COVID-19: as many cases, but far fewer tests

Quebec and Ontario continue to stagnate, posting a number of new similar ones day after day, even if the number of tests carried out is in free fall in these two provinces.

• Read also: All developments in the COVID-19 pandemic

As usual, Quebec posted the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the country on Wednesday with 844 new people infected. However, we must add to this report 359 cases which had been forgotten during the last three days, so that 1203 positive tests were finally announced, in addition to six deaths.

These errors in the data have also had the effect of virtually nullifying the advances in the fight against COVID-19 that had been highlighted in recent days.

More strikingly, Quebec finds itself maintaining a number of new daily cases very often above the threshold of 1000 infections, even if the number of tests carried out is only a shadow of what it was. .

According to data from the Ministry of Health, barely 20,959 tests were carried out on October 12 and even fewer the two days before, against 29,949 a week earlier, on October 6. That’s almost 10,000 fewer scans in a week.

Not unique

Quebec is not the only province to observe this phenomenon. In Ontario too, the number of new cases, established at 721 on Wednesday, continues to stagnate, despite a major decrease in the number of tests.

The province said Wednesday it had performed 32,206 tests the day before, a number that contrasts sharply with the 48,448 analyzes carried out a week earlier.

The Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, moreover suggested, during an interview granted to the radio 680 CJOB of Winnipeg, on Wednesday, that “unfortunately, it is not all the provinces which reached the targets that” they were given in terms of the number of tests per day ”.

Mr. Trudeau refrained from pointing to a particular province, assuring however that federal officials are ready to support the provinces, in particular to carry out epidemiological investigations.

“He must not be talking about Ontario. We kick everyone’s butt for testing. We have done almost 4.5 million tests. […] We are doing a very good job, ”replied Ontario Premier Doug Ford when asked about it at a press conference.

Another record in Manitoba

Further west, Manitoba once again broke a record with 146 new infections and two more deaths. This is only the second time that the province has announced more than 100 cases in one day, after the 124 infections revealed on Tuesday.

In doing so, Manitoba even surpassed Quebec in terms of the number of COVID-19 cases per capita for the day of Wednesday.

Meanwhile, British Columbia, with 158 cases, and Alberta, with 243 infections and one death, kept numbers in line with recent days.

A bubble ready to burst?

In the Maritimes, New Brunswick continued to identify new cases in the Campbellton and Moncton areas with eight more patients.

The province, rather spared to date by the coronavirus, now has 292 infections since the start of the pandemic. A third of these cases have been identified since the beginning of the month.

The other three Atlantic provinces announced no contamination on Wednesday. Some voices have also started to rise to demand that the “Atlantic bubble”, which allows citizens of the four provinces to travel from one to the other, be tightened because of the outbreaks in New- Brunswick. The various provincial governments have however suggested that they do not intend to act in this direction for the moment.

Canada accumulated 2,504 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, pushing the total to 189,383 since the start of the pandemic. Nine more Canadians have died from the disease, for a total of 9,663 to date.

The situation in the country

Quebec: 88,994 cases (5,976 deaths)

Ontario: 61,413 cases (3,017 deaths)

Alberta: 21,199 cases (287 deaths)

British Columbia: 10,892 cases (250 deaths)

Manitoba: 2,925 cases (37 deaths)

Saskatchewan: 2,199 cases (25 deaths)

Nova Scotia: 1,092 cases (65 deaths)

New Brunswick: 292 cases (2 deaths)

Newfoundland and Labrador: 283 cases (4 deaths)

Prince Edward Island: 65 cases

Yukon: 15 cases

Northwest Territories: 5 cases

Nunavut: 0 cases

Canadian returnees: 13 cases

Total: 189,387 cases (9,664 deaths)