1) In five weeks since the World Health Organization declared #COVID19 a pandemic, the number of cases in Montreal has soared exponentially from just two on March 11 to 9,348 on Tuesday. In this thread, I will show how the pandemic is spreading in insidious ways across the city.

2) At first, #COVID erupted in the west end, in middle-class Côte-Saint-Luc and the Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough. Since then, it's sprouted all over the city, and particularly in low-income districts like Park Extension, Cartierville and Hochelaga-Maisonneuve.

3) Dr. Mylène Drouin, Montreal’s chief public health officer, suggested five days ago that the #pandemic had peaked in the city. Actually, Dr. Drouin first suggested this nearly two weeks ago. However, the blue line in the chart below hints otherwise.

4) On Monday, the public health department closed its #COVID screening clinic in the Place des festivals. And today, the government reported its lowest number of COVID tests in at least a week, 3,718. That compares with a high of more than 15,000 tests on March 25.

5) To what extent is the lower #COVID testing rate affecting daily totals? Are authorities under-counting the true extent of the contagion in Montreal, still Canada’s epicenter in the pandemic? As resource-heavy and laborious as the testing might be, it must continue intensively.

6) The orange line in the chart below — which represents new #COVID cases — is fluctuating, not trending downwards definitively. Perhaps Dr. Drouin will soon clarify this issue, especially given the surges in Cartierville and Montreal North.

7) Meanwhile, the number of serious outbreaks in nursing homes (CHSLDs) and seniors’ residences (RPAs) in Montreal grew to 88 today from 85 on Monday. At the CHSLD Laurendeau, 167 elderly residents were infected with #COVID, up by five since Monday.

8) Of even greater concern, the death toll in Montreal’s CHSLDs jumped by 57 to 384 today. Astonishingly, the CHSLD deaths comprised 57 of the 58 new #COVID deaths in the city, and more than half of the provincial tally.

8) It’s time Premier #francoislegault pay as much attention to these CHSLD figures in his daily briefings as the overall number of #COVID hospitalizations. I would add that authorities must now consider the daily situation in Montreal’s ERs.

9) Overcrowded emergency rooms are a symptom of a dysfunctional health-care network, and tonight six ERs are filled to beyond capacity in a #pandemic. Three other ERs — the Montreal General, the Lakeshore General and St. Mary’s — are in the orange zone, approaching full capacity.

10) In my thread last night, I suggested naively that the number of #COVID deaths across Montreal may have plateaued after two days. Regrettably, that’s not the case. The chart below shows that the total number of deaths keeps rising.

11) At the daily briefing today, Health Minister Danielle McCann reiterated that staff in CHSLDs have enough personal protective equipment. So let me reiterate, my sources are telling me that’s not true, with some staff being forced to re-use gloves on patients in CHSLDs.

12) To conclude, the latest data call out for authorities to maintain a hyper-vigilance to the slightest #COVID changes in Montreal if we hope to contain the #pandemic and end the wave of death striking the city’s long-term care centres. End of thread. Stay safe, everyone.