1) Quebecers will have had a grand total of three days to post their comments online in a Quebec government consultation since Health Canada launched its #COVID19 contact-tracing app on Friday. In this thread, I will explain the absurdity of this rushed timeline in the #pandemic.

2) The Ontario government has endorsed the app, COVID Alert, with Premier Doug Ford encouraging people to download it. Ford has suggested the app would help slow the spread of the #coronavirus as the province reopens. Quebec, on the other, hand, wants to consult first.

3) Public consultation is laudable for such an app. Éric Caire, Quebec’s minister for digital transformation, launched the online consultation more than three week ago. But given that the COVID Alert app is now in the news, why give Quebecers only until Sunday to comment on it?

4) The minister, @ericcaire, should postpone the August 2 deadline by a week. The government would still be able to proceed with the next phase of its consultation by a National Assembly committee in mid-August. But this whole process seems slanted against approving such an app.

5) First, you must register online with the government to comment, a process that’s not so easy for tech-challenged people. Then you come across a very short and convoluted explanation of what the app entails. After that, you must answer a series of multiple-choice questions.

6) It’s quite ironic that the government requires people to register online, and in the survey, gathers personal information about people’s ages and where they live about a #COVID-tracing app which itself has raised concerns about potential breaches in personal information.

7) And while Ontarians are downloading the COVID Alert app and Quebecers are unable to do so, Quebec posted 145 new cases Saturday and conducted a record 18,437 tests. More populous Ontario, by comparison, posted 124 cases and conducted more than 33,000 tests.

8) Quebec observed a total of 177 #COVID hospitalizations while Ontario recorded 73. Yet Ontario is limiting its public gatherings to a maximum of 100 people, while Quebec will allow gatherings of 250 people as of Monday. Why is Quebec so dogged about its riskier approach?

9) Meanwhile, Montreal reported 71 new cases, the same as Friday, as the orange line in the chart below shows. This is up from only eight cases on July 8, a couple of weeks after Quebec let bars reopen, a decision which would lead to multiple #COVID19 outbreaks.

10) Although Quebec declared no deaths, authorities added four #COVID fatalities retroactively to Montreal, raising its death toll to 3,441. I deplore this constant shifting of #pandemic numbers lately by authorities, and the non-release of other key statistics. End of thread.

Addendum: Thanks to a terrific suggestion by @lmontgomerycan, here's the link to Quebec's app consultation: https://consultation.quebec.ca/processes/covidapp