On Wednesday, March 23, Quebec Public Health Director Dr. Luc Boileau said they “expected” the rise in infections.
Dr. Boileau said that he will be making the public health recommendation to the Quebec government to move forward with accepting a fourth dose of the COVID-19 vaccine for vulnerable populations in the province.
His recommendation includes beginning an immunization campaign on Wednesday, March 30, for residents in CHSLDs and RPAs, those over 80, and people with compromised immune systems.
The Institut national d’excellence en sante et en services sociaux (INESSS) published new projections suggesting that inthe next two weeks there will be an “upward trend in the number of new hospitalizations as well as the number of regular beds occupied by COVID patients”.
However, Dr. Boileau says “We’re not surprised by the rise in cases, and we’re not expecting [hospitalization] rates to be as high,”
He also said that they are not expecting hospitalization rates “to be as high as they were two months ago,”.
At the moment, Dr. Boileau is taking the reintroduction of more COVID-19 restrictions off of the table. He said that Quebec is in a “very different situation” than it was last December when the government reintroduced stiff measures like provincial-wide curfews and increased the use of vaccine passes.
