During today’s daily provincial press conference, Deputy Premier Gènèvieve Guilbeault focused on key components of the government’s gradual deconfinement plan: increasing the number of tests being performed daily while at the same time improving access to testing across the province. A second set of key components relies on the population’s ability to respect public health and safety guidelines as closely as possible. Although Quebec has yet to reach its goal of 14,000 daily tests, the province is making exceptional strides in attempting to do so. “Quebec is the place that tests the most in Canada and one of the places that tests the most in the world, all things considered,” Guilbeault said.
Increased efforts in the area of testing over the past few weeks have coincided with relatively stable numbers of newly confirmed cases. An additional 65 COVID-19-related deaths were announced today, for a total of 3,865. The number of confirmed cases jumped by 646 over the past 24 hours, to bring the total number to 46,141. There are currently 1,479 people hospitalized and 171 people in intensive care, a decrease of 25 and 5 respectively. In the Montérégie, there are now 5,641 cases, including 33 in the Haut-Saint-Laurent local health network (LHN), 312 cases in the Suroît LHN, 529 in the Vaudreuil-Soulanges LHN, and 714 confirmed cases in the Jardins-Roussillon LHN.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promoted a similar agenda earlier this morning by pledging to fund the provinces’ efforts to increase testing, improve contact tracing practices, and help different regions share this data with one another. “Taking strong, collaborative action to expand testing and contact tracing is important for both Canadians and businesses to have confidence that we’re on the right foot,” said Trudeau.
In order to increase Canada’s abilities to contact trace, the federal government has trained federal employees to make 3,600 tracing calls a day. Statistics Canada has made available 1,700 additional interviewers who can make up to 20,000 calls a day if needed.
More restrictions to be lifted
Quebec Culture and Communications Minister Nathalie Roy announced this afternoon that as of next Friday, May 29, museums, libraries and drive-in theatres will reopen across Quebec. These institutions and services will all be expected to maintain public health and safety regulations, and only the lending services will be available at libraries for now. Roy also announced that recording studios, concert halls and other performance venues can reopen as of June 1st, however in-person audiences will not be permitted until further notice.