At a press conference earlier this afternoon, Premier François Legault said that if the number of new daily COVID-19 cases continues to drop, some restrictions can be lifted in some regions of Quebec, as of Feb. 8.
"We're giving ourselves another week before another announcement," said Legault.
On Tuesday, officials reported Quebec's lowest daily COVID-19 case count in over nine weeks.
The Ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux added 1,166 new cases of the virus, the lowest since November 24, when 1,100 cases were added to the provincial total.
Unfortunately, 57 new deaths were also reported today, including four over the previous 24 hours.
Montreal Island accounted for 479 of today’s cases and 20 of the deaths.
In addition, there are now 1,324 people across the province in the hospital because of COVID-19. Among those in the hospital, 217 are in intensive care.
"Even if the number of cases is decreasing, as long as the number of hospitalizations is going to be that high, we cannot think, in the coming weeks, that we will reopen everything and that we will be able to allow contacts," Legault added.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Quebec has reported 256,002 cases and 9,577 deaths linked to the virus.
