COVID-19 in Quebec: What you need to know Monday

• Quebec reported 1,189 new cases ofCOVID-19 on Monday and two new deaths.
• Since the start of the pandemic, there have been 455,825confirmed cases and 11,589people have died.
• There are 226people in hospital (an increase of seven), including62 in intensive care (an increase of three).
• The province has administered 13,776,224doses of theCOVID-19 vaccine, including 19,746 doses in the last 24 hours.
• 86 per cent of the eligible population in the province (age five and up) hasreceived one dose of vaccine, and 81per cent hasreceived two doses.

Note: Quebec's vaccination rate has been adjusted to include five- to 11-year-olds, causing the overall percentage to drop. Vaccinations for the group began last week.

Quebec'sHealth Ministry does not publish the number of vaccines administered on weekends and public holidays.

Quebec's public health institute says it did detailedtesting of samples from almost 900 positive COVID tests on Nov. 30 and found that none of them contained the omicron variant.

That one day snapshot seems to indicate that there is no community spread of omicron in the province,theInstitut national de sant publique du Qubec reported Monday.

At this point, there is still only one case of the variantin Quebec: a traveller who returned from Nigeria in November. Other travellers and their contacts are being followed to see if any have contracted omicron.

Quebec families with kids in daycare get access to rapid-tests

Daycares will be distributing the kits of five tests to parents and guardians, aschildren under the age of fiveare still too young to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

A total of 1.5 million tests will be handed out, as part of efforts to reduce the number of outbreaks in daycares and CPEs.

More than half of all outbreaks in the province are now tied to daycares, preschools, and elementary schools.

NACI recommends booster dose

Canada'sNational Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) is now strongly recommending a booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine for all Canadians 50 and older. The recommendation also extends to health-care workers,Indigenous people and those living in congregate care settingsandall those who only received the AstraZeneca vaccine..

According to recommendations released by NACI Friday, the committee is also now recommendingCanadians aged 18 to 49 get a third mRNA shotat least six months after they got their second.

The new guidance comes after some provinces moved to offer more boosters.

In Quebec,booster doses are only available to people over 70, to people with weakened immune systems and to people who had received two doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.

Decision on 3rd vaccine dose

Quebec will wait on advice from its public health director before expanding access to COVID-19 booster vaccines, Health Minister Christian Dub said Friday.

Speaking to reporters in Quebec City, Dub said he expected a decision on boosters from public health director Dr. Horacio Arruda this week.

"He has made some very good calls during those tough decisions,'' Dub said, adding that Quebec's vaccination program has broken with federal guidelines in the past, including when it chose a longer interval between first and second doses than was recommended by vaccine manufacturers and Ottawa.

Hospitalizations expected to rise in coming weeks

Hospitalizations related to COVID-19 are expected to rise across the province, a government health-care research institute said Thursday.

The number of cases hasnearly doubled over the past month, which could correspond to a 30 per cent increase in hospitalizations, the institute, known by its French acronym INESSS,said in a projections report released Thursday.

Those aged 70 and over represent 35 per cent of all hospitalizations in the province, though the number of cases in intensive care has remained stable.

While the increase in cases can be seenacross all age groups,young people aged 12 to 17have been hit the hardest, with cases in that age group increasing by 53 per cent.

The current projections do not account for the omicron variant. The institute said the effect of omicron will be incorporated "when reliable estimates of its transmissibility, severity and [vaccine efficacy] are known."

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