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1) Montreal’s emergency rooms, overcrowded again, have become breeding grounds for the highly contagious #coronavirus as ER staff find it harder to keep hot zones separate from cold zones amid an influx of patients. Please click on my story below. https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/analysis-montreals-ers-turning-into-covid-19-breeding-grounds/wcm/0796d003-dcfb-4d12-a2bc-311e4a5baabe/
2) The ER situation is truly dire, one made more ominous after the latest #COVID modelling projections made public Thursday by Quebec’s Institut national de santé publique. The projections warn the greater Montreal area could be hit with a second wave as early as July.
3) The projections are much less alarming those those released in a data dump on a Friday afternoon on May 8. Still, they predict a range of 60 to as many as 450 #COVID hospitalizations daily in August if #PhysicalDistancing is not maintained.
4) The good news is #COVID hospitalizations in the metropolitan region could stay under 50 a day if people stick to #SocialDistancing, according to the projections in the chart below. Let’s hope Montrealers change their behavior from the past few days and keep their distance.
5) Montrealers can also expect #COVID deaths throughout the summer. According to the optimistic scenario, the number of daily deaths would stay below 30. The worse-case scenario warns of daily deaths rising above 100 in August.
6) As for the real numbers, Montreal reported 227 new #COVID cases on Thursday, despite more testing. The nine-day average of completed viral analyses is 12,482, yet another positive development that demonstrates the confinement measures have worked.
7) The #COVID death toll in Montreal rose to 2,666. That's 392 more fatalities than in all of Ontario on May 28. Again, most of these deaths have occurred in long-term care centres, which Premier @francoislegalt said on Thursday are still very hard to staff, a serious problem.
8) But as I conclude in my @mtlgazette column, the #pandemic has spread from long-term care centres to the city's ERs in the middle of an early heat wave. I can’t emphasize enough how we must keep to #SocialDistancing and wear masks in stores and while commuting. End of thread.
