MONTREAL -- As Quebecers anxiously await Premier Francois Legault's upcoming announcement on post-curfew health measures, the province announced Saturday that 1,367 more people have tested positive for COVID-19 in the past 24 hours.
The number is higher than the seven-day average for new cases which is 1,312 per day.
The total number of positive cases reported in Quebec since the start of the pandemic is now 261,360.
The Quebec Institute of Public Health reports that there are 14,509 active novel coronavirus cases in the province.
Of those, 1,572 more people are reported to have recovered from the disease bringing that total to 237,088.
The province also reported that 46 more people have died due to the virus including 14 deaths since Friday, 23 deaths between Jan. 23 and Jan. 28, and nine before Jan. 23.
Since March, 9,763 people in Quebec have died due to the novel coronavirus.
Hospitalizations dropped for a fourth day in a row with the province reporting that 54 fewer people are receiving care in Quebec hospitals for a total of 1,163. Of those, 201 are in the intensive care ward, a decrease of eight.
In the past week, hospitalizations have dropped by 220 from the 1,383 reported Friday, Jan. 22.
REGIONAL DATA
Five regions in Quebec reported more new COVID-19 cases than they did Friday.
Montreal reported the highest increase with 577 new cases (94,024 total) followed by Monteregie with 247 new (37,806 total), Laval with 123 new (22,024 total), the Laurentians with 111 new (14,526 total), and the Eastern Townships with 57 new (10,591 total).
Ten deaths were reported in Montreal (4,308 total); nine in Monteregie (1,328 total); seven in Quebec City (923 total); six in the Laurentians (433 total); four in the Eastern Townships (275 total), and Laval (826 total); and three in Mauricie-et-Centre-du-Quebec (447 total).
One death was reported in Outaouais (153 total), Chaudiere-Appalaches (259 total), and Lanaudiere (465 total).
TESTING AND VACCINATIONS
On Friday, 2,086 doses of vaccine were administered Friday bringing the total number of vaccinations in the province to 238,143. That number represents 2.79 per cent of the population.
Quebec reports that the province has received 238,100 doses. The province clarified that "the total of administered doses is slightly higher than the total of received doses because it takes into account the fact that for some vials we were able to extract a 6th dose rather than 5."
Health-care professionals analyzed 32,179 samples Jan. 28. (Quebec releases its testing data from two days prior to its daily updates).
ANNOUNCEMENT COMING
Quebec Premier Francois Legault said Quebecers will get to hear Tuesday what life will be like after the curfew ends Feb. 8.
The premier posted on his Facebook page that he has "hard decisions to make" and that he needs "to decide what to follow up on the current lockdown."
The lockdown and curfew remain in place for just over a week and residents are not permitted out of their homes (with some exceptions) from 8 p.m. and 5 a.m.
"If the situation permits, I would like to give back some oxygen to our merchants," Legault said.
The premier added that the situation could change for all sorts of reasons and that his 5 p.m. news conference on Tuesday will "give everyone time to adjust by February 8."
"There are all kinds of circumstances that sometimes make it harder to decide," said Legault. "When the situation is urgent and serious, like last March, we do not have much time. We don't have much information to base on."
He said the decision to shut down Quebec was one of the hardest of his life.
"I felt lonely," Legault wrote. "We didn't have the luxury to wait. Thinking about the suffering of entrepreneurs, the world losing their jobs and the shock it caused, I had my doubts. Didn't sleep much. But it had to be cut and I did it."
