Read on Twitter
1) While other provinces are providing detailed breakdowns on the number of #COVID19 variants, confusion and a lack of information persist in Quebec about the more transmissible strains. In this thread, I will explain why this is a major problem.
2) Since Tuesday, Quebec’s public health institute has not updated its website on the number of #COVID19 variants despite the positive screening of new cases in Montreal. Screening, or criblage in French, detects the spike protein mutation (N501Y) common to all three variants.
3) On Wednesday, Dr. Mylène Drouin, head of the Montreal public health department, noted there were 44 presumptive and suspected variant #COVID19 cases in the city. A day later, Drouin’s boss, Dr. Horacio Arruda, put the number at 37. Well, which is it?
4) Dr. Michel Roger, head of the Laboratoire de santé publique du Québec, told me his lab would start screening all positive #COVID19 samples for the N501Y mutation common to the three variants next week. Meanwhile, other provinces have been busy doing this already.
5) For example, Alberta (with a population half of Quebec’s) is reporting 164 cases of the B117 variant that originated in the U.K., and seven of the B1351 strain that first appeared in South Africa. Ontario, for its part, has confirmed 275 cases of B117 and three of B1351.
6) Premier François Legault has suggested other provinces have far more cases of the B117 lineage (Quebec has officially eight) because of a stronger link between the rest of Canada and the U.K than the one in Quebec. Legault didn't provide any evidence to back up this assertion.
7) In the absence of clear reporting by Quebec authorities on the variants, rumors proliferate. The only reason that Dr. Drouin even mentioned the variants at Wednesday’s news conference was in response to a question by a journalist asking about an outbreak at Collège Stanislas.
8) As a result of this lack of information, the public’s faith in the Quebec government, so essential in fighting the #pandemic, is at risk of eroding. At the same time, do authorities even have an idea of the extent of the spread of the variants?
9) The timing of the possible proliferation of the variants could not be worse, just days after Quebec allowed retail stores to reopen in the metropolis and less than two weeks before the start of the March break.
10) Meanwhile, Montreal posted 432 #COVID19 cases Friday, down from a high of 1,531 on Jan. 9, the day Quebec imposed the nightly curfew. But this undeniable progress can quickly be reversed should the super transmissible B117 variant start spreading quickly.
11) In my last Twitter thread, I pondered whether schools may be acting inadvertently as Trojan horses for B117, given the confirmed and suspected cases in two Montreal schools. On Friday, the government reported the number of #COVID19 outbreaks in schools increased by 16 to 280.
12) Although #COVID19 cases have plummeted in eldercare homes, the Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal in Côte-des-Neiges is grappling with a #COVID19 outbreak that has infected a dozen residents, six in the previous 24 hours.
13) And although #COVID19 hospitalizations have continued to decline in Montreal — the number dropped by four to 448 on Friday — six of the city’s 17 hospitals reported increases in admissions, including the Jewish General and St. Mary’s.
14) This all suggests the #pandemic remains unstable in Montreal, one of the reasons Health Minister Christian Dubé decided to boost vaccinations in the city. The big question is whether Quebec is responding aggressively enough to the variants. End of thread.
