COVID-19 Quebec: Hospitalizations up by 37, with 17 more deaths reported

Quebec's public health officials reported 17 new deaths due to COVID-19 on Friday, with an increase of 37 patients in hospital.

The province also reported an additional 3,182 positive PCR tests for COVID-19 from 19,713 samples, making the positivity rate 18.4 per cent.

There have been 910,951 positive PCR tests reported in the province.

In addition, there were 1,707 self-declared rapid tests from Thursday, bringing the total number of self-declared tests to 112,895.

There are now 24,769 active cases declared across Quebec and 586 outbreaks.

The actual number of positive COVID-19 in Quebec is likely "eight to 10 times those numbers," according to what Dr. Luc Boileau, Quebec's interim public health director, said on Thursday, adding that PCR testing doesn't provide a full picture of the COVID-19 situation in Quebec.

The 17 newly reported deaths bring the total to 14,382 since the start of the pandemic.

Another 177 people were admitted to hospital and 140 were discharged in the last 24 hours, resulting in the net increase of 37 hospitalizations. There are now 1,275 people receiving care in hospital.

The number of people in intensive care was 62 on Friday, a decrease of four from the day before.

Health-care workers analyzed 21,139 samples on March 30.

The province was in the midst of a sixth wave of COVID-19 amid a surge of cases and hospitalizations, driven by the highly contagious BA.2 variant. It's now the dominant variant in Quebec.

- This is a developing story and will be updated.