Quebec response to COVID-19 hampered by ignorance and shortages: senior health advisor

Quebec’s early response to the COVID-19 pandemic in long-term care homes has been hampered by labor and equipment shortages and ignorance of how the novel coronavirus is spread a senior health official said Thursday at a coroner’s inquest.

Dr Richard Mass, strategic medical adviser to Quebec’s director of public health, told the inquiry that the province was struggling to obtain personal protective equipment during the first days of the pandemic, when there had a “fierce battle” over things like masks and testing.

Even if the authorities had enough protective equipment, it is not clear whether they would have known the best ways to use it, he told the inquest investigating the high number of deaths in the long-term care homes in the spring of 2020. Until the end of March 2020, the virus was believed to be spread primarily through people with symptoms, he added.

“There were people who said ‘we believe it is transmitted by asymptomatic people’, but there was no consensus,” he said, adding that neither the United States authorities nor the World Health Organization have recognized asymptomatic spread as an important mode of transmission. .

Public health officials, he said, had no idea how quickly the virus was spreading in long-term care facilities, including at the Herron Residence in Montreal, a private center where 47 people died.

It was a shock to see that there were epidemics of this magnitude so quickly, ”he said.

The director of public health is due to testify later Thursday.

Earlier today, Quebec reported 663 new cases of COVID-19 and four other deaths attributed to the new coronavirus.

Health officials said COVID-19-related hospitalizations fell five from the previous day, to 215, and 42 people were in intensive care, down from three.

The Quebec public health institute said 90.8 percent of residents aged 12 and older received at least one dose of the vaccine and 88.3 percent were considered to be adequately vaccinated.

The institute declared that the northern part of the Quebec territory of Nunavik remained the most affected region in the province per capita, with 1,318 active cases per 100,000 inhabitants. There have been 64.5 active cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 people across Quebec.

1:42COVID-19: The coroner extends the investigation into the deaths of the CHSLD Herron

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