COVID-19: Saguenay – Lac-Saint-Jean turns orange

The increase in the number of coronavirus cases in Saguenay – Lac-Saint-Jean prompted health authorities to change the alert level on Tuesday, changing it from yellow to orange.

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Health authorities are closely monitoring the Alma sector in Lac-Saint-Jean where major outbreaks are underway.

This is the case at the CHSLD Isidore-Gauthier, where 16 of the 34 residents were diagnosed with COVID-19. Eleven of the 70 employees are also infected.

Secondary 4 students who attend Pavillon Wilbrod-Dufour, also in Alma, also received positive results over the weekend.

The Lac-St-Jean School Services Center also confirmed Tuesday morning that a student from Saint-Pierre elementary school, still in the Alma sector, contracted the virus.

The situation is particularly worrying at Alma hospital. The outbreak is at the origin of the contamination of fifteen workers, a doctor and nine users.

This is particularly the case of an 88-year-old man who was staying at Alma hospital to undergo surgery. His children, who took care of him, learned on Friday that he had been hospitalized at the Chicoutimi hospital to receive more appropriate care for his condition.

“What is most deplorable is to see that he contracted it in the hospital,” said his son, Régis Desbiens. This should be where there are the best precautions to keep it from spreading, but it looks like it isn’t. If it got to the hospital, it means it started somewhere and the precautions weren’t taken, otherwise it would never have happened. “

Mr. Desbiens and all members of his family must now be tested.

If he is declared positive, he fears the impacts on his business.

“I have a family business,” he explains. A service company where we welcome many customers. We changed our procedures again on Tuesday morning, but will that be enough, ”asked Mr. Desbiens, who is also worried about his father’s health.

“He’s in a panic,” he explained. He doesn’t understand why we changed his hospital and why we can no longer visit him. We only hear from him once a day, over the phone. ”