The number of people in intensive care is also down, down two in the past 24 hours, to 78.
A total of 1,210 new infections were identified following 14,066 PCR analyses.
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In terms of vaccination, 370 people received a first dose of vaccine, against 1891 second doses and 6335 third doses administered in 24 hours.
In total, 87% of all Quebecers aged five and over have received at least two doses of the vaccine against COVID-19, and 52% have also received a booster dose.
The number of cases announced in the daily reports must be interpreted with caution. The introduction of rapid tests and the limited access to PCR tests affect these data.
A new case self-reporting platform will allow the public to report the result of a rapid test. But it is not yet clear how much of this will provide a good overview of the general situation.
Outbreak data should also be interpreted with caution. Since January 7, 2022, the review of outbreaks affecting school, work and early childhood settings is optional.
This is why it is currently difficult to reliably predict the evolution of the pandemic from these data. For now, the number of hospitalizations and deaths as well as the positivity rate are the best trend indicators.
On the other hand, the data on hospitalizations and deaths do not offer a live portrait of the epidemiological situation since two to three weeks can pass before infections translate into hospitalizations and deaths.
For a death to be officially counted, COVID-19 must have contributed to it. Infected patients who die violently (accident, suicide, homicide), for example, are not counted. We must be careful when comparing the number of deaths between the provinces since Quebec calculates deaths better, according to experts.
Recently, the government distinguishes between people hospitalized “due to” or “with” COVID-19, which can allow, among other things, to have a better idea of the morbidity and virulence of the virus. But that does not change the fact that the high number of infected people in hospitals weighs heavily on the operation of these establishments.
The positivity rate corresponds to the proportion of confirmed cases among the tests carried out. Even when the total number of tests performed is low or limited, the positivity rate can tell if the rate of community transmission is high. A rate of more than 5% is a sign of an uncontrolled epidemic.
Finally, the number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths per day are underestimated for the most recent days due to delays in recording data. This is why there may be differences between the figures reported each day and the data revised by the INSPQ.
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