Quebec COVID-19 hospitalizations fall, 9 new deaths added
Quebec's health ministry said Friday nine more people died from COVID-19 as hospitalizations dropped to just over 1,900.
The nine new deaths bring the total number of deaths to 17,086 since the start of the pandemic.
The ministry said hospitalizations dropped by 37 over the last 24 hours to a total of 1,907.
Of those people in hospital, 647 were admitted because of the coronavirus.
ICU cases remained mostly stable, with two more people receiving intensive care compared to Thursday, for a total of 54 ICU admissions.
The number of health-care workers off work due to COVID-19 rose slightly to 3,818 employees. There were 3,756 absent workers seven days ago.
NEW CASES, VACCINATIONS
The ministry reported 914 new infections on Friday through PCR testing, which is reserved for priority clientele. An additional 145 rapid antigen tests were recorded out of the 160 samples submitted on Thursday.
The positivity rate was 9.4 per cent on Friday as public health was monitoring 381 active outbreaks across the province.
Health-care workers administered 21,332 new vaccine doses in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of shots received by Quebecers to 21,942,013.
On Thursday, Quebec announced that it was dropping the recommended five-day isolation guideline for people who test positive. During a news conference, public health director Dr. Luc Boileau said Quebecers should wear a mask until their symptoms go away, whether they have a flu, COVID-19, or another respiratory infection.
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