Home » Health » Ten days without death in Estrie | COVID-19 | News | The sun

Ten days without death in Estrie | COVID-19 | News | The sun

Lhe number of deaths is therefore still 25. On Wednesday, there were 38 people hospitalized in the CIUSSS de l’Estrie – CHUS facilities, three fewer than Tuesday while the number of people in intensive care increased by one cases to settle at 3. Since the start of the pandemic, 498 Estrians suffering from the coronavirus have been declared cured.

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Dr. Alex Carignan, microbiologist-infectiologist at the CIUSSS de l’Estrie – CHUS, on Wednesday unveiled the results of tests carried out in the past few days to determine if COVID-19 was circulating in Estrie before March 12, one of the hypotheses put forward to explain why the region was one of the hardest hit at the start of the crisis.

However, no positive coronavirus test was found on 1,440 samples initially used to detect influenza and taken between January 1 and February 20, 2020.

“We can say with certainty that the new coronavirus did not circulate in Estrie between January 1 and February 20, 2020. The clinical indications for the two tests, fever and / or cough, are very similar. We can therefore think that we would have found SARS-CoV-2 in these samples if it had circulated with us during this period, ”explains the professor-researcher at the University of Sherbrooke.

How can we explain that Estrie was one of the regions most affected at the start?

“It seems to connect with travelers. There are probably cases in certain clusters, including that of Racine, or cases in Cowansville and Granby, which were not consulted and therefore were not diagnosed and placed in containment. They contributed to an amplification of the virus in group events with several people and the latter, as they had not returned from their trip or were delayed in their diagnosis, led a fairly early amplification in Estrie, but it doesn’t seem to go beyond that, ”says Dr. Carignan.

The professor-researcher believes that Quebec would benefit from carrying out the same kind of tests across the province.

“It’s an exercise that would be interesting, among others in Montreal. That said, these tests should not monopolize tests for the patients whereas here the exercise was done in laboratories of the University of Sherbrooke ”, specifies Dr Carignan.

This retrospective analysis was carried out with the brand new Sherby-20 reagent. This reagent was developed just a few weeks ago by research professionals and laboratory coordinators from the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at UdeS, Mathieu Durand and Bruno Lemieux, as well as Professors and doctors from the microbiology laboratory of the Fleurimont Hospital of the CIUSSS de l’Estrie – CHUS, Simon Lévesque, Philippe Martin and M. Carignan.

New walk-in screening center

Already at noon Wednesday, around fifty people had come to the new walk-in screening center which opened its doors on Tuesday at 500 Murray Street.

Remember that users who are eligible to take the test are expected every day from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

To be tested, people will have one of the following symptoms: fever, or recent cough, or increased chronic cough, or difficulty breathing, or sudden loss of smell or taste.

The target population is also one who has two of the following symptoms: sore throat, diarrhea, general discomfort such as muscle pain, headache, severe fatigue or loss of appetite. With Claude Plante

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