Quebec’s top public health official Dr. Luc Boileau advised residents to stay at home and avoid going out for the holidays if they show any symptoms of being sick.
Boileau made the statements during a Wednesday afternoon press conference citing concerns about the spread of Covid-19, influenza and other respiratory viruses.
“If you are sick or have symptoms, then you stay home and avoid contacts with others — in particular the most vulnerable,” said Boileau.
Despite the warning, Quebec will not be reintroducing mask mandates or limits on gathering sizes, according to the top doctor.
“We’ve studied the situation very carefully with other jurisdictions. We are in contact with our colleagues in Ontario regularly and we looked at the risk of evolution in the community. Considering that immunity has been acquired by a lot of citizens and also vaccination has been very popular during the last few years,” explained Boileau.
“We still do not recommend a more intensive approach for the regulation of the contagion with the wearing of masks or to reduce gatherings.”
At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Quebec had some of the harshest lockdown measures including enforcing a curfew and banning the unvaccinated from certain stores like Walmart.
Official statistics from the province report there’s been 1,300 new cases in the last 24 hours with 4 deaths reported.
At the federal level, chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam told Canadians to not “let (their) guard down” over Covid-19.
“In Canada, variations in population level of immunity, and current global trends suggest that an uptick in COVID-19 could occur in the new year,” claimed Tam.
“With the increased prominence of these variants in Canada, at a minimum, we could see a slower decline and a higher plateau in the number of infections, as well as hospital admissions in Canada as this respiratory virus season plays out.”
