MONTREAL -- Quebec now has 2,498 confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of Saturday afternoon and four more patients have died from the disease, provincial health officials announced.
That's up 477 from the 2,021 cases that were reported Friday afternoon.
There are now 22 deaths in Quebec linked to COVID-19, up from the 18 that were reported 24 hours earlier.
Of the confirmed COVID-19 patients in the province, 164 are in hospital, with 57 of them in intensive care.
There are 6,757 Quebecers awaiting their COVID-19 test results; 43,859 tests have come back negative.
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Quebec on Saturday remained on a province-wide lockdown, with only essential businesses and services allowed to continue operations until April 13.
Montreal, with 1,219 confirmed cases, and the Eastern Townships, with 253, remain the hardest hit regions in Quebec. You can see a complete regional breakdown here.
Saturday was also the first full day that the city of Montreal has been under a local state of emergency. Montreal Mayor Valerie Planted declared the emergency Friday at 4 p.m. at the request of Quebec's public health department.
The city's public health department was expected to announce new city-wide restrictions and measures Saturday to try to stem the spread of COVID-19, but instead announced that those new measures will be made public Sunday.
Quebec Premier Francois Legault was replaced by Deputy Premier and Minister of Public Security Genevieve Guilbault at the province's daily COVID-19 update on Saturday.
Guilbault announced that Quebec is restricting all non-essential travel to and from eight of Quebec's regions and that provincial police will be deployed to ensure those restrictions are being followed. Those regions are:
- Bas-Saint-Laurent
- Abitibi-Témiscamingue
- Côte-Nord
- Nord-du-Québec
- Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean
- Gaspésie–Îles-de-la-Madeleine
- Nunavik
- Cree Territory of James Bay
Guilbault also announced that the Surete de Quebec is setting up checkpoints on highways at Quebec towns near the U.S border in order to inform those returning home about the quarantine restrictions imposed by the government.
