1) Both Montreal and Toronto continued to make progress in curbing the epidemiological curve of the #COVID19 pandemic on Sunday. Yet Ontario continues to screen far more people per capita for the #coronavirus than Quebec. In this thread, I will examine this key difference.

2) Ontario carried out 23,408 #COVID tests on Saturday, compared with 9,750 tests in Quebec. The chart below shows Quebec has fallen from second place in conducting the most tests in Canada and now trails in third place behind Ontario.

3) What’s impressive about Ontario’s approach is that it has boosted its testing even though its number of new cases has dropped steadily. (Please see the chart below, courtesy of Dr. Jennifer Kwan.) In contrast, Quebec has decreased testing while cases have dropped.

4) Quebec authorities say they’re carrying out fewer tests — well below capacity and far below the provincial goal — because fewer people are seeking the tests and there are fewer cases. That may be true, but why is neighboring Ontario still testing more?

5) Toronto, for example, declared 13 new #COVID cases on Friday (the most recent date available), compared with 64 cases in Montreal on the same date. On May 15, Toronto reported 213 cases and on that same date Montreal posted 351. Thus, cases are trending down in both cities.

6) The chart below for Montreal shows a drop of 87% in the number of cases in the metropolis from May 15 to June 18. That’s phenomenal progress, and credit goes to Montrealers for following public health measures. So how did Toronto do during the same period?

7) Toronto’s decrease was 94% from May 15 to June 19, one day longer. The chart below shows that May 15 was one of the high points in Toronto’s epidemiological curve. Since the beginning of June, the number of cases in Toronto has plummeted.

8) Yet Toronto continues to test much more per capita than Montreal even as it is reopening more slowly. Montreal, for example, will reopen restaurants on Monday, something Toronto only hopes to be able to announce later in the week even though it has fewer cases.

9) In this context of fewer tests, Montreal declared 41 #COVID cases on Sunday, down from 64 the day before. See the orange line in the chart below. No doubt this is because there are fewer cases, but it’s also likely a reflection of fewer tests.

10) Meanwhile, Montreal posted eight #COVID fatalities on Saturday, raising the city’s death toll to 3,329. (Please see the chart below.) It’s likely that by the end of the month the city will retroactively add some deaths to Saturday’s date.

11) Provincially, the number of #COVID hospitalizations continues to decline, as the chart below indicates. On Saturday, Quebec reported 521 #COVID hospitalizations. In contrast, Ontario observed 285 on Sunday, also trending downward.

12) This comparison between Montreal and Toronto is not a gratuitous competitive exercise. It’s being done to draw attention to the fact that Ontario is testing a lot more than Quebec, something Premier @francoislegault once boasted about when this province screened more.

13) The Premier once noted that Toronto’s #COVID death toll has been considerably lower than Montreal’s. Maybe we can still draw lessons from the experience of other jurisdictions as Montreal reopens massively. End of thread. Please wear masks in public.