1) Quebec crossed a sombre milestone Thursday, declaring more than 6,000 deaths in the #pandemic, 15 more than all of Sweden, a nation with a population that is 1.7 million greater than the province’s. In this thread, I will highlight some other grim milestones.

2) Also Thursday, the province crossed the thousand-mark in the number of schools reporting either a student or teacher testing positive for the #coronavirus, according to http://covidecolesquebec.org . In some schools, there are so many cases officials can’t keep track of all of them.

3) Again on Thursday, Montreal crossed the 4,000-case milestone of new #coronavirus infections in just the past two weeks. That tally in the second wave represents nearly 11% of all of the city’s cases since the World Health Organization declared #COVID19 a #pandemic on March 11.

4) The metropolis is poised Friday to cross the threshold of 20 consecutive days of a rolling average of more than 100 #COVID19 cases per million population, one of the criteria that had Montreal declared a red zone. The city posted 296 cases Thursday, as the chart below shows.

5) At the neighborhood level, only one district, la Petite Patrie-Villeray, observed fewer than 10 #COVID19 cases. The centre of the city, the north end, the east end and now the West Island are recording surges despite the Premier’s talk of a plateau in the second wave.

6) Concerned about a potential overflow of pandemic patients, the government has imposed a quota system for Montreal hospitals. When a hospital surpasses its #COVID19 quota, ambulances are redirected to other hospitals to ensure that no single acute-care facility becomes swamped.

7) Montreal has crossed a #pandemic milestone on the ER front, too, reporting more than 80 days in a row with hospital emergency rooms on red or orange alert. See the chart below and take note of the fact that nearly 200 patients have been stuck in ERs for the past 24 hours.

8) Meanwhile, Montreal crossed a halfway mark: a cumulative total of 3,501 #COVID19 deaths Thursday, with a cluster of fatalities in the past two weeks. That sums up my version of a Harper’s Index of chilling #pandemic statistics in what had long been the epicenter in Canada.

9) It’s against this background of grim figures that Premier François Legault offered children some good news on Thursday: they’ll be able to go trick or treating on Halloween, after all. End of thread. Please wear a mask and practice #PhysicalDistancing when shopping for candy.