its latest projections. In this thread, I will again focus on how the province’s health-care system is now at the breaking point.

2) “The risk of exceeding dedicated hospital capacity during the next month cannot be excluded,” the Institut national d'excellence en santé et services sociaux concluded. “In fact, #COVID19 patients already occupy nearly half of the dedicated regular beds.”

3) But the INESSS projections address only bed capacity. The institute is not weighing the impact of the second wave on burned-out nurses, surgery cancellations and outbreaks in hospital. Taking all these facts into consideration, the system has reached the breaking point.

4) Lachine Hospital is now grappling with a #COVID19 outbreak that has infected 22 patients and 14 staff, with admissions suspended to one ward. The Jewish General Hospital is investigating an outbreak in its family medicine unit.

5) In fact, the number of outbreaks in hospitals and long-term care centres (CHSLDs) climbed by six to 244 across the province on Friday. There are currently at least 1,648 people suffering from #COVID19 in CHSLDs and senior’ residents.

6) The INESSS projections do not track the 1,700 nurses in the province who have quit the profession during the #pandemic, or the 350 health-care workers who are absent from Montreal hospitals because of #COVID19 or who have to wait at home for test results.

7) The government needs to conduct more comprehensive reports examining the state of Quebec’s health-care system in the #pandemic, reports that will make broader projections about the impact on the whole network in the coming months.

8) Meanwhile, Montreal posted its second day of #COVID19 cases in the 300-range, as the orange line in the chart below makes clear. Infections continue to surge in the centre of the city as well as in the boroughs of Saint-Laurent, Rivière-des-Prairies, Anjou and Montreal East.

9) As November draws to a close, 712 Quebecers have died of #COVID19 so far this month. One month of deaths in Quebec in the second wave is greater than the combined death tolls of British Columbia (395) and Manitoba (280) since the start of the #pandemic. End of thread.