(Montreal) After causing headaches to health authorities, COVID-19 outbreaks in workplaces decreased at the end of April in Quebec, noted the INSPQ, a trend that seems to be continuing.
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This is the first time in several weeks that the INSPQ (Institut national de santé publique du Québec) has been able to provide such a positive weekly report on the situation in the workplaces.
He confirms that the number of new outbreaks of COVID-19 in the workplace recorded a drop in Quebec at the end of last month, as shown in his most recent report on the subject, released on Tuesday, which compared then the last two weeks of April. Schools and health care settings are excluded from this analysis.
He then reported a 33% decrease in new hatching environments, which went from 326 to 218 in one week. An outbreak is recorded when there are two or more confirmed cases of COVID-19 infection.
As for the total of workplaces struggling with an outbreak at the end of April, it went from 678 to 561 in one week. This peak of 678 had not been seen in Quebec since January.
The most recent daily report shows 495 active outbreaks as of May 11.
This confirms a descent that began in mid-April, underlined Richard Martin, a scientific adviser to the INSPQ, and this decrease is observed “in the majority of economic sectors”.
“The improvement continues,” he said, seeing the benefits of vaccination and compliance with health guidelines, noting that despite this, variants of the virus “can still mix things up”.
The two peaks of outbreaks in the workplace were recorded in late December and March, he recalls.
At the end of April, the INSPQ indicated that the situation had improved in the Capitale-Nationale region and in the Outaouais.
The economic sectors most affected by the outbreaks of more than six cases were at the end of last month in the metal products, lumber, clothing and textile products industries, in the food industry (slaughterhouses ), grocery stores, butchers and house building.
Good news, however, for construction sites: at the end of April, they showed a good decrease in the number of outbreaks and reported cases.
In May, two sectors were still causing concern: the metals industry and the food industry.
The INSPQ would like to point out that the work environment identified as being in an outbreak situation is not necessarily the environment in which COVID-19 is acquired.
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